7 November 2019

FTP – NAF condemns the attacks and raids carried out by the US-Duterte Regime on the legal mass organizations fighting for national democracy in the Philippines!

Regional offices for Gabriela, BAYAN MUNA, and the National Federation of Sugar Workers were raided and many of their organizers arrested. Additionally, over 60 people were arrested by the regime in the Negros Occidental.

The claim being made by the fascist regime is that these organizers are secretly working for the New People’s Army and are storing weapons in their offices to carry out attacks. Consequently, weapons were planted by the regime in order to justify the raids. In reality, these organizations are not stockpiling weapons or carrying out attacks- they are peacefully organizing the masses of exploited and oppressed Filipino people in support of their democratic rights which are actively and increasingly being denied to them by Duterte and his fascist goons in the AFP and PNP. This is a larger effort of his illegal drug war which has resulted in the extrajudicial murders of over 20,000 people- including activists.

Activists standing up for democratic rights are being arrested, tortured, and even murdered by the regime. The recent raids on regional offices of mass organizations is just a step up from what has long been happening. Currently, the AFP is launching an all-out war against the people of the Philippines, with full support from the United States. Alongside bombs being dropped across the country, civilians are being arrested and murdered if they are even suspected of supporting the National Democratic Movement in the countryside.

These are clear violations of human rights and must be condemned by every progressive and pro-democratic organization across the world.

Why is the regime doing this? First, to secure profits for the ruling class of comprador landowners- in particular, of the sugar industry in Negros, but across many industries in the whole country. Second, to secure the profits of multinational corporations, primarily based in the US, who use the masses of Filipino workers as cheap and easily exploited labor.

FTP – NAF acknowledges the many parallels between Duterte’s regime and Donald Trump’s regime, in both aspirations and ideology. We see the rights of the people being violated daily in the cities of Amerika, and how the police and military exist to enforce the power and profit of the ruling class here. Our solution is to win political power for the people- independent of the US government. We build political power by fighting for it and fighting against the forces of reaction who only wish to keep the people exploited and suffering, so long as it lines their own pockets.

Additionally, the Trump regime has devoted a great effort to assisting and defending the Duterte regime, even more so than his predecessors. Trump also despises the poor and exploited masses. He sees them as nothing more than a way to make money, frequently referring to the drug and homeless problems as “diseases which need to be cleansed”- cleansed through the violence of the imperialist state, a policy defended and advocated by emerging far-right street organizations and militias.

Both the Trump and Duterte regimes will bend the law to their favor, or even break the law, to crack down on the growing pro-democratic sentiments and progressive demands of the exploited people.

Our principle task in supporting the National Democratic movement in the Philippines against this horrible and illegal repression can be described in two aspects:

1) Demand an Immediate End to US Financial and Military Aid to the Duterte Regime
2) Fight to End US Imperialism

The US does not only support the reactionary Duterte regime for the profit and power of its capitalist interests, it does so almost everywhere across the world. We recognize the US as a fascist and violent empire that imposes its political and economic will against the world’s people, including the oppressed nations inside the borders of the country itself (such as the New Afrikan, Indigenous, and Chicano Nations).

Therefore, to express the fullest solidarity with the aims of the Filipino National Democratic movement, we must fight to end the imperialism which aids and abets the fascist regime of Duterte and many others across the world such as Saudi Arabia and Israel.

FIGHT TO END IMPERIALISM!
SUPPORT THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES!

For the People – North Amerikan Federation