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Hermogenes Esperon

A SAMPLING: 10 strategic areas of China encroachment in PH

in Countercurrent

Below is a sampler list indicative of what (or how much) the US-Duterte regime has so far achieved as an imperialist puppet and bureaucrat capitalist. All the following demand thoroughgoing investigation, disclosures of what (and how much) rationalizations are behind his avidly welcoming China’s potential stranglehold of the country.

1. China military basing in WPS

With Duterte’s tolerance of China incursions into Philippine maritime areas, the latter is getting bolder in claiming portions of Philippine patrimony. Reports now point to the possibility that in crafting a Code of Conduct for all Asian claimants in the West Philippine Sea, China would likely insist on formalizing its claim and military basing in the Spratly islands and Panatag Shoal where it seems intent on setting up similar installations. Duterte has said they will not oppose China if they do that.

2. In Philippine rivers, mountains, IP ancestral lands

On top of earlier logging and mining concessions by US corporations that originally destroyed vast virgin forests and mountains in the Philippines, China is entering Sierra Madre via Kaliwa River dam project and Cordillera via Chico River Irrigation project. The projects include clearing parts of the forested mountains where the said rivers to be dammed are located. Deals with China include bringing their workers, steel, equipment and other construction requirements.

3. In Philippine telecommunications

In July 2019, Duterte granted a China-funded local telecommunication startup, Mislatel now Dito, a license to operate as the country’s third major telecommunications player. This, after Davao-based businessman Dennis Uy’s Mislatel signed a $5.4-billion investment deal with China Telecom to fund his company’s expansion in the Philippines.

With Duterte’s go-signal, the AFP changed its tune to signify openness to the deal for the said China-backed telecommunications, Dito Telecommunity Corp, to install its system, towers, and facilities within military bases in the country. Initially, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana warned this will endanger the Filipinos’ privacy, security and a vital industry that should have been firmly under Philippine control.

4. In power industry

The State Grid Corporation of China, the second largest firm in the world in 2018, owns 40 percent of the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP). The Chinese firm is majority owner as the other owners, Filipino taipans Henry Sy and Robert Coyuito, each owns 30 percent. The Duterte government says the Filipinos are in control of the corporation, but reports said the Chinese are the ones maintaining and have operational control.

Privately owned NGCP is in charge of operating, maintaining and developing the Philippines’ state-owned power grid, an interconnected system that transmits gigawatts of power at thousand volts from power generators to consumers. NGCP holds the 50-year franchise and 25-year concession contract to operate and maintain the country’s transmission system. Their franchise began in 2009.

The NGCP went to Chinese owners in 2008 under former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Having a monopoly of this strategic utility, the NGCP profits immensely from power transmission.

5. In oil exploration and drilling

Other countries ruled also by tyrants try to strike a balance between getting more out of their oil first for themselves and second for their population. In the Philippines, the would-be gains would first be cornered by China. One of the 29 deals Duterte signed with China during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Manila in November 2018 was the joint oil and gas exploration deal. Officials of the Duterte regime including National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon approved the 60-40 sharing agreement. Before 2019 ended, China and Duterte governments have signed the terms of reference and formed as well as convened the joint committee comprised of representatives from China and PH.

Filipinos from various walks of life condemn the deal saying it has all the makings of a lopsided agreement. Even if 60-40 sounds in favor of the Philippines, Filipinos have little to no safeguard against probable 100% control by China of the entire operation, considering it will lead the exploration and drilling activities, using its manpower and equipment.

6. Trade imbalance favors China

Duterte and Communications chief Sec. Martin Andanar boasted that with their friendly ties with China, it is now a major trading partner. But data show this trade partnership is lopsided and in favor of China. Philippine imports from China rose to US$22 billion in 2018, while its exports to China were worth only US$8.8 billion.

7. Filipinos losing its waters and marine resources to China

On its Spratlys military bases, China has installed surface-to-air missile systems in three artificial islands: the Kagitingan Reef (Fiery Cross), Zamora Reef (Subi Reef), and Panganiban Reef (Mischief Reef). These islands have become no-go zones for Filipinos because of Chinese military intimidation. Also, these installations have killed precious corals and the marine life around them.

China continues to bar Filipino fishers from Panatag Shoal and they are getting bolder at claiming ownership of it. Chinese Coastguard patrols the area, driving away passing ships including puny boats of Filipino fishers. The fishers have complained that for the longest time, they have been the “frontline casualties” of Chinese incursions.

Reclamation projects for China-funded infrastructure have also started to deprive many Filipinos of their homes and livelihood. There is a long-standing plan to reclaim at least 2,700 hectares of south Manila Bay for the P550 billion ($10 billion) Sangley Point International Airport (SPIA) in Cavite, 35 kilometers from Manila. Its proponent is the Cavite provincial government under a joint venture with China state-owned Chinese Communications Construction Co Ltd (CCCC) and local partner Lucio Tan-led MacroAsia Corp. Once awarded to the joint venture, the Chinese partner will effectively control the SPIA, reports said.

In another development, local fishers reported as of October 2019 that heavy equipment were being used to dump debris on a fishpond connected to Manila Bay and adjacent to the public cemetery in Bacoor City. No information has been posted on whether it is a public works project or a private construction activity. A Senate hearing previously unearthed a proposed 420-hectare Bacoor Reclamation Project covering the area. Faced with fishers’ protests, Environment Department officials committed to cancel the project as it is also detrimental to the Supreme Court writ of mandamus to rehabilitate Manila Bay.

8. China-driven ‘Golden age’ of gambling in PH

Under Duterte government, the gambling industry enters a ‘golden age.’ Overall revenues quadrupled to $4.1 billion during the first three years of his presidency and the key driver is the boom in POGOs (Philippine offshore gaming operations). After China banned these gaming centers the operators have flocked to the Philippines and set up shops with Mandarin-speaking workers. In August 2019 a furor broke out about POGOs particularly on issues of undocumented Chinese workers, China’s request to curb the spread of Chinese-operated POGOs, and the US and the AFP warning against potential security threats with the gaming centers locating near Philippine (and US) military camps.
The Duterte administration has defended the POGOs, citing the revenues and tourism it brings in. Plans were then made to corral the gaming operators into “POGO islands,” to be built in Fuga island in Cagayan province and in Grande and Chiquita islands in Subic Bay.
POGO employs up to a hundred thousand workers, mostly Chinese. Members of the ruling class take differing positions on the POGO issue, driven by “security” concerns, “patriotic” concerns, and most likely also division of spoils. But they act nearly the same in not minding the deleterious impact on the masses of the construction of POGOs, or the working conditions of both the Chinese and Filipino workers who need to look out and guard against being played off against each other.

9. China’s ‘debt-trap diplomacy’

Some US officials unblushingly criticize China’s predatory loan deals used to expand influence globally. As if their banks and corporations aren’t doing the same, they warn countries and former colonies against China’s “debt-trap diplomacy,” its use of “opaque contracts and corrupt deals that mire nations in debt and undercut their sovereignty.”
They have a point, true, but it’s not coming from the goodness of their hearts but from self-interest and insecurity. China has embraced capitalism even if they still call themselves ‘communist’. Its President Xi Jinping is more assertive overseas and tightening controls at home—pretty much like what every other advanced capitalist country in the world is doing today. China no longer deals only with countries the US or the west have left out or considered “rogue states”. Now it is the most significant rival to the US, with which western capitalist countries have to compete more forcefully to maintain their old spheres of influence.
What the US puppet Duterte has been misrepresenting as independent foreign policy is his tactic of selling out not just to US but also to today’s cash-rich China. His administration craves funders for “Build, Build, Build” and China obligingly wants to integrate this program into its Belt and Road Initiative. The latter is a China spending/lending spree of up to $1 trillion in 17 countries in three continents. It traces the ancient path of Silk Road as it seeks to redirect the flow of trade and people traffic around China.
In the Philippines the China-funded infrastructure projects pose a double threat: 1) to the people hit by dislocation or forced landgrab of their communities and livelihood; and 2) to all Filipinos who will bear the added debt burden, and will have to cough up higher user-pay fees to use the infrastructure. Compounding the second is the threat pointed out by Justice Antonio Carpio: “In case of default by the Philippines in repayment of the loan, China can seize, to satisfy any arbitral award in favor of China, ‘patrimonial assets and assets dedicated to commercial use’ of the Philippine Government… including the oil and gas in the Philippine exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the West Philippine Sea, and the gas fields in the Reed Bank.”

10. Drugs

In the Senate hearings last September about the police and military generals’ involvement in the drug trade, it was confirmed that Duterte’s top police officers were involved in criminal activities. In a statement, the CPP said it shows the so-called war on drugs is a big hoax foisted on the people.

The Senate hearings resulted in the untimely resignation of Police Chief Oscar Albayalde. Implicated in the issue of “recycling” drugs that were press-released to have been impounded by authorities, Albayalde left his position with full perks and retirement benefits intact.

This is not the first revelation of police and military involvement in the drug trade. Time and again, the “narco-lists” and witch-hunts or ‘cleanup’ of rival drug trade syndicates including their protectors in government positions have led to killings and arrests, including the alleged involvement of opposition Senator Leila de Lima in drug syndicates. Aside from using the drug war to desensitize the people to killings and sideline the opposition, the police and military have lately tried to use the tokhang-style joint operations against unarmed activists.

On this, the CPP says: “Duterte, who is publicly known to be friends with big Chinese druglords, has made himself the overlord of the illegal drug trade in the country by using the police and his police-controlled vigilantes to make every syndicate kneel to his power. He has assigned loyal officers in the AFP to control large-scale smuggling through the Bureau of Customs. Under Duterte, the illegal trade in shabu, cocaine, ecstasy and fentanyl has reached new levels.”

Crime and politics meld in the PNP, as well as in the AFP, adds the CPP, as it points to how the police and military have repeatedly proved to be “a battleground of rival political cliques and criminal syndicates in the illegal drug trade, jueteng and other forms of illegal gambling, prostitution, human trafficking and others.” The police and military officers’ loyalty to one or another rival criminal network, and at the same time, to one politician or another rival dynasty or party, is the thread that connects the spate of killings even of politicians already in jail or under police protection.

Treasonous Duterte

The Filipino people need to deliver an important message to the Duterte administration. His regime is the actual terrorist and persona non grata. His rule is giving rise to monstrous problems for Filipinos, endangering them now and in the future. What his regime is doing to the people, the country, and environment spurs the people’s wrath and calls for justice.

Under Duterte, the Philippines continues to be in an economic stranglehold of foreign capital and US-sponsored neoliberal economic policies. The country remains a backward neocolony—with the vast poor in dire strait. Add to US and allied superpowers’ established stakes in the country’s economy, government and military, China is also establishing footholds via debts, investments and illegal occupation.

Duterte has turned to China to add to his bureaucrat loot, and paved the way to increased US presence to prop up the puppet government and secure investments. The U.S. military aid to the Philippines amounting to $193.5 million in 2018 alone (9.77 trillion PHP) has helped fund state-orchestrated attacks on the Filipino people.

But Duterte’s war against revolutionaries is only further exposing him and the AFP and police for cowardice. They conduct focused and synchronized armed operations against unarmed and legitimate progressive groups, shrinking the democratic space they claim to defend as they weaponize the civilian bureaucracy against critics.

Like any other puppet president, Duterte cannot brook ouster moves, public protests and opposition. An untimely exit from Malacañang will cut his loot, clip the wings of his clique and small dynasty of local politicians, and open him to prosecution for his crimes. So, he is turning more fascist as his term’s end nears.

Duterte and his ilk seriously need to be taught lessons in history. They cry to get a taste of what the Filipino people do to tyrants. It is high time he gets booted out by the people. His rampage deserves no less. ###

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In between Duterte’s late night show, who’s on the stage?

in Countercurrent

A series of tragicomedy—and deadly—policies and actions by the Duterte regime have plagued the country and the Filipino people alongside the Corona virus pandemic. On the surface, the regime’s response to the pandemic looked absurd and obviously plucked out from an alternate reality. People call it mema—me-magawa or me-masabi (a popular slang term meaning to look like one is doing or saying something meaningful or relevant). But the mema is actually a consequence of the government’s lack of direction and plan on how to deal with the pandemic and its impact on the country’s already neglected health system and a failing economy. Apparently, the Philippines has become Southeast Asia’s Covid-19 hotspot while the economy has now plunged into recession, the worst in eight decades. Both demonstrate how the regime has gone to rack and ruin. More than six months into the lockdown, the people are more convinced that the criminally negligent regime is deadlier than the COVID-19.

At the onset, health measures such as mass testing, contact tracing, isolation and treatment, and the overall strengthening of the healthcare system (weighed down by the yearly budget cuts even before the pandemic) were sidelined in the battle against COVID-19. With former generals Delfin Lorenzana, Eduardo Año, and Carlito Galvez calling the shots, military and police deployment, lockdown and quarantine, and orders to arrest, jail, and kill the “quarantine violators” were top priority. The measures were largely punitive rather than facilitative, especially in delivering the much-needed services and assistance to the homeless and jobless.

The fascist measures taken by the regime reflect the military’s dominance in the Inter-Agency Task Force against Covid-19 (IATF Covid-19); and the absence of health experts and scientists. Since Day 1 the regime has stubbornly stuck to a failed and irrelevant militarist approach despite the continuous rise in the number of COVID-19 cases, slow recovery rate, and the many deaths among health practitioners and those who were infected by the virus. The people, sick with the mishandling of the pandemic embraced and popularized the slogan/hashtag #SolusyongMedikalHindiMilitar. Recently, the slogan has ceased to be just a social media hashtag as calls for the resignation of health secretary Duque and the revamp of the military-dominated task force mounted.

The Inter-Agency Task Force against COVID-19: A militarized response to the pandemic

The actual operations of the IATF Covid-19 follows the command operation of a military organization with the big three generals—Delfin Lorenzana, Eduardo Año and Carlito Galvez—at the top. National defense chief Lorenzana heads the IATF Covid-19 command center, which oversees the implementation of the National Action Plan (NAP) of the “Bayanihan We Heal as One” Law; while DILG secretary Año sits as vice-chairperson. Third in command is presidential peace adviser Galvez Jr, the “chief implementer” of the NAP. He heads the National Incident Command (NIC) for its daily operations. Later, when Covid-19 cases rose to dangerous level in Cebu City, Duterte chose former AFP chief of staff and environment secretary Roy Cimatu as deputy chief implementer for the Visayas. Cimatu immediately deployed soldiers and tanks to Cebu, a move that was heavily ridiculed by the people.

The IATF dished out policies, oftentimes problematic and in conflict with those in the local government units and the health sector and other frontline workers, and to the detriment of the working class.

How the IATF Covid-19 works with the existing Task Force for Emerging Infectious Disease (a body created during the term of Pres. Aquino III), the several Czars appointed for quick fix, and the several other task groups is a tangled web. It has neither a beginning nor an end. What is obvious from the public’s view is that the retired generals and the Philippine National Police (PNP) are obviously running the show. DOH’s Duque who was visible in the first few weeks of the pandemic slowly faded from the scene only to reappear later when public demanded for a clear health solution to the pandemic rather than a militarist one. This however did not pacify the people as Duque is largely perceived as corrupt and equally inefficient in handling the pandemic.

Expectedly, the embattled regime shielded its militarist approach and criminal negligence by red-tagging its critics and propagating the pasaway (stubborn, disobedient) narrative against the people, especially the poor. Propped up by the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), thousands of trolls, and aided by a number of reporters in the corporate media, the regime blamed anyone and everyone in an effort to get away from its accountability. Only a month after the lockdown, the PNP recorded in April 2020 some 93,000 people accosted for “quarantine violations” while about 24,000 were arrested and slapped with charges. They are mostly workers and urban poor dwellers who were forced to earn a living in the absence, or lack, of government assistance.

In an interview, Prof. Jose Maria Sison aptly described the IATF Covid-19 a “coordinate of the NTF-ELCAC” (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict) as both task forces are controlled by the same ex-military generals. The IATF Covid-19, Prof. Sison said is, “practically (NTF-ELCAC’s) replication.”

The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC): A militarized response to social injustice and poverty

Joining Lorenzana, Año, and Galvez at the helm of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) is national security adviser Hermones Esperon, also a retired general. Esperon is the president’s vice-chair in this task force of 20 cabinet members and two unnamed sectoral representatives.

Created through Executive Order no. 70 in 2018, the NTF-ELCAC embodies Duterte’s rehashed version of the “whole-of-nation” approach started by the Noynoy Aquino regime. It aims to mobilize the whole civilian bureaucracy to end the more than 50 year-old revolutionary movement led by the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army, and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP). Essentially, the NTF-ELCAC has militarised the government and establish a fascist state. Lorenzana, Año, Galvez, and Esperon are among the more than 80 ex-military officers and men who dominate the civilian bureaucracy of the Duterte regime. According to Prof. Sison, the NTF-ELCAC fully created Duterte’s military junta.

The NTF-ELCAC, with the regime’s disinformation/misinformation arm and fake news mill, the PCOO and regional headquarters of the AFP and PNP have been notorious in using public funds to spread lies in the country and in the international community. These are specifically directed against the revolutionary movement, the open and legal people’s organizations, leaders of people’s organizations, human rights institutions, and the regime’s critics. Although oftentimes ridiculous and beyond belief, red tagging has already become a death sentence to many activists. During the lockdown, at least five known leaders—including NDFP Peace consultant Randy Echanis and human rights activist Zara Alvares—and hundreds of activists who were red tagged, vilified as terrorists were murdered.

The NTF is also engaged in a big-time racket through fake surrender of “rebels”—most often civilians who were lured or coerced and later presented as rebel surrenderers. Each “surrenderer” is supposedly given at least Php 65,000 cash assistance. In 2018, at least Php 520 million up to Php 715 million were supposedly spent by the government for this program, mostly ending up in the pockets of military officers and their minions since there has never been many real surrenderees.

Dubbed as the generals’ pork, the 2021 NTF-ELCAC proposed budget of Php 16.44 billion through National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr is almost 3000 percent bigger from the 2020 budget. Año justified the budget saying the fund will be used for the construction of farm-to-market roads, barangay health centers, school buildings, obviously a duplication of the functions and budget of existing agencies. The proposed Php 16.44 billion budget excludes the budget in support of the anti-communist campaign spread in various government agencies e.g., the AFP and PNP. The NTF-ELCAC’s budget is three times higher than the budget allocation to combat Covid-19 like purchases of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other COVID-19 interventions.

Through the IATF-Covid-19, the NTF-ELCAC “has gained more power and resources as a result of the Covid-19 crisis.” Both task forces are used by Duterte “to undertake a de facto martial law regime in the name of fighting the corona virus and to prepare the way for the formal declaration of martial law and the full imposition of a Marcos-type fascist dictatorship.”

While the country was in lockdown, helicopters were used to drop not relief goods but “counterinsurgency” flyers on the remote villages of Sagada and Besao in Mountain Province and in Surigao in Mindanao. Ang Bayan, the official publication of the CPP reported “extensive combat operations” and 14 indiscriminate bombing, strafing, and artillery shelling incidents in Lumad villages in the borders of Agusan del Sur, Bukidnon, and Davao del Norte from March 24 to April 1. Further, Ang Bayan recorded military attacks in at least 625 barangays of 247 towns in 54 provinces while the country was battling the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The highest number of cases of human rights violations was recorded in 149 barangays in Southern Tagalog, 106 in Eastern Visayas, and 101 in Bicol. Meanwhile, 26 incidents of aerial surveillance were also recorded.

The regime’s intense ‘counterinsurgency’ operations happened at the time when CPP-NPA-NDFP’s unilateral ceasefire was in effect from March 26 to April 15. The CPP ceasefire was extended to April 30 when Pres. Duterte lengthened the lockdown; but, the military operations continued. The CPP declaration of a ceasefire was a response to the call of United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres for a global ceasefire during the pandemic.

Simultaneously, in urban and rural centers, humanitarian missions and community kitchens were red-tagged, blocked, and prevented from delivering relief goods to many communities neglected by the government. Worse, those who participated, including a former house representative of the Anakpawis partylist, were arrested, jailed, and charged with made-up charges.

The whole bureaucracy has enabled the NTF-ELCAC to pursue its nefarious activities, aided by the majority of the members of the legislative and judiciary branches of government, which have become Malacanang’s rubberstamps since the beginning of his term. They have enabled the junta to gain traction by providing legal shield to its criminal acts against the people and the revolutionary movement.

It came as no surprise that just as the people fought hard for their lives, livelihood, and their rights amid the regime’s messed up response to Covid-19, measures to suppress further the shrinking “democratic” space such as the ABS-CBN shutdown and the approval of the Terror Law took effect.

The Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) of Duterte’s terror law: State terrorism against the fight for freedom and democracy

Dubbed as the generals’ pet bill, the terror law was approved hastily by the Lower House and signed into law by the president on July 3, ahead of any concrete plan to protect the people from the impact of the pandemic.

In a statement the CPP said Duterte’s Terror Law “tears away whatever is left of the ruling state’s trappings of democracy. With a rubberstamp Congress, a compliant Supreme Court, a puppet Comelec/Smartmatic, and now with extraordinary power, Duterte has now placed the entire reactionary government under his virtually unquestioned authority and limitless power.”

To date, there are now almost 40 petitions filed at the Supreme Court against Duterte’s terror law representing the views and arguments of various groups and sectors basically because Duterte’s terror law violates even its own reactionary Constitution. One of the extremely treacherous provisions of the terror law is the creation of an Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC), tasked determine who are terrorists and who are not. Dangerously, the ATC it has the powers of both the executive and the judiciary that can issue orders of surveillance, arrest, and detention.

Aside from determining who the “terrorists” are, authorize state forces to arrest people without warrants of arrest, detain without charges for up to 24 days, these presidential appointees act as the sole arbiter under the ATA. The immense power and broad function of the ATC obviously poses risk to people’s rights.

Prof. Sison described the ATC as a “compact board of inquisition and state terrorism.”

The law defined the ATC’s composition as follows: the president’s executive secretary, national security adviser, department secretaries of defense, interior and local government, justice, finance, information and communications technology, foreign affairs, and the executive director of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) secretariat. The National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) acts as the council’s secretariat.

Concretely, under the Duterte regime, those in the ATC are: ES Salvador Medialdea (Chairperson), security adviser Esperon (Vice Chairperson), and heads of departments Lorenzana (defense), Año (local government) Medardo Guevarra (justice), Carlos Dominguez (finance), Gregorio Honasan (information and communications technology), Teddy Locsin (foreign affairs), and Mel Georgie Racela (AMLC).

Again, the same anti-communist fascist generals who dominate the NTF Covid-19 and the NTF-ELCAC are in the ATC, namely Esperon, Lorenzana, and Año,

As soon as the president signed the bill into a law, Esperon fired the signal shot by saying they’re making a list of “terrorist” that would, expectedly, include the open, legal, and unarmed people’s organizations and progressive groups constantly tagged by the regime as front organizations of the CPP and supporters of the NPA. After the signal fire, Esperon immediately sniped at the critics of the terror law saying they must be supporters of “terrorists”.

Pres. Duterte often referred to the military and the police as “my soldiers” and the “backbone of (my) administration”. Under the Duterte regime, it has not only become the norm to rely on the military for civilian functions but also to mollycoddle the officers, active or retired, and use them to threaten the people and his critics of a military junta.

A military junta has been among Duterte’s options to remain in power beyond his term in 2022—aside from ensuring reliable successor preferably from his own family. “The current political value for Duterte in having a military junta in prospect is to flatter the military and whet its loyalty to him and at the same time threaten the opposition and the people with the prospect of military junta ruling the country in case of his death or total disability at any time or the failure of his dynastic successor to take over his position,” said Prof. Sison.

The dominance of the military in the Duterte regime means an escalation of its offensives against the revolutionary movement led by the CPP, the NPA, and the NDFP and all the democratic forces in the society even as he face the wrath of the Filipino people and widespread condemnation even in the international community. At the end of the day, he will face the people who will hold him accountable for all his crimes against humanity, for treason, murder, and plunder. ###

PEACE HAWKS LIE, Here’s Why

in Editorial
by Pinky Ang

The on again off again peace negotiations—scuttled by the Duterte regime—can still be saved if the people correct and debunk all the misinformation being lobbed against it by the militarists, the peace spoilers, and hawkish officials of the Duterte regime.

The following so far are some of the plain truth and observable reality on the ground which peace spoilers try so hard to deny or, failing there, to vilify and demonize. Feel free to add.

THE PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT AND TERRITORIES IN GUERRILLA FRONTS EXIST

The guerrilla fronts have expanded to about a hundred amid the continuing intensified militarization topped by increased use of civilian bureaucracy for waging war against the people. The simplest response to government or militarist denial of the existence of the people’s democratic government is: if they don’t exist, why is the Philippine government bothering with costly militarization and this disgraceful (to them) disinformation campaign?

The people’s democratic government continues to advance land reform, revolutionary justice, defense of human and natural resources for national industrialization. The government of the Republic of the Philippines and its mercenary troops know and confirm this every time they present their faked or forced surrenderers (mostly civilian farmers or government soldier pretending to be a rebel); when they order local government to declare the Communist Party and the New People’s Army as persona non grata; or when they rail against revolutionary taxation or village militias flexing muscles to defend themselves.

The Duterte regime and the militarists precisely know the existence of guerrilla fronts and people’s democratic government as they vainly try to trap them in localized peace talks. They have long failed to appreciate that the rebels aren’t as corruptible as the AFP or PNP generals. Or that the revolutionary movement continues to expand despite or because of sufferings the military and the plunderers inflict on the people.

THE FILIPINO PEOPLE AND DUTERTE NEED THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS THE MOST

The Duterte regime is now weighed down by the sheer amount of blood shed because of his dirty wars against the poor. Meanwhile, no amount of magic in official statistics can hide that the economy is not as good as it projects, and that the majority of the Filipinos are worse off.

Now in his lameduck years in Malacañang, Duterte can’t fail to notice that even his highest military subordinates (Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., Delfin Lorenzana, Eduardo Año, Carlito Galvez, and Filemon Santos, Jr.) have so publicly opposed his intent to resume peace negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP. Instead of addressing the roots of the armed conflict to ready the ground for peace, these military subordinates want to continue their military rampage, as well as the drive to place the government and society under military rule through Executive Order No. 70.

Unfortunately for Duterte, he is the commander-in-chief to be tried for his accountability to war crimes, and his regime is what’s on the line for history’s reckoning. His military subordinates, meanwhile, have rampaged and butchered up till their retirement from the AFP. Yet they still failed to bring down the revolutionaries through the years, through failed deadlines, under different presidents.

It doesn’t need rocket science to grasp that the Philippine government cannot win the war by military solution alone. The peace talks and the attempt to address the roots of armed conflict promise to do the job with better satisfaction from majority of the Filipinos.

THE FILIPINO PEOPLE DEMANDS SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REFORMS

The way Duterte’s recycled generals and hawkish officials speak, you’d think the Filipinos live already in an industrial paradise, without social injustices, without worsening unemployment, low incomes and rampant poverty. Of course these exist only in their brags and baseless beliefs. The Philippine economy stands only propped up by a bloated unproductive services sector, overseas remittances, and debt. It begs for scraps from foreign investments who take away more from the country than what they bring in.
The country’s agriculture and industry have steadily declined no thanks to the past and present government’s neoliberal policies. The draft Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER), up for completion and approval in the negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP should the peace talks resume, seek to resolve these problems plaguing our productive sectors.

THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS HAVE MADE UNPRECEDENTED PROGRESS BUT SPOILERS AND MILITARISTS ALWAYS SEEK TO SABOTAGE IT

The peace talks that started in 2016 have progressed in fleshing out the CASER, the meat of the peace negotiations. It used to exist as two different drafts of the negotiating panels. Before talks were halted in 2018, the four formal rounds of peace talks abroad and seven meetings in the Philippines had produced a common outline and substantial drafts on two of the most important sections of CASER: Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ARRD) and National Industrialization and Economic Development (NIED). These two alone can give vast benefits for tens of millions of Filipinos and the cause of national development.

The peace talks give the public an opportunity to better understand CASER—and that is why the militarists seek to stop it at all cost. They will be thoroughly exposed not only as peace saboteurs but as agents of enemies of the Filipino people.

DRAFTS AND AGREED UPON RESULTS OF PEACE TALKS ARE PRODUCTS OF NEGOTIATIONS AND KEEN CONSULTATIONS WITH THE PEOPLE

Whatever common drafts have been mutually agreed upon and prepared by the negotiating parties and their working groups, these were discussed and to be approved by the NDFP and GRP negotiating panels. These are no secret nor unilateral impositions—things the militarists have been known of hatching up. With regard to the NDFP proposals, these are reflection not only of the people’s desire but of the developments in the guerrilla zones. The drafts were widely disseminated and still being disseminated and discussed in guerrilla zones; and also being updated as the years go by.

The common drafts on social and economic reforms also show that it is possible for the GRP and the NDFP to set aside ideological differences and unite on concrete steps for the common cause of real economic progress for the nation.

With the people’s resolve to push for just and lasting peace, the militarists and peace spoilers, who have failed so spectacularly at bringing about peace, will not succeed at sabotaging again the peace negotiations. ###

#ResumeTalks
#SignCASER
#JustPeace

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THE DESPERATION OF ESPERON

in Countercurrent

Fidel Agcaoili
Chairperson, NDFP Monitoring Committee

National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., is once again lying through his teeth as he desperately tries to evade accountability for more than a thousand cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances under the Gloria Arroyo regime.

He is doubly desperate to evade culpability, as he now also finds himself in danger of sinking along with his current master Rodrigo Duterte’s wobbly ship.

As Philippine Army deputy chief of staff for operations, Special Operations Command chief, Philippine Army commanding general and later AFP chief of staff–positions he occupied from 2003 to 2008–Esperon, in tandem with Norberto Gonzales, cannot deny responsibility for serving as the main architect of the Arroyo regime’s brutal fascist attacks during this period against activists, mass leaders and suspected revolutionaries, including priests, trade unionists and poor peasants, journalists, and academicians.

Among the most notorious cases of human rights violations perpetrated by the Esperon-led military under Gloria Arroyo’s helm were the enforced disappearances of activist Jonas Burgos, UP students Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan and 10 NDFP consultants and staff (for which cases have been filed with the UN Human Rights Committee). From 2001 to the end of Gloria Arroyo’s term in 2010, there were more than 1,300 cases of political killings and enforced disappearances, including the assassination of NDFP consultant Sotero Llamas.

In 2006, Special Rapporteur Phillip Alston saw through Esperon’s lies as the latter attempted to blame the killings on the Left. Alston dismissed the so-called documentary proof presented by Esperon, saying they bore “all the hallmarks of a fabrication and cannot be taken as evidence of anything other than disinformation”.

Now that this bloody record is being raised anew by a public outraged at the rise in power of his former commander in chief Arroyo, Esperon is attempting to deflect the unwanted attention by again blaming the Left.

He misleads the public by mixing up two incidents that occurred almost 20 years apart–the alleged mass killings in Inopacan, Leyte in the 1980s (where the “evidence” consists of the incredible testimonies of military assets and an assortment of skeletal remains dug up from public cemeteries) and the widespread state-sponsored extrajudicial killings from 2003 to 2007 that Alston was investigating, and for which Esperon was as culpable as his boss Arroyo.
Esperon is so desperate that he could only recycle the same ill-conceived lies of long ago that, unfortunately for him, no intelligent mind would buy.

Sooner than later, he will be held to account both for his damning history as Arroyo’s henchman, as well as for crafting the Duterte regime’s national security strategy that has mandated, among others, the scuttling of the peace negotiations in favor of all-out war, the vilification of the people’s liberation movement as terrorist, the killing of hundreds of unarmed activists in the countryside, the manufacture of bogus criminal cases against revolutionaries and leaders of the progressive mass movement and the enactment of increasingly repressive laws to stifle dissent.###

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