Vol. VIII, No. 18 - September 30, 2026

In the past few weeks the Duterte faction, in its fight versus the Marcos faction, has been receiving powerful blows. Its patriarch, former president Rodrigo Duterte, accused of grave crimes against humanity, was scheduled to face the first formal hearing in the International Criminal Court. Meanwhile, his erstwhile chief of police and administrator of the rampage, now Senator Rogelio “Bato” de la Rosa has been hiding since November last year to avoid an ICC arrest order. Earlier, a handful of other high officials including a senator has been named by the ICC as co-perpetrators and now fear of being arrested.

But more sensationally, Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter, Sara, incumbent vice president of the reactionary government, has been pushed to the corner in the impeachment process in the Senate and also faces criminal charges of corruption and endangering national security. These seriously threatens her ambitions to run for the presidency in 2028. Her husband and  brothers are also implicated in cases of corruption, drug trade and big time smuggling.

On the other hand, the Marcos faction is also beset by charges of corruption, exemplified by the recent arrest of Marcos Jr’s cousin and former House speaker Martin Romualdez. The embezzlement of billions of pesos purportedly by Romualdez and close cohorts could not  have occurred without the knowledge or active participation of his president. Many high officials of the regime especially in public works like flood control projects have been arrested or being investigated.

Bureaucrat capitalism has led to both factions and their families swimming in trillions of stolen pesos, while the poverty stricken masses have been drowning in the incessant flood waters.

The masses suffocate in the flood of relentless increases in prices of oil, food, basic necessities and services. Marcos Jr, serving the interest of foreign big capitalists and local compradors, has allowed profit-greedy local companies to increase their prices. Anti-people and pro-imperalist measures bring suffering, and amid massive corruption, wealth and power accumulation by the Marcos family while millions of people sink deeper into poverty and hunger.

The son of dictator Marcos Sr is surpassing his father as a tool of US imperialism in allowing the US to set up more than nine military bases and other facilities under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement and allowed the US to patrol the seas around and between our islands, even if it makes the Philippines a target in a war with its enemies, as in the war in West Asia. The regime is also vigorously pushing US programs like the Pax Silica, Luzon Economic Corridor, further liberalization of foreign mining, and extraction of other natural resources.

The son likewise followed US dictates to expand the Armed Forces of the Philippines and police agencies, in the name of “peace and progress”, to employ state terrorism in suppressing people’s democratic rights such as openly imposing martial rule in the countryside. The regime of Marcos Jr is now the concentrated embodiment of the oppressive semicolonial and semifeudal system in the Philippines. In defending the rotten system to its core, Marcos is driving the broad masses onto the path of struggle for national independence and genuine democracy.

Besides mounting almost daily protests and other actions all over the country, workers, peasants, students and other sectors are building up their organizations under the national democratic movement while reaching and integrating with the people in both the urban and rural areas. Especially in the countryside, they are in the process of establishing local political organs of the people’s democratic government.  Abroad, Filipino organizations are increasing in number in the process of supporting the movements in the Philippines and strengthen solidarity with local progressive groups.

The Communist Party of the Philippines reported recently that just as how the then-budding CPP quickly bloomed under Marcos Sr, “the Party is now firmly and rapidly strengthening and expanding amid a situation that stirs the people’s patriotism and democratic sentiments, and ignites their militant spirit of resistance. Under the Party’s leadership, the people are now uniting around the call to defend the country’s patrimony and fight for genuine national freedom. The Party is now swiftly reaping gains as increasing numbers of revolutionaries spring from the ranks of the struggling masses.”

The CPP further reports, “Under the Party’s leadership, the New People’s Army is firmly expanding. It is urgent to wage guerrilla warfare in the countryside as a means of defending the masses’ lives and livelihoods, protecting the country’s environment and resources from foreign seizure and plunder, and fighting repression by the mercenary AFP. As the masses expand and strengthen their organized force, and fight alongside the genuine people’s army, the people’s war will surely continue to advance on the road to victory.”