7-07-05, 8:30 am

Statement of the Central Committee of the Partido Komunista Ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930, or the Philippine Communist Party)

Exercise The People's Democratic Right To Change The Political System! Oust Gloria Arroyo Now!

In the midst of today's grave economic and political crisis, the Filipino people is facing a great challenge.

Poverty is widespread. Over 5 million of the labor force are jobless. Millions are hungry, and over 4 million children are malnourished. Millions of youth are out of school due to the high cost of education. The depressed wages of ordinary workers and employees are insufficient to secure sufficient food and the required medicines, and to pay for all the costs of electricity, water and transportation, all of which continue to rise beyond the reach of the masses. The masses are made to pay the ballooning external and internal debts which now amount to a staggering 5.9-Trillion Pesos (around USD 107-Billion). Around half of the national government budget is automatically allocated for foreign debt servicing. Without the political will to repudiate onerous loans, more and more taxes --- such as the 'Expanded Value-Added Tax' --- are being imposed by the Arroyo regime for the poor masses to shoulder. This regime begs for more foreign loans in order to pay earlier foreign loans which are maturing, irrespective of whether those earlier loans benefited our country or only the loan manipulators.

Corruption has reached scandalous levels, with the husband, son and brother-in-law of Pres. Gloria Arroyo having been exposed as recipients of protection money from 'jueteng' (illegal gambling) lords.

Even worse, Arroyo's cheating in the May 2004 elections was exposed, with the public airing of wire-tapped recordings of over a dozen of Gloria Arroyo's election-period calls to Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). In one of those recorded conversations (now widely known as the 'Hello Garci' calls), Arroyo demanded, and was assured, a lead of over 1-million votes over her closest presidential rival; such a lead could only be had by manipulating and faking election results from different cities and provinces.

Arroyo's belated acknowledgment of those wire-tapped calls, and her glib contortions to 'justify' her patently illegal calls to the COMELEC Commissioner, have only confirmed the general public perception that she cheated during the elections, and that her presidency of the country is fraudulent.

As if to further insult the intelligence of the aggrieved populace, Arroyo even charged that those who are exposing her as a cheat are only 'destabilizers' of her 'economic reform' (i.e., pro-imperialist) agenda. Mass protests against her policies, which policies have brought much poverty and hunger to the masses, are being denigrated as mere parts of a plot to 'destabilize' her rosy economic programs.

The present political situation --- with a pro-imperialist president far detached from the people and even under attack from other pro-imperialist forces, may appear complicated without an analysis of how the present crisis started and developed.

It should be noted that the basic problem with Arroyo is that she hews to the traditional policies of puppetry to imperialism. The daughter of a former puppet president, Diosdado Macapagal (who was the first to allow IMF intervention in our economy, who instituted decontrol and the devaluation of our currency, and who even offered the Philippines as a base for US missiles during the 'Cuban missile crisis' of the 1960s), Gloria Arroyo was always a docile servant of imperialism. While still a senator, all the major bills that she sponsored (primarily those on Philippine accession to the GATT and WTO impositions) were in favor of foreign monopoly capital, making her a favorite caretaker for imperialist interests.

As vice-president, she became the trojan horse of the US-backed opposition to then-President Estrada, and she later was anointed by the local business circles (led by the Makati Business Club) and the local Catholic hierarchy to replace Estrada. With the defection of the leadership of the Philippine armed forces to her side, a strange mixture of rightist, maoist and other ultra-left forces marched to Malacanang Palace to force Estrada out. The results of the succeeding elections, which were manipulated with the help of officials of the new COMELEC beholden to Arroyo, and which were 'confirmed' by the 'trending' tallies made by the CIA-organized and oligarchy-controlled National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), generally reflected Arroyo's considerations for those forces which helped her in ousting Estrada.

The pro-imperialist policies of Arroyo, including her open endorsement of the genocidal US-UK aggression against Iraq, were meant to maintain US support for her regime. However, the quick downturn of her popularity among the people is causing a reappraisal among her imperialist supporters as to her continuing usefulness as their main political caretaker in the Philippines. As more and more Filipinos were becoming aware that Arroyo's privatization, deregulation, liberalization, foreign-debt-repayment, tax-imposition and other pro-imperialist policies are at the root of the country's growing poverty, unemployment and hunger, other developments have come to challenge Arroyo's integrity and credibility.
While serving the rest of the term of office of Estrada, there remained serious challenges to the constitutionality of her ouster of Estrada ; and then came the graft and money-laundering charges against her husband (who was also publicly exposed of laundering bribe money from government rice importation and other business deals into bank accounts under the name of 'Jose Pidal'). After the 2004 elections came other charges of corruption which involved not only her husband, but also her son who is a congressman, and a brother-in-law who is also a congressman. And then came the wiretapped recordings of her more than a dozen illegal calls to a COMELEC commissioner at the height of the May 2004 electoral tallying period.

Aside from exposing Arroyo's vote-padding and the odious role of COMELEC officials in manipulating election results, the wire-tapped recordings also show that the 'election' of at least some senators and congressmen (including at least some party-list representatives) were the result of COMELEC manipulations. Arroyo's attempts to squelch the issue of her illegal calls and instructions to a COMELEC official during the election period, and to blame her woes only on the 'dirty politics' of the opposition parties, only further incensed the people. Her attempts to attribute her stay in the presidency to some divine will (her claim that 'The Lord put me here') only became the butt of jokes, with people attributing her fraudulent election to the financial resources contributed by gambling lords and other vice lords. The threats raised by the vice-lords and warlords among Arroyo's few remaining allies --- that of declaring 'independent states' in their own fiefdoms in case Arroyo is ousted --- only show the rabid extent to which this regime wants to maintain the system wherein power is propped up by goons, fraudsters and dirty money.

Arroyo has become direly discredited, and the imperialists do not want her political instability to affect their neocolonial control over our economy. Imperialism is looking for a new puppet now, in the same way that imperialism previously groomed Aquino to oust the discredited Marcos regime (during the farcical revolution that was 'EDSA-1'), and then later groomed Arroyo to oust Estrada (during the next farcical revolution that was 'EDSA-2'). Arroyo must resign or be ousted now, but the Filipino people must be wary of the imperialist plots to maintain their neocolonial rule over our country.

While demanding that Arroyo must step down now, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930) calls for vigilance against a US-instigated military take-over. The recent calls of some retired and active military officers for a coup d'etat and for a revamp of the Constitution (in such a way as to give foreign capital the right to exploit all business areas in our country) are precisely what the US fascists want for our country.

Considering the exposure of Arroyo's fraudulent election, and the role played by the COMELEC in allowing Arroyo to steal the May 2004 presidential election, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP-1930) demands the following: 1. The immediate ouster of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from the presidency, and her prosecution for election fraud and betrayal of public trust;

2. The ouster from the Vice-Presidency of Noli de Castro who, while not being the principal fraudster in the May 2004 election, also benefitted from the vote rigging;

3. The immediate abolition of the present Commision on Elections (COMELEC) ; the urgent organization of a new election watchdog body composed of leaders of known integrity, and with clear and transparent electoral procedures ; and the immediate holding of snap presidential and vice-presidential election ;

4. The organization of a Transitional National Governing Council, composed of heads of political parties and sectoral organizations which have not been tainted by the COMELEC vote-rigging scandal, to run the affairs of the state until the proclamation of a newly-elected president and vice-president;

5. Upon the election of a new president and vice-president, the immediate scheduling and holding of snap elections for all members of the legislature (both the Senate and the House of Representatives), considering that members of both legislative chambers were also involved in the May 2004 COMELEC vote manipulation ; and

6. The replacement of the members of the Supreme Court, considering that its present composition (led by Chief Justice Hilario Davide) has been partial to Arroyo and her anti-people policies, starting from the time this court gave its imprimatur to Arroyo's power grab against Estrada. The demand for a Transitional National Governing Council is being made due to the fact that those in the present constitutional line of succession are all beholden to Arroyo and her imperialist masters. The composition of such a transitional council should be open to negotiation among the different political parties and sectoral organizations which truly represent the masses of our people. Above all else, a new governance should mean an end to Arroyo's pro-imperialist and anti-people policies. Political change should mean the promotion of a National Democratic agenda for independence and social progress, which should include the following: 1. Ending the presence of US military forces in our country, repeal of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), and upholding the Nuclear-Weapon-Free and Foreign-Base-Free provisions of our Constitution;

2. Ending the privatization, liberalization and deregulation policies imposed by the World Bank, IMF and WTO;

3. Repeal of Marcos' Presidential Decree No. 1177 which imposes the automatic appropriation of funds for foreign debt servicing as the priority beneficiary of every annual national budget ;

4. Repeal of the Oil Industry Deregulation Law, the Expanded Value-Added Tax (E-VAT) law, and other anti-people statutes;

5. Restoration of public control over the electric power, water, petroleum and other basic industries;

6. Making education, health care and other social services accessible to all the poor sections of our population;

7. Setting of a living wage as the minimum wage for workers; and

8. Government's massive propagation of employment-generating projects, as well as livelihood programs for the self-employed. OUST THE ARROYO REGIME to end the anti-people and pro-imperialist policies of government!

Exercise the people's democratic right to change the political system!

Advance the National Democratic Struggle!

June 30, 2005

From Solidarity Network