Philippines

National Democratic Front of the Philippines
Chief Political Consultant
Press Statement
19 January 2002

REMOVAL OF MACAPAGAL FROM POWER IS PROBABLE WITHIN ONE YEAR
By Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant

At the rate that Gloria Macapagal has offended the broad masses of the people, she will face an increasingly determined and vigorous broad-based opposition in the second year of her administration.

Four serious issues work against her:

1. Aggravation of the socioeconomic crisis and people´s suffering due to continuing servility to the foreign monopolies, the IMF, World Bank and WTO;

2. Rampant bureaucratic corruption, shady compromises with the biggest plunderers and cronies, and criminal syndicates run by military and police officers;

3. Escalating US military intervention in violation of Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as the constitutional ban on foreign bases, troops or facilities; and

4. Brutal military and police campaigns to suppress the rising mass movement in the cities and countryside.

The relatively peaceful removal of Macapagal from power is probable within one year or so if the following conditions arise:

1. A broad united front of forces takes shape, similar to that which isolated and brought down Marcos and Estrada, and generates nationwide mass protest actions focusing on the economic and social travails of the people.

2. Efforts succeed to persuade the military and police forces to respect the democratic right of the people to assemble and protest.

3. The vice president is willing to succeed the discredited president and preempt any military clique or military-civilian junta from taking power.

4. The armed revolutionary movements of the people of the Philippines, including the Bangsamoro, intensify in the countryside and serve notice to the regime that it cannot suppress the legal democratic forces in the urban areas with impunity.

As the socioeconomic situation further deteriorates, Gloria Macapagal can be driven out of the presidential palace by the widespread and converging mass actions of the hungry and angry masses to the nationwide clanging of empty pots and pans.

CONTACT POINTS:
Email address: ndf@wanadoo.nl
Telephone: 31-30-2310431 Fax: 31-30-2322989
Mailing address: Amsterdamsestraatweg 50, NL-3513 AG Utrecht, Netherlands
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Press Statement
19 January 2002

U.S.-R.P. MILITARY EXERCISES IN MINDANAO A TRIPWIRE TO A NEW VIETNAM?
Luis Jalandoni
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel

By sending 650 US combat troops, including 160 Green Berets and Navy Seals, with the approval of the puppet Macapagal regime, into a battle zone in Southern Philippines, U.S. imperialism is deliberately setting up a tripwire to a new Vietnam. The lame excuse is a joint military operation, dubbed Balikatan Exercise, against the CIA and AFP creation, the Abu Sayyaf group.
The interventionist troops will be using live bullets, staying for six months up to a year, and authorized to fire back in so-called self defense.
US troops are not only in Mindanao, they are also setting up quarters in Laur, Nueva Ecija in Central Luzon.

The advocate of the failed all-out war against Mindanao under the discredited Estrada regime, General Angelo Reyes, let the cat out of the bag by announcing that after the Abu Sayyaf, the New People´s Army (NPA) would be the next target.

In their arrogance, U.S. imperialism and the Macapagal regime trample on the Manila government´s own constitution that forbids the entry of foreign troops except when a treaty allows it. The puppet Macapagal regime cites the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) as the justification for the entry of the US combat troops. But the VFA even under the Manila government´s standards cannot be regarded as a treaty. The US Senate has not ratified it. Moreover the VFA does not allow US troops to join combat patrols..

The Macapagal regime´s reference to the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) of 1953 is likewise flawed, since the constitutional processes required by the MDT have not been fulfilled. Vice President and Secretary of Foreign Affairs Teofisto Guingona of the Manila government was not even informed of the approval of the so-called Balikatan War Games. He has also complained against unilateral acts of U.S. military forces in the Philippines in violation even of the VFA since the middle of last year. The VFA, MDT and the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement(MLSA) are among the anti-national and anti-people agreements and treaties that must be abrogated.

For the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the ominous presence of the US interventionist troops is a flagrant violation of the national sovereignty of the Filipino people and the territorial integrity of the Philippines. The broadest united front of patriotic and progressive forces in the Philippines and in the international community must be mobilized to vigorously oppose and resist this latest US intervention in the Philippines that threatens to become a US war of aggression against the Filipino people.
The American people and their anti-imperialist and progressive organizations, just as during the Vietnam War, must stand up and defy this US imperialist intervention against the Filipino people.

Our history is filled with lessons about US imperialist treachery and aggression. On February 4, 1899, the U.S. started the Philippine-American War by initiating an encounter with Filipino revolutionary forces. It used the false allegation that Filipino troops would start killing all foreign residents in Manila on February 15, 1899. U.S. imperialism sent more than 126,000 troops to pacify the Filipino people and caused the death of up to 1.4 million Filipinos from 1899 to 1913. A great number of the Bangsamoro were also killed in Mindanao.

US intervention in Vietnam started with the sending of advisers and trainors, followed by combat troops. In the Philippines all these are coming in one go. The US manufactured the Tonkin Gulf Incident to justify its war of aggression. Now it uses the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US to wage a so-called global war on terrorism. The Abu Sayyaf group, their own creation in collaboration with their assets in the Philippine military, is their convenient excuse to intervene militarily again in the Philippines.

Whatever US imperialism uses to justify its intervention or aggression, the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces are determined to persevere in their struggle against US imperialism and the local reactionaries in order to achieve their national and social liberation. ###

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