End the repression! Hold the Marcoses and Dutertes accountable for reviving the dark legacy of martial law!

UNITY STATEMENT
September 21 Committee

We mark this year’s anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s declaration of martial law with continued outrage over the persistent violations of human rights (HR), civil liberties and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) under the current regime of his son Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

We not only see martial law-era programs and policies rehashed, such as Masagana 99, the nutribun, the Bagong Lipunan hymn. Worse, we see how impunity persists with deplorable human rights violations — — especially enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, and indiscriminate bombings and hamletting of communities — — attributable to military, paramilitary, police and shadowy death squads.

The abduction and continued disappearance of many activists call attention to this pattern of impunity. It is not by mere coincidence that the MTRCB slapped an “X” rating on Alipato at Muog, a documentary film on the enforced disappearance of activist Jonas Burgos, before reclassifying it as R-16 upon appeal.

We likewise decry the continued weaponization of the law through trumped-up criminal charges leading to unjust and indefinite imprisonment; dehumanization of illegal drugs users and small-time peddlers as crazed dregs of society; vilification of critics, dissenters, human rights defenders, social activists and development workers through red-tagging; demonization of revolutionaries as “terrorists” thus blocking the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations as a means of addressing the roots of armed conflict; the use of “tokhang” tactics to instill fear, harass and cow urban communities to submission; and suppressing access to information and using censorship to cover-up of violations of HR and IHL.

It angers us that hardly anyone is held accountable for these acts of tyranny despite changes of administration, much more now that the Marcoses are back in power, thanks to the Dutertes.

Impunity persists, with the complicity of the political and economic elite backed by the US government. Through such highly funded fascist creations such as the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), legal abominations such as the Anti Terrorism Law (ATL) and bloated military and police budgets, the people’s quest for democracy, social justice, human rights and peace is being thwarted as it was during martial law.

We call on our people to resist this state of repression. Let us exercise the full range of our rights and freedoms as guaranteed under the Constitution and various international covenants. Let us demand an end to tyranny and state terror.

Let us demand accountability first of all from Pres. Marcos Jr. for upholding his father’s fascist legacy while deceptively posing as an advocate of human rights in the international stage. Marcos Jr. should abolish Duterte’s notorious and blood-soaked NTF-ELCAC and provide assistance to the International Criminal Court in its effort to prosecute Duterte for his crimes.

Second, we demand accountability from Rodrigo Duterte and his accomplices for causing the deaths of tens of thousands in his fake drug war; for grievous violations of HR and IHL unleashed in the name of counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism; for the passage of the ATL; for establishing the corrupt and abusive NTF-ELCAC; and for sabotaging and scuttling the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. Most of all, the Dutertes should be held accountable for paving the way for the Marcos restoration.

It has been 52 years since that fateful day of September 21, 1972. Yet the struggle for justice and democracy is as urgent as ever. Tuloy ang laban! #

See full list of signatories here: https://docs.google.com/.../1AdtBnrZVhmklfBw5harfK.../edit