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Post by dodger on Mar 13, 2014 13:16:15 GMT
www.philippinerevolution.net/publications/ang_bayan/20140307/block-the-us-aquino-regime-s-cha-cha-schemeBlock the US-Aquino regime’s cha-cha scheme
The Filipino people face a great battle in their historic defense of the nation’s sovereignty. Their enemy in this battle is the puppet Aquino regime which is now going all-out in pushing for changes in the provisions of the reactionary 1987 constitution in accordance with US imperialist desires.
Aquino has pulled all stops in using government funds to fuel the cha-cha train.
The entire people must take action and unite to block and derail this scheme by the US-Aquino regime whose end is no other than to condemn the Philippines to new depths of foreign exploitation and plunder.
In just two weeks and after only a few hearings, Aquino’s minions at the Lower House of Congress passed a resolution calling for constitutional change. Aquino’s people hope that the cha-cha resolution will also be rapidly approved by the House in plenary, just as laws and resolutions pushed by Aquino had likewise been passed posthaste in exchange for fund pledges in the form of projects.
The US government has been brazenly intervening in goading the Philippines into amending the 1987 constitution and has imposed this on the Aquino regime as a condition for joining the US Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a pact being forged by the US that would lock the Philippines in an unequal trade relationship with the US. The Aquino regime wants to make sure that the cha-cha train runs full speed so it could brag about it to its master Barack Obama who is scheduled to visit this April.
Once the Aquino regime’s cha-cha scheme pushes through, foreign big capitalists will be given free rein to own land and run their businesses within the country. This can only worsen foreign domination over the economy and pave the way for widespread mining operations and the plunder of the country’s resources by foreign big capitalists and their big comprador bourgeois cohorts.
Aquino’s cha-cha scheme will further impoverish the toiling masses, worsening the widespread displacement of the peasant masses who will further be deprived of land to till, and aggravating the eviction of minority peoples from their ancestral lands. Already massive landgrabbing by big landlords in connivance with big foreign agribusiness companies and vast export-oriented plantations will become even more widespread.
The conditions of the Filipino worker masses will also worsen. It is a declared objective of Aquino’s cha-cha to attract foreign investments. Along with granting foreign capital the entire gamut of investment and property rights, the ruling state will further pull down workers’ wages even if these are already severely inadequate to support the daily needs of a typical family.
Local capital will be further decimated. For the past several decades, areas of the economy where national bourgeois capital and operations could still exist have progressively dwindled. Local capital has virtually been wiped out amid the all-out investment and trade liberalization of the past three decades. With the cha-cha plans, one can expect the eventual extinction of the local bourgeoisie or its complete devourment by foreign capital.
To make the cha-cha scheme palatable, the Aquino regime has been claiming that the key to economic progress is to attract foreign investments. This justification has been bandied about for more than 50 years by reactionary economists and the IMF-World Bank. But it has become crystal clear that the pro-imperialist economists’ repeated claim that the massive entry of foreign investments is the solution to widespread unemployment is a big lie.
This was the same reasoning invoked by the US in 1946 when it pushed the Parity Rights amendment granting equal rights to foreigners to own land and businesses in the Philippines. In fact, Aquino is merely restoring Parity Rights to Americans and other foreign big capitalists. Aquino’s cha-cha measures constitute a big step backward, and are further worsening the semicolonial status of Philippine economy and society. It will aggravate the backward and foreign capital-dependent agrarian economy that is tied to the crisis-ridden international capitalist system.
The cha-cha scheme will further exacerbate the neocolonial status of the reactionary state. The ruling classes will become even more dependent on foreign capital, leading to an even tighter stranglehold by foreign monopolies on the ruling landlord-big comprador bourgeois state.
The forthcoming battle against the cha-cha scheme is indeed a historic one, ushering in a major shift in the country’s economic and political course.
The Filipino people must fight a great battle against the US-Aquino regime’s cha-cha scheme. A widespread political education campaign must be launched in the next few months to revive the spirit of patriotism, shatter the illusion of neoliberalism and expose the damage to the economy and the people’s livelihoods wrought by decades of implementing the policies of liberalization, privatization, deregulation and denationalization.
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Post by dodger on Apr 3, 2014 10:59:04 GMT
National Sovereignty and Patrimony WeekApril 03, 2014   Communist Party of the Philippines
In the face of heightening US intervention, increasing presence of US and allied foreign troops, intensifying foreign economic plunder and worsening puppetry of the Aquino regime to the US government, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) calls on the Filipino people and all their patriotic, democratic, progressive and revolutionary forces to launch a widespread campaign to banner the call for national liberation. Let us declare April 22-30 as National Sovereignty and Patrimony Week to jumpstart this intensified propaganda and education campaign to drum up the patriotic demands of the Filipino people.
Let us recall the Filipino people’s heroes in ther struggle for national independence, from Andres Bonifacio to Macli-ing Dulag, from Amado V. Hernandez to Crispin “Ka Bel” Beltran, from Ka Bert Olalia to Ka Roger, from Teresa Magbanua to Juvy Capion, and all those who have died upholding national freedom.
The National Sovereignty and Patrimony Week will cover the scheduled swing-by visit of US imperialist chieftain Barack Obama. It will also cover the upcoming anniversary of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). It covers as well as the death anniversary of Macli-ing Dulag and the celebrations of the International Earth Day which underscore the issue of increasing foreign plunder of the country’s unrenewable resources and the resulting worsening state of environmental destruction.
The struggle to uphold national sovereignty and patrimony is set to become one of the Filipino people’s central points of resistance in the rest of the year and in succeeding years as they amplify their demand for the ouster of the current puppet Aquino regime.
This struggle currently involves:
(a) opposing the planned presentation or signing of the Agreement for Enhanced Defense Cooperation which will allow the US to carve military enclaves in the Philippines in order to maintain its permament presence and increase the number of its troops to several thousand;
(b) opposing increasing US military interventionism in providing the puppet regime with military funding and arms support, conducting surveillance operations, providing logistical support and direct participation during combat operations, conducting bombing runs;
© opposing the planned amendment of the 1987 constitution (“chacha” or charter change) which seeks to remove restrictions against foreign ownership of land and business operations in the Philippines;
(d) opposing the neoliberal policies of privatization, deregulation, liberalization and denationalization, especially the Aquino regime’s crony-controlled Public-Private Partnership projects;
(e) opposing the Aquino regime’s priorities that help generate an empty economic bubble of office space, mall and condominium construction but refuse to carry out genuine land reform and national industrialization
Let us vigorously push for the Filipino people’s fight against the US-Aquino regime’s schemes to further subject the country’s patrimony to foreign plunder by amending the 1987 constitution to allow foreign big capitalists to own land and run their wholly- or majority-owned enterprises to the further detriment of local capital; and to allow the US military to establish exclusive enclaves within camps of the local armed forces, carry out interventionism and make use of the Philippines as a base of its aggression in the Asia-Pacific region.
We must set the spotlight on the prevailing grave socio-economic conditions that is a result of US-imposed neoliberal policies which have brought about unprecendented hardships on the people, including the deregulation of the oil industry, the further liberalization of the power industry, the privatization of water services, the use of public funds to augment crony investments in tollways and other infrastructure projects and so on.
We must develop strong national criticism of the Aquino regime and all previous puppet regimes over the past seven decades for their failure to develop a national industrial base and independent economy capable of producing the needs for domestic consumption and production and sustaining employment. We must expose the import-dependent, export-oriented and debt-financed production that oppresses the workers with low wages and the peasants with widespread landgrabbing.
We must condemn the reactionary puppet state for subjecting the country’s national patrimony to foreign plunder, allowing foreign big capitalists to siphon out unrenewable mineral resources; and grab tens of thousands of hectares of land and carve out large tracts into chemical-fed plantations which cause massive soil erosion and the poisoning of rivers and streams.
Like the foreign-owned semi-manufacturing plants in the so-called “economic zones,” the foreign-owned mines and big logging and plantation operations are interested only in exploiting the cheap labor and cheap raw materials in the Philippines. These do not serve to develop local production and fail to generate a substantial number of jobs correspondent to the extent of its super-profits.
We must sharply criticize the Aquino regime for allowing the American and its partner Chinese big banks and finance oligarchs to generate a bubble of office-space and condominium construction and the artificial expansion of the local stock market without expansion in the real economy. Aquino has refused to carry out land reform and national industrialization, dismissing these as “ideologically charged concepts.” We must hold Aquino responsible for the Philippine bubble economy that is bound to burst within or right after his term.
We must aim to reinvigorate the Filipino people’s sense of patriotism and national dignity by carrying out, among others, a sustained campaign to review Philippine history from the nationalist point of view.
Since 2001, the puppet reactionaries and the US imperialists have carried out an all-out ideological offensive to portray US basing and interventionism as a necessary element in the so-called “war against terror.” The aim of the US and its local puppets is to counter the Filipino people’s strong sense of nationalism in opposing US military bases which they demonstrated in massive protests in 1991 demanding the abrogation of the 1946 Military Bases Agreement.
From 2002 onwards, the US will station in Zamboanga City a 600 (later 700) -strong contingent of interventionist troops from the US Pacific Command under the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines (JSOTF-P). The JSOTF-P has since been involved in surveillance, joint trainings, combat operations and bombing runs with the AFP. To cover up and make US basing and interventionism more palatable, this contingent has actively engaged in public relations activities, carrying out token school construction and village electrification projects, making use of loose change from the overflowing funds of the US military.
By the end of the 2000s, the US would become isolated in the conduct of its “war on terror” characterized by widespread abuses of human rights, the continued occupation of and defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan. Under the Obama regime, the US imperialists would come up with new excuses such as “freedom of navigation” and “democratic regime change” to justify the expansion of its military presence and interventionism.
Since 2011, the US-directed Aquino regime has played an important role in the “US pivot” towards Asia to provide the justification for the plan to deploy 60% of its overseas naval forces and 50% of its land-based troops in the Asia Pacific. Aquino received briefing by US officials aboard US warship USS Carl Vinson in May 2011 afterwhich made noise of asserting the Philippine claim over the South China Sea land formations and called for US military support. Henceforth, the Aquino regime will allow more and more US warships to dock in Philippine ports and sail by the disputed territories, effectively provoking China to become more assertive in defining and defending its territories and making incursions into the UN-defined exclusive economic territory of the Philippines.
We must expose, debunk and oppose the claim of the Aquino regime that it is defending Philippine national sovereignty in allowing the US military to maintain its presence in Philippine seas and have restricted access to Philippine facilities in order to confront China’s aggressive assertion of its claim over the South China Sea land formations.
Aquino’s assertion is no different from the justification of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo for welcoming US colonial troops to supposedly fight the Spanish colonialists. The result will not be different: through its military, the US will maintain its power and dominance over the Philippines and make use of the country for its strategic economic and military interests.
We must assert and prove that upholding and defending national sovereignty and national patrimony can only be carried out as an independent act of a country. To claim that one’s country can assert its sovereignty with the help of a superpower is to beg to become a protectorate of that power.
We must be able to gather the united voice of the Filipino people to oppose the Agreement for Enhanced Defense Cooperation being forged by the US and the Aquino governments which will allow the US to circumvent prohibitions in the 1987 constitution against foreign military facilities. Let us generate a strong national demand to abrogate the Mutual Defense Treaty (1956), the Visiting Forces Agreement (1998) and the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement (2002).
We must relentlessly oppose US interventionism in the internal affairs of the Philippines. We must expose how the US embassy operates as the center of political power of the reactionary state in the Philippines were policies, laws and programs emanate. We must expose how the US military directs the Philippine military in the conduct of the counterrevolutionary war Oplan Bayanihan, which was patterned after the US Counterinsurgency Guide of 2009.
We must shatter the illusion of a “globalized” world being promoted by the imperialists’ ideological and cultural agencies which seek to erase the national boundaries of the third world countries and subject these to military intervention and economic plunder. We must assert the necessity of achieving national sovereignty and defending the country’s patrimony as the key factors for securing the country’s future as a modern and progressive state amid the global crisis of capitalism.
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Post by dodger on Apr 6, 2014 19:20:05 GMT
NPA rebels raid mining firm in Southern Philippines
Posted By Mindanao Examiner | Saturday, April 05, 2014 10:16:30 PM DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 5, 2014) – New People’s Army rebels on Saturday raided a mining firm in the southern Philippine province of Agusan del Norte, reports said.
Reports said the rebels swooped down on Philippine Alstron Mining Company on the village of Tamamarkay in Tubay town and overpowered the security guards without firing a single shot before they torched several trucks and other heavy equipment.
The rebels also seized at least 6 shot guns and short firearms from the company’s security arsenal. There were no reports of casualties.
The raid came following threats made by the NPA on mining firms operating in the southern Philippines.
Just last month, rebel forces attacked a police base and government troops in Davao del Sur’s Matanao as punishment for their “reign of terror” against indigenous tribes and other communities opposing mining operations in the province.
Dencio Madrigal, a spokesman for the NPA-Valentine Palamine Command, said the deadly attacks were a punishment for police and military units protecting Glencore Xstrata. He accused the mining firm of exploiting nearly 100,000 hectares of ancestral lands of indigenous Lumad Blaans tribes, and peasants in the region.
Jorge Madlos, a regional rebel spokesman, also warned mining firms and fruit plantations in the region, saying military operations in Mindanao have escalated and have become more extensive with the aim to thwart the ever growing and widespread people’s protest against destructive mining operations and plantations.
Madlos said among their targets are Russell Mines and Minerals, Apex Mining Corp. and Philco in southern Mindanao; Dolefil, Del Monte and Sumifru plantations in northern Mindanao; TVI Resource Development Philippines in western Mindanao whose operations inside the ancestral domain of indigenous Subanen and Moro tribes are being opposed by villagers.
NPA and Moro rebels had previously attacked TVI Resources in Zamboanga province.
“If one recalls, more than 400 families were forced to evacuate their ancestral lands because of TVI and the ruthless military operations that ensued to protect it in Buug, Zamboanga del Sur. In order to defend the people’s human rights and general wellbeing, the NPA launched tactical offensives against TVI as well as against units of the AFP-PNP-CAFGU protecting it, such as the ambush on February 2012 that hit elements of the army intelligence group operating on the behest of TVI and the imposition of the local government to allow TVI mining operations on Subanen ancestral lands is one of the bases the NPA raided on April 9, 2012 the PNP station in Tigbao, Zamboanga del Sur,” Madlos said.
NPA rebels also intercepted a group of army soldiers who were using a borrowed truck from TVI and disarmed them in Diplahan town in Zamboanga Sibugay province two years ago. The rebels also burned the truck before releasing the soldiers.
“In view of these events, the NDFP in Mindanao calls upon the Lumad and Moro peoples, peasants and workers, religious and other sectors to further strengthen their unity and their courage to oppose the interests of imperialist mines and plantations, which are exceedingly damaging to Mindanao, to its people and to the environment. We call upon the units of the NPA in Mindanao to be ever more daring in their defense of people’s interests against the greed and rapacity of the local ruling classes and their imperialist master,” Madlos said.
TVI Resource Development Philippines has repeatedly denied all accusations against them. It recently ended its gold mining operation in Mount Canatuan in Zamboanga del Norte’s Siocon town after several years of operations and now has a gold-silver project in the town of Bayog in Zamboanga del Sur province and a nickel plant in Agusan del Norte province. (Mindanao Examiner)
...................................................................................................... Residents near the mining firm claimed they were fast asleep and did not hear the gunfire. |
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Post by dodger on Apr 7, 2014 4:02:36 GMT
Philippine rebels hold soldier as ‘prisoner of war’
Posted By Mindanao Examiner | Sunday, April 06, 2014 11:46:02 PM  DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 6, 2014) – Communist rebels on Sunday said they captured a government soldier and declared him a prisoner of war in the southern Philippines, a spokesman for the New People’s Army said.
Aris Francisco said rebel forces captured Sergeant Jeric Bucio Curay at a checkpoint in the village of Andap in Compostela Valley’s Laak town on April 4. Curay, a member of the 72nd Infantry Battalion, was travelling on a motorcycle when he was captured.
Francisco, whose group operates in the provinces of Compostela Valley, Davao and Agusan, said the soldier is currently being interrogated to determine his involvement in “counterrevolutionary and anti-people” activities in Laak town.
“Consistent with its practice of lenient treatment towards POWs, the NPA custodial force ensures the safety and security of POW Curay as he undergoes an investigation for his involvement in counterrevolutionary and anti-people activities in Laak,” he said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
Francisco said the arrest of Curay coincided with the NPA’s renewed campaign against the 72nd Infantry Battalion whom he accused along with the 60th Infantry Battalion of protecting big logging firms “which have wiped out the forests of Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley and Agusan del Sur provinces
He said the wanton destruction of remaining forest cover and unchecked commercial logging in the provinces have greatly impoverished indigenous Lumad tribesmen and peasants and have made them more vulnerable to environmental disasters and climate change.
Francisco also accused politicians and policemen as among those behind indiscriminate logging operations in eastern Mindanao. “They stand to face NPA sanction against environmental plunderers and destroyers of people’s livelihood,” he said.
“Aside from being goons for logging companies, the 60th Infantry Battalions and the 72nd Infantry Battalion are actively holding checkpoints to harass residents suspected as (members of) revolutionary forces; the soldiers take pictures of these civilians,” he said.
He said troops harassed peasants by destroying their crops. He said soldiers also killed two peasants in previous military operations. “In the face of these abuses, the NPA has intensified its tactical offensives against the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” Francisco said. “The NPA shall persevere in punishing logging lords and their AFP protectors. The arrest of Curay and other tactical offensives should serve a strong warning against enemy troops that continue to protect exploiters of remaining natural resources at the expense of environmental preservation and people’s welfare.”
The rebels have previously taken soldiers as prisoners, but eventually freed them on humanitarian grounds. There was no immediate statement from the military on Francisco’s accusations, but army officials usually deny all allegations by the rebel group, which has been fighting for decades now for the establishment of a communist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner) |
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Post by dodger on Apr 7, 2014 7:22:13 GMT
NPA holds Army Sgt. as POW, warns Big 4 logging lords in Davao Norte, Comval and Agusan Sur
April 06, 2014 Aris Francisco
Spokesperson
NPA Comval-North Davao-South Agusan Sub-region Sub-regional Command
Red fighters apprehended in its checkpoint, Sgt. Jeric Bucio Curay (serial number 803477) of the 72nd Infantry Battalion at 8am April 4, 2014 in Brgy. Andap, Laak, Compostela Valley. Curay, who came from a military detachment in Brgy. Panuramin and was riding his motorcycle when he was arrested, is now being held as Prisoner of War (POW) under the custody of the Comval-North Davao South Agusan Sub-regional Command- New People’s Army.
Consistent with its practice of lenient treatment towards POWs, the NPA custodial force ensures the safety and security of POW Curay as he undergoes an investigation for his involvement in counterrevolutionary and anti-people activities in Laak. The arrest of an enlisted personnel of the 72nd IB is timed with the NPA’s renewed campaign against AFP units (the other one is the 60th IB) responsible for protecting big logging firms which have wiped out the forests of Davao del Norte, Compostela Valley and Agusan del Sur provinces. Wanton destruction of remaining forest cover and unchecked commercial logging in these areas have greatly impoverished Lumads and peasants and have made them more vulnerable to environmental disasters and climate change.
The NPA, likewise, warns the big 4 big loggers of these provinces to submit to the revolutionary government’s total log ban policy. Comval Gov. Arturo Uy is behind the Big 4 logging lords, namely, Laak Mayor Reynaldo Navarro, SPO3 Eduardo Bajalia of the Regional Intel Office, SPO Simplicio Samar and Ret. police officer Diosdado Wamilda.
In the boundary town of Loreto, Agusan del Sur, Mayor Dario Otaza and Gov. Edward Plaza are also behind the indiscriminate logging and continued destruction of forests. Thus, they stand to face NPA sanction against environmental plunderers and destroyers of people’s livelihood.
Aside from being goons for logging companies, the 60th IB and the 72nd IB are actively holding checkpoints in the areas to harass residents suspected as revolutionary forces; the soldiers take pictures of these civilians. In their active intelligence work, they also arrested a peasant and released him/her two days later. In their operations last January, they uprooted crops planted by the peasants. A joint operation of the 60th IB, 26th IB and 72nd IB also led to the killing of two peasants in Brgy. Kauswagan, Loreto.
In the face of these abuses, the NPA has intensified its tactical offensives against the AFP. In February, the NPA sniped against the 60th IB during its military operation in Brgy. Ampawid, Laak. Two soldiers were killed and one was wounded. Last month, the NPA has launched eight attritive actions. This month, the Red fighters have targeted a patrolling Cafgu and six detachments of the 72nd IB by holding checkpoints in km12 Brgy. Casoon in Monkayo town, Brgy. Titoy, Lubho and Panuramin in Laak town, Brgy. Kalyawa in Kapalong town and Km 19 in Veruela town, Agusan del Sur. These attritive actions have led to three AFP casualties.
The NPA shall persevere in punishing logging lords and their AFP protectors. The arrest of Curay and other tactical offensives should serve a strong warning against enemy troops that continue to protect exploiters of remaining natural resources at the expense of environmental preservation and people’s welfare. |
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Post by dodger on Dec 6, 2014 22:14:10 GMT
Useful survey of the sell-off of Britain, 2 Dec 2014
This William Podmore review is from: Private Island: Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else (Paperback)
Novelist and journalist James Meek outlines how foreign companies have taken over much of our infrastructure. This book comprises a series of studies – the post, the railways, water, energy, health and housing. He states, “It is not racism that makes the foreign identity of some of the owners of our privatised infrastructure objectionable. It’s the selling of taxation powers to foreign governments over whom we have even less democratic control than our own.”
Thatcher is to blame for letting foreign companies seize our national assets. Her aim was ‘to secure free movement of capital throughout the Community’. With that came the free movement of goods and the free movement of labour. Now the EU imposes these Thatcherite free trade policies on its members, and with TTIP wants to impose them on the whole world.
Royal Mail posties get on average £11.64 an hour in London. The privatised Dutch mail company TNT pays £7.10, on zero-hours contracts.
Meek points out that the West Coast Main Line is not on the West Coast and is not a line. It is a network of routes between London and Glasgow connecting them to Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and other cities. Railtrack paid its shareholders £3.8 billion in dividends and interest over five years, and then collapsed. The Railtrack fiasco “is a story, too, with wider implications about the kind of country that Britain has become: a country that has lost faith in its ability to design, make and build useful things, a country where the few who do still have that ability are underpaid, unrecognised, and unadmired.”
Water, like rail, was starved of investment before privatisation and still starved now. Governments have cut flood defences and encouraged building in flood-prone areas.
EDF, the French company, now one of the big six, owns the nuclear plants that provide a sixth of our electricity. Nuclear power has a seventh of the carbon emissions of gas per watt. But the EU wants a fifth of our power stations to close by the 2020s. A Labour energy minister said, “We couldn’t buy a French power station, and they could buy ours.” The EU’s competition authority took the decision on EDF’s bid. The EU forbade Britain’s competition authority to do so. Now foreign-owned electricity companies collect flat-rate taxes that hit the poorest hardest.
Our NHS is not safe in Labour’s hands. It introduced foundation trusts, and gave millions to private companies to run specialist clinics.
By 2012, only 1.7 million houses were still in council hands. Housing associations owned 2.4 million. 76 per cent of all bank loans go to property, 64 per cent of that to residential mortgages.
In Tower Hamlets, a fifth of all households are waiting for social housing. 10,000 are waiting for a one-bedroom flat, only 840 of which became available in 2012-13. Increasing demand does not lead to increased supply but to higher prices and rents. House prices tripled between 1997 and 2008. Average private-sector rents across England and Wales increased to a record £770 in October.
The government skewed the housing market by restricting supply (cutting two-thirds of the grant to housing associations to build) and by raising prices (through Help to Buy, which offers well-off people cheap loans to overbid for overpriced houses).
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