Volume IV, Number 4. 28 February 2022.
Philippine revolutionary forces joined the Filipino people and the rest of the world on 25 February in commemorating the 36th anniversary of the Filipino people’s uprising which toppled the US-Marcos fascist dictatorship in 1986. We remember all the martyrs and heroes who paid the ultimate sacrifice in waging various forms of struggle, even during the darkest nights of Marcos’ tyrannical rule. Their valiant resistance culminated in the 1986 people’s uprising and resulted in broader freedoms for expression, organizing and mobilization.
This year’s commemoration takes on greater significance in the face of the resolute schemes to enthrone the Marcos-Duterte tandem in the May 2022 elections. The Filipino people are keenly aware of these machinations aimed at reversing the Filipino people’s historical judgement of 1986. In numerous commemoration activities held across the country, Filipinos from all walks of life echoed calls against prolonging the ruinous Duterte regime and completing the restoration of the Marcoses to power.
Even in its twilight months, the Duterte regime is plunging the country ever deeper in economic and social crisis. High-level corruption, military overspending, import liberalization, galloping inflation, depressed wages and loss of income, widespread unemployment and environmental plunder, combined with intensifying state terrorism and political repression – the Duterte regime is extremely hated by the Filipino people.
Then, as now, the armed revolutionary movement unites with the people in fighting against fascist tyranny, upholding the people’s aspirations for national liberation, democracy and just peace.
We are nevertheless profoundly aware that the overthrow of the US-backed Marcos dictatorship did not change the fundamentally oppressive and exploitative social structures and chronic crisis of the ruling social system in the Philippines. Since 1986, the Marcos ruling clique was replaced by a series of ruling cliques in varying degrees but similarly subservient to US imperialist interests. Successive regimes employed ruthless measures on a people struggling against the yet worsening conditions of landlessness, unemployment and poverty.
In the face of the ever-deteriorating economic and political situation, the revolutionary movement and the Filipino people will continue to build their organized strength and wage all forms of popular struggles. The legacy of the 1986 EDSA people’s uprising will be carried forward. The people’s power will overthrow successive Marcos-Duterte regimes. And the Filipino people will persevere along the path to the complete victory of the revolution for national liberation and genuine democracy.