Philippines: Historical Significance of the September 21 Protests and Prospects Beyond
The Communist Party of the Philippines has issued a statement on the protests of the 21st of September. This is a summarization, you can read the whole statement here:
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) defines the recent nationwide protests as being of “profound historical significance”, and goes on to put the mass demonstrations and protests into a broader historical perspective, describing the current corrupt government and the history of struggle that led up to these protests, and how learning from history is the only way to make strides in the struggle. They also emphasize the need for revolutionaries to harden their resolve, and to educate the masses and expand the revolutionary organizations in order to realize the people’s aspiration for revolutionary change.
The protests started as a growing denouncement of the ever-growing corruption scandals of Marcos Jr. and his government and capital cohorts, particularly the government having enabled and funded the anomalous flood control and other infrastructure projects, in exchange for political patronage and billions of pesos in kickbacks. Marcos’ thievery has started to unravel with reports of him and Sara Duterte receiving millions in “campaign contributions” from contractors, later rewarded with large government contracts. When the typhoon hit the Philippines and the result of this blatant corruption was evident for all to see, the anger of the people exploded.
The mass actions “saw the widespread participation of students and youth”, inspired by the “recent demonstrations of young people across Indonesia and Nepal, and earlier, in Kenya and several countries in Africa over the same issues of government corruption of high bureaucrats, gross social inequity, grave injustices and political repression”. CPP states that the youth was joined in the protests by many other groups “fed up with the malignant system”.
Marcos ordered the police to quell the protests, and with brutal force and repression, they arbitrarily arrested around two hundred protesters, with scores suffering injuries from police manhandling.
The demonstrations falls on the 53rd anniversary of the declaration of martial law by Ferdinand Marcos. The CPP explains that “This is a manifestation of how the Filipino people have not forgotten the abuse of power and thievery under the 14-year dictatorship of the Marcoses. The rallies are a reaffirmation of their determination to resist the legacy of corruption and repression that has been passed on to Marcos Jr.”
CPP states that the massive demonstrations of September 21st mark a strong resurgence of the mass protest movement “with the national democratic forces at the core”. These are the biggest demonstrations since the 2013 and the CPP reaffirms that this is profoundly significant because it comes after relentless efforts by state security forces to repress the dissenting voices in the country. This massive demonstrations are a product of “both the objective conditions of economic and political crisis, and the painstaking work of patriotic and democratic organized forces”.
CPP states that the “widespread protests can accumulate so much strength that it can turn into a massive people’s upheaval and topple the Marcoses and Dutertes and all their accomplices from power”. The CPP reminds that the “Filipino people have twice exercised such power, in the EDSA uprisings of 1986 and 2001.”
CPP goes on to state: “The protests against corruption will gain even greater strength as more sectors join in, especially the workers, the semi-proletarian masses of unemployed in the communities and peasants masses in the countryside. They are the ones who make up the majority of the people. It is a certainty that they will rise up in numbers as they become more and more exposed to cultural and education activities that link the outstanding issues of bureaucrat capitalism and corruption to their concrete problems of low wages, unemployment, land grabbing, and economic dispossession.”
According to the CPP, the widespread protests “have further strengthened the resolve of revolutionaries. They must work vigorously to conduct political education and expand the different underground revolutionary organizations of the National Democratic Front. Red fighters of the New People’s Army (NPA) are also inspired by the mass demonstrations and are even more determined to wage people’s war in order to realize the people’s aspiration for revolutionary change”.
