The Filipino People Will Never Glorify a Dictator
The CPDF and the entire revolutionary forces in the Cordillera join the entire Filipino people’s cry of indignation over the passing of House Bill 7137, declaring Sept 11, the birthdate of the fascist dictator Marcos a holiday in Ilocos Norte. Through this bill, the regime has only shown its contempt to the struggling peoples and its subservience to the whims and caprices of the dictator’s family.
More than forty years have passed but the Marcoses are still shameless in exalting their father’s atrocious legacy. While the regime futilely tries to revise history to cover up the dictator’s crimes, the people who have suffered under the fascism of Martial Law still bears the scars of its barbarity. Victims of Martial Law in the Cordillera, especially those who were at the forefront of the struggles against the Chico River Hydro Electric Power Dams and Cellophil Resources Corporation logging project and the accompanying militarization will never forget the sufferings that they have endured and survived. Tinggians of Abra still remember how military officials such as Major Alfredo Cuyupan, Col. Constancio Lasaten among others imposed the dictator’s iron-fisted rule in the province through usurping executive functions from local politicians. The murder and frustrated murder respectively of tribal leaders Macliing Dulag and Pedro Dungoc, both from the Butbut tribe of Kalinga, perpetrated by military troops under Lt. Leodegario Adalem in April 24, 1980 was one of the flashpoints in further inflaming the people’s resistance. The Beew massacre in Tubo, Abra which was carried out by military troops under Capt. Beredo in 1985, still brings tears and infuriation to those who have survived that fateful incident. Mr. Isidoro Chammag, the media reporter who exposed the said massacre was viciously and maliciously slapped with a Php5 million libel suit by the military in the same manner that journalists are subjected today with harassment up to cold blooded murder by the implementers of Duterte’s tyrannical martial rule.
This declaration is not surprising, as Duterte himself has been implementing an undeclared martial law in the entire country through Oplan Kapanatagan and its component counter-insurgency schemes directed by the NTF-ELCAC. It deviously avoids declaring an open martial law, knowing that in doing so will further inflame the boiling anger of the people and spur worldwide condemnation. But actually, the brazen terroristic attacks against the poor, opposition leaders and activists, together with the implementation of neoliberal policies and projects are acts of tyranny against the people.
Like his idol, Duterte is already widely despised by the Filipino people for his terrorism, corruption and shameless subservience to imperialism. Only a narcissist tyrant rejoices in praising a dictator of his type. The Filipinos have already sealed the fate of the dictator Marcos. Throughout the years of his fascist rule, the militarist brutality accelerated the rapid increase of the New People’s Army. No amount of historical revisionism can erase the pain that the people have endured during his bloody rule. Along with the rapid advance of armed struggle in the whole country, the seething rage of the suppressed citizenry erupted in a formidable strength of people’s uprising that swept the abhorred dictator down the garbage heap of history.
Until the whole semifeudal and semicolonial system is thoroughly smashed, the oppressed and exploited Filipino people shall persistently carry forward the revolutionary armed struggle until final victory.
Aye! Aya ka et chi! Rebolusyon kayet inggana ipangafak taku tay siya nan sumya! (Enough is enough! Advance the national democratic revolution till victory to end our sufferings!)