Volume IV, Number 2. 31 January 2022.
Two weeks ago, the government of President Rodrigo Duterte received six T129B attack helicopters from Turkey, the first batch of military equipment worth a total of PhP13.7 billion. In December 2021, the Duterte regime also acquired two batteries of self-propelled Soltam ATMOS 155mm howitzers worth PhP2.4 billion from Israel.
Furthermore, the regime received from China on 16 January the first of two tranches, US$11 million worth of drone systems, explosive ordinance disposal units, transport vehicles, fire trucks and engineering supplies.
These deliveries add to the weapons and munitions delivered by the US on 4 July 2021, worth about US$1 million. The latter included heavy-caliber machine guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Since Duterte came to power in 2016, the US has already provided Duterte nearly US$600 million of military assistance. The US still remains as the biggest arms supplier of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Why is Duterte and his foreign supporters in a big rush to provide his security forces this huge deadly firepower with just a few months before his term ends in June 2022? This doesn’t even jibe well with their incessant claims that the New People’s Army is suffering grave losses and will be destroyed before June 2022.
Duterte and his imperialist masters, especially the US, do not realize that brutal suppression of the Filipino people, who are suffering from unprecedented poverty, feudal exploitation and bureaucratic corruption, will only lead to greater resistance, armed or otherwise. Duterte does not realize that the revolutionary national democratic movement grew rapidly during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, as it is growing now.
US imperialism has not learned the lesson that the use of even the most sophisticated weapons and other weapons of mass destruction lead only to their defeat, as shown in Vietnam and, most recently, Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, grassroots organizations, peace advocates, religious groups and prominent personalities as well, have been calling on the Duterte regime to cease bombing and shelling communities it suspects as NPA camps and instead resume peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
The NDFP, maintaining that lasting peace can only be achieved by addressing the root causes of the armed conflict, is wary of the deception and increasing brutality of the fascist Duterte regime. It is more inclined to negotiate with a successor to Duterte, not only for lasting solutions but also to address the immediate dire consequences of the pandemic and bureaucratic corruption.