Duterte has so far “bested” other post-Marcos presidents in delaying and evading calls for justice for his sins against the people. At least, former presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Joseph Estrada got charged in court. One got ousted while the other got arrested and had to wear neck braces while in jail (hospital). Benigno Aquino III got slapped with corruption cases related to pork barrel. Only Duterte has so far escaped reckoning more than two years since leaving the presidency. Worst, he is running for another public office in an attempt to evade answering for his crimes like the following:
Sabotaging Peace talks
Under Duterte, the greater the promise the greater the disappointment describes what happened to the peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
On his first year in power, the peace negotiation was active and fast in crafting draft agreements specifically on the more vital parts of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER)—on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development and on National Industrialization and Economic Development. It excited positive forces in the country with its promised social and economic reforms. But from the fifth round of negotiation, Duterte unilaterally terminated the peace negotiation with the NDFP through Proclamation 360 in November 2017 and, two weeks later, issued Proclamation 374 declaring the the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and New People’s Army (NPA) terrorist groups according to the Human Security Act, the precursor of the current “Anti-Terrorism” Law.
He lambasted the people and the revolutionaries with so much profanity to justify scuttling the peace talks. But the crux of the matter was, ultimately he cannot endanger the self-interests of the ruling classes he represented—the big landlords, bourgeois compradors, and their imperialist master. After his bragging, he cannot sign an agreement that would offer better packages of social and economic reforms for the majority of Filipinos.
Read: The tyrant denies the people’s right to just and lasting peace
Read: Peace hawks lie—here’s why
Read: Lorenzana’s pervese concept of the peace talks
From thereon, Duterte’s crimes against the people started piling up, as listed here and in Part 1: Lest we forget: Duterte Crimes vs the Filipino people. Duterte vowed to finish off the national democratic revolution. Like all the regimes before him, he failed in all his self-imposed deadlines. However, Duterte must answer for the dirty war, the bombings and strafing, hamletting, killings, and all other rights violations and grievous crimes he committed in the course of meeting his deadline.
Dirty war
Duterte ordered and instigated summary killings of unarmed civilians, hors de combat, and retired or sickly/recuperating senior members of the CPP and the NPA. Since his term, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has killed in brutal rubouts senior or veteran revolutionaries aged 60 and older, captured Red fighters, unarmed peace consultants of the NDFP, and abducted civilians who simply happen to have relations to persons involved in the national democratic revolution.
For someone who wooed voters by claiming, among others, intimacy with the Left, Duterte violated international humanitarian laws and rules and conduct of war, allowing the reactionary troops to engage in overkill operations.
The Duterte presidency made the nanlaban (literally means the target fought back) narrative an infamous excuse for summary killings. To meet his regime’s target of crushing the national democratic movement, he deployed reactionary troops in great numbers in focused military operations as well as in the civilian bureaucracy like the NTF-ELCAC that did not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants. Aerial bombings and artillery shelling/strafing and other fascist attacks led to forced evacuation and massive dislocation of hundreds of thousands of people in the countryside.
Some of these cases were the combined used of police and military operations that resulted in the massacre of nine farmers in Sagay, Negros Occidented in 2019; 14 civilians in Negros island in 2019; the Tumandok massacre in 2020 and in what is now known as the Bloody Sunday in Southern Tagalog in 2021.
Read: The whole-of-nation chimera
Read: Weaponizing the civilian bureaucracy
Read: Sagay 9 massacre underscores evils of hacienda system and the need for genuine agrarian reform
Read: Rejoinder to Malacanang’s outright lies regarding Sagay massacre
Read: The Sagay massacre in the context of agrarian reform
Duterte’s regime shopped big time for exorbitantly priced warships, warplanes and helicopters, vehicles, arms and ammunition even during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. These weapons were procured and operated with the aid of imperialist US forces. Also reports of manufactured encounters kept on coming and justified the killing of ordinary civilians and hors de combat.
Gender-based crimes and violence against women – “shoot them in the vagina”
Duterte has been described as a madman, a person suspected to have been crazed by drug use. Indeed, he shot himself in the foot in blithely issuing tirades against women when most politicians were going through the motions of courting women’s support and advocating for gender-based reforms. He told his reactionary soldiers they could go all-out shooting the revolutionaries, including the genitals of women Red fighters. Among post-dictatorship presidents, he alone was blatant and unrepentant in encouraging the police and the military to commit gender-based crimes and abuses in the conduct of war.
Trumped up cases, weaponization of laws
Under Duterte, the country’s courts became sources of “legal attacks.” Using false testimonies of soldiers and fake witnesses, they filed cases against activists and known legal progressives while at the same time misrepresenting revolutionary struggles as criminal cases. They issued arrest and search warrants with inexplicable bases, justified (planted) guns, explosives and other ammunition, claimed personalities from people’s and non-government organizations as“terrorists”or NPA. However, in some instances, there were judges who were quick to dismiss military allegations as preposterous.
Read: Killing social activists is high priority of state terrorism under Duterte regime
Duterte railroaded the passing of the Anti-Terror Act, which became a law during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns. From thereon, trumped up cases against activists and progressives piled up under the Anti-Terror Law.
“The authorities can act with impunity because the ATA assures them of far lesser penalty for abusing its provisions than the penalty of maximum life imprisonment for supposed acts of terrorism. Besides, as in Oplan Tokhang, the commander-in-chief no less publicly assures his armed agents of impunity and brazenly advises them to frame up their victims,” said Prof. Jose Maria Sison in his 2020 article “The anti-terrorism act in the Philippines in relation to the CPP and the revolutionary movement.”
Terrorist Tag
Under Duterte, vilifying revolutionaries and progressives was systematically ramped up. The reactionary troops shamelessly, and goaded by cohorts in the local governments and the civilian bureaucracy, would attach the tag “terrorist groups” to revolutionary organizations and suspected individuals.
Duterte has indeed mastered the producton of fake news. Despite 37 petitions submitted to the Supreme Court against the Anti-Terror Law, Duterte’s Anti-Terrorism Council established in 2020 through Resolution No. 12, he had already declared the CPP and the NPA as “terrorist organizations”. This was followed by Resolution No. 17, which proscribed 19 individuals allegedly members of the CPP Central Committee, as “terrorists”and ordered to freeze their accounts and properties.
Read: Duterte regime’s propaganda war with dire consequences
The practice of terrorist tagging is copied from the US “counterinsurgency” strategy and US-led “war against terror.” It attempts to isolate and separate the revolutionaries from the masses, making it easy for reactionary state forces to justify attacks against the revolutionaries and brutally violating their rights.
Read: State terrorism normalized as the regime took advantage of the pandemic
Read: State terrorism on the pretext of anti-terrorism
Bureaucrat capitalists like Duterte and his minions will continue to trample people’s rights and promote the culture of impunity as long as they are not punished, said the CPP’s Ang Bayan October 21 editorial. Already, this culture of impunity is “now being used by Marcos to establish his own tyranny based on sowing violence against the people.”
Read: Culture and fascism under the Duterte regime
The CPP, in solidarity with the families of the victims and survivors of Duterte’s “war on drugs” and “counterinsurgency” program has called on the Filipino people to relentlessly work for the indictment, prosecution and, eventually the punishment of Duterte and his minions for the grave abuse of power against the Filipino people. And now that the rift between the Marcoses and Dutertes are in full play, the people must pounce on Marcos to do the same. ### (Pinky Ang)
Read: Part 1: Lest we forget: Duterte Crimes vs the Filipino people
