In the last (few) years, there was a revolt by low-ranking officers in the military – proof that the AFP is not united in supporting her, and she has now appointed many generals and retired military personnel who have expressed support for her, and she has rewarded them so it is a government that is now reliant on the military in suppressing any kind of opposition and this explains over 800 extra-judicial killings or assassinations, the abduction and torture and imprisonment of many legal personalities, activists of the party-list and other civil-society groups. And there is the continuing harassment and brutalization of people by the military, police, and their paramilitary thugs.

In effect, as I have written elsewhere,* the Arroyo regime is very weak, it is an illegitimate regime, it relies on brute force, legal and illegal—the entire machinery of the Dept of Justice is working to suppress dissent and penalize the opposition. And I think, gradually, people will rise up against it. Because so far there has been no improvement in the economy, poverty is rampant, more and more people are leaving the Philippines and so you have a very serious crisis and consequently the US has intervened in overt and covert ways, as it has in the past (for example, during the Fifties to combat the Huk uprising), to support the Arroyo military because right from the beginning from the time when the Philippines became formally independent, in 1946, the AFP has depended on US logistics, weapons, aid and all kinds of training of officers so that the whole Establishment is considered really an extension of Washington. So you have a Philippine military which carries out the advice of the Pentagon with the local supervision by Arroyo’s henchmen.

And so the present regime relies on the military and bureaucracy to maintain the neo-colonial order, with the support of a tiny fraction of the elite. Evidently the elite bloc is divided and we will witness more and more the signs of intra-elite conflict in this May election, which in one aspect is really a competition among sections of the elite. Obviously the Arroyo clique doesn’t have the full and unconditional support of the business and the landlord class, riven as they are by antagonisms at every level. Meanwhile, because of that her rule has become desperate and precarious, which is why she is killing, kidnapping and arresting her critics and that is where we are now, that is why the People’s Tribunal, heeding the appeal of Filipino organizations, is trying the Arroyo regime for its massive human-rights violations with the support of the US, that is why I think it is very crucial historic event and I think the Filipinos who are here have united together with the help of the solidarity of the Europeans and people around the world, including Bishop Tutu of South Africa who unreservedly endorsed the principles of this tribunal… We are here trying to mobilize the world community to express outrage at the barbaric rule of the Arroyo government backed by the Bush administration—an insult and offense to all civilized peoples everywhere.

Sonny, what could be the reason why there is much less outrage over the killings now than there was at the very end of the Marcos dictatorship?

Well, I venture the opinion that there were all kinds of atrocities during the Marcos dictatorship but I think quantitatively it did not reach the proportion that it has in this current dispensation. Second, perhaps there is much more fear among certain sectors of the citizenry that if they express open criticism against Arroyo regime, they would be killed or forcibly disappeared. A third reason, I think, the ruling class, part of the ruling class is also afraid if they openly and much more strongly express opposition to the Arroyo regime, the Left or what we might call the popular insurgency, that is, the national-democratic insurgency would become more powerful and would take over, and so there is some anxiety among the relatively secure middle strata –how infinitely precarious is their status in the midst of the global crisis of capital – and, of course, among the comprador and tributary classes that the insurgency would benefit from the destabilization of the Arroyo government.

As you know, despite the counter-“insurgency” plans of various administrations, from Aquino to Ramos, Estrada and now Arroyo, the insurgency (including the Moro struggle for self-determination) has continued to grow, it suffered a bit under the Aquino regime, but it has rebounded because…well, because many people feel that there is no solution, no legal or peaceful solution – which can only do so much, given the fascistic and terrorist framework of elite thinking – except through a radical change of the whole system. So I think that explains one of the reasons why there has been no open support from the vacillating middle-strata. But, again, this is a matter of timing, susceptible to sudden and unpredictable shifts in the alignment of political forces.

The second reason is that after 9/11, we have been in a period of extreme reaction, that is to say the US supports the Arroyo regime with its systematic extrajudicial killings – well, there is a deliberate policy to demonize the resistance, the popular forces under the slogan of “communists as terrorists,” therefore open to brutal treatment by the State. There is a recent bill that was passed, the Anti-Terror Bill, euphemistically called “Human Security Act,” which is patterned after the USA Patriot Act that Arroyo will use to justify what she is doing now, and more after July. Dr. Carol Araullo, chairperson of Bayan (Bagong Alysansang Makabayan or New Patriotic Allianc), has described this legislation as a “license to kill” dissenters and all advocates of participatory democracy.

So I think, in a way, the fear is there, the division among the ruling classes, the hesitancy among the middle strata to join and express more public opposition [the mass indignation at this May’s electoral cheating may indicate the beginning of a shift in the political climate]. But I think, there is a tendency, I mean, up to now as we are speaking, there is a strong public consensus against Arroyo’s human rights violations. Even among the traditional opposition [note the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in favor of the Batasan 6] and some sectors of the business class because they see that the more the abuses by the military and the police are exposed and criticized, the more the prospect for investments and business may suffer. So in terms of practical reasons, part of the ruling class would like Arroyo removed and they are supporting this democratic movement to get rid of the military abuses under Arroyo as well as the corruption which has become institutionalized as a way of life, a standard modus operandi – of course, it has always been in this neo-colonial order, but perhaps not so vulgarized or normalized without delicadeza.

In fact people have become nostalgic – they say that Marcos looks good now that Arroyo is around because people always forget the miserable times, the painful experiences. Of course under Marcos it was very harsh and you know, brutalizing (have you seen Lino Brocka’s Ora Pro Nobis, a film which is still publicly banned?), but now they feel they are facing a government which (unlike that of Marcos who was able to some extent rein in the military) is beholden to the military, or manipulated by a few thoroughly corrupt officials – anyway, it seems that the military has more say in the Arroyo regime than before. And so, we see the making of a fascist militaristic regime whose evil, I think, most Europeans would understand, given their historic experience. We Filipinos are just beginning to learn the lessons of the ordeals we suffered under the Marcos dictatorship.

Whatever you think was left out, please feel free to make additional comments or add what you consider to be of importance.

Being in Europe, one always has the impression that one can be more free here, relatively speaking. Well, I am a Filipino residing in the U.S. which is now (according to Noam Chomsky) one if not the leading terrorist state in the world… I am referring specifically to the Bush administration…coming to Europe is a kind of moving to a place which has more space, let us say, fresh air. Maybe this is a temporary illusion, as love for an ideal often proves to be…. Nonetheless we are hopeful that even in the Netherlands where some of our compatriots have been labelled as terrorists – I think we are receiving generous expressions of support from ordinary citizens and progressive circles. So I think Europe – at least, some communities here may still preserve and practice a tradition of humanist thought and conduct that may give migrant Filipinos, not just the activists, more encouragement and hope. With the help of the solidarity of our European friends we can exert more pressure on the U.S. government (which has now become the most backward politically) to stop aiding the illegitimate Arroyo government from brutalizing Filipinos.

Living in the “belly” of the imperial beast, we Filipinos in the U.S. are confronted with class and racial violence every day. Opposition to the repressive laws of the USA Patriot Act and to the ongoing war is weak, at this current conjuncture, and the left or progressive organizations have not yet fully recovered from decades of neoconservative, rightist devastation of the welfare State. The mass media is controlled by the corporate globalizing elite intent on advancing U.S. military and political hegemony on everyone through pre-emptive strikes, smart bombs, nuclear threats, economic blackmail, and so on. And so progress here is like the “old mole” burrowing underground, in the belly of the leviathan monster – to mix Marx’s and Jose Marti’s famous metaphors. Contributed to(Bulatlat.com)

· See the following online resources:
<http://www.countercurrents.org/juan150507.htm>
<http://www.indymedia.le/article/82578>
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/sanjuan180207.html>
<http://radicalnotes.com /content/view/48/39>

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