MANILA – A broad, multisectoral alliance that mounted the biggest protest against resurgent authoritarianism at the Sept. 21 martial law commemoration has come out swinging once more, tagging President Rodrigo Duterte’s idea of a “revolutionary government” as “nothing else but the one-man dictatorship that he has been repeatedly dreaming of since last year.”
According to the Movement Against Tyranny (MAT), “Duterte merely wants to concentrate all governmental power to himself as president. He wants to further dismantle whatever little is left of the system of checks and balances provided by a rubber stamp Congress, a Supreme Court dominated by his and former Pres. Arroyo’s appointees, and easily intimidated Constitutional bodies like the Office of the Ombudsman and Commission on Human Rights.”
Moreover, MAT said it is clear the president wants to “further intimidate the critical press and overwhelm social media with his fake news-churning troll army.”
Worse, added the alliance, “in order to impose his “revolutionary” regime on the people, he will have to declare martial law nationwide, He will have to ban all forms of public criticism and dissent: protest rallies, strikes, political demonstrations of any kind, not even cultural shows, art works or social media posts. There will be wide-scale and utter disregard for due process, human rights and civil liberties.”
While all this is happening, “the same old oligarchic interests will remain, with Duterte’s family and friends as the favored cronies. The same old kowtowing to foreign interests. The same old corruption and criminality except cornered by the Duterte clique, the Davao group and even the ascendant mafia in the illegal drugs business,” MAT said.
It recalled that Ferdinand Marcos had used the same template, “resulting in 14 years of cronyism, plunder of the national treasury and economy and wholesale human rights violations of the worst kind.”
The Movement Against Tyranny denounced Duterte’s so-called “revolutionary government” as “nothing less than the usurpation of all powers to impose one-man rule and trample on the people’s democratic rights. We will not be cowed. We will not be silenced.”
LP: no basis for using CPP-NPA as bogey
In a statement, the Liberal Party also noted the irony of how Duterte now rationalizes his “float” of a revolutionary government by pointing to the CPP-NPA, which LP said had been Duterte’s friends for a year.
“Hindi solusyon ang revolutionary government. Bukod sa walang basehan sa realidad, labag ito sa Saligang-Batas [A revolutionary government is not the solution. Besides not being grounded on reality, it is unconstitutional].”.
The CPP-NPA has lasted half a century, and the military and police has been saying their ranks have dwindled, so there is no basis for citing the threat from communist rebels as reason for a revolutionary government, said LP.
Moreover, the possibility of peace talks remains and it does not make sense for the administration to shut its door permanently, added LP.
