One anticipates in the next few months the rapid mobilization of conscienticized Filipinos, popular democratic formations, and vast sectors of civil society against Arroyo’s tyranny. As I have suggested earlier, Arroyo’s isolation springs from the confusion of authority with coercive force. This may be categorized as a form of Bonapartism in the periphery when the old ruling class had already lost but the masses have not yet acquired the ability to govern (Poulantzas 1974). Exposed for cheating, lying, and stealing, Arroyo’s autocratic rule can no longer claim even a semblance of legitimacy. Nor can the State apparatus and agencies prostituted by Arroyo claim the mandate that solely emanates from the Filipino people, assuming that a constitutional democratic republic is still the framework of governance.
The Arroyo regime’s moral bankruptcy and political decay have precipitated its total repudiation and condemnation by the Filipino masses (see, for example, the sentiments voiced in the editorial of Daily Tribune Online, August 17, 2006). Civil liberties promulgated in the 1987 Constitution and by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, however, can only be guaranteed by organized public demonstrations, street rallies, strikes, and other visible enactment or exercise of social and civic rights. Revolution is precisely the concrete sequence of events, the process of transformation of the system, in the totality of its sociohistorical determinations (Therborn 1980). Progressive sectors must appeal to all peoples around the world concerned with justice, democracy, and human dignity to express solidarity with the Filipino people in overthrowing the U.S.-backed Arroyo regime, releasing all political prisoners, and restoring full and genuine sovereignty to the Filipino people. Posted by Bulatlat
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