BY THE PARTIDO NG MANGGAGAWANG PILIPINO
(Philippines Workers Party, PMP)
MANILA, July 27 — The rank-and-file soldiers, junior officers from the rank of lieutenant-colonel down, have taken over the Ayala center in Makati, the heart of the business district in the capital Manila.
The soldiers have put forward a list of grievances charging the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo with:
- corruption;
- gun-running;
- plotting to declare martial law in August;
- plotting the "terrorist" bombings in Davao in order to get US military aid;
- forcing rank-and-file soldiers to carry out terrorist bombings in the southern islands of Mindanao to frame the Moro Islamic Liberation Front as "terrorists"; and
- low wages and massive wage differentials in the military.
The PMP declares that the grievances of these rank-and-file soldiers are legitimate and must be given a hearing. We also demand that the charges against the government are properly investigated.
The charges show that the real terrorists are the regime of President Arroyo and her gang of imperialist backers in the Bush administration.
July 28 marks the opening of the Philippines Congress after a period of recession, when President Arroyo will be delivering her State Of the Nation Address. President Arroyo must address these charges in her address.
The peoples mass organisations are calling for a full mobilisation of their forces outside Congress on July 28. These mobilisations will continue the next day.
The Congress session should be opened up to allow the people's organisations to enter and deliberate the charges and the political and social crisis facing the country.
We have also heard reports that the Bush administration has warned the soldiers against their actions, thus threatening intervention. We have also heard reports that the Australian government could use the excuse that their embassy staff are in the area cordoned off by the soldiers as a pretext for some form of intervention.
We warn against any form of escalating imperialist intervention. It's up to the Philippines workers and poor masses and their mass organisations, along with their oppressed and exploited ordinary soldier comrades, to sort out the mess created by a government that has kowtowed to imperialist interests. It's the Arroyo regime and its imperialist backers who are responsible for the economic and social crisis that increases the suffering of the people.
The only way the economic and social problems of the people can be solved is through genuine peoples power which places the people and their mass organisations in the leadership of the country.
From Green Left Weekly, July 30, 2003.
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