(Eagle News) — Communist Party of the Philippines founding chair Jose Maria Sison on Tuesday, July 24, trashed President Rodrigo Duterte’s third State of the Nation Address, saying it does “not present the true state of the nation.”
In a statement posted in his Facebook account, Sison called Duterte a “tyrant” for his statement against human rights advocates who criticize his war on drugs.
“True to form as a tyrant, he says brutishly that the war will not be sidelined and will be as relentless and chilling as from the beginning. He promotes the worst of criminality by turning police officers into kidnappers and murderers and corrupting them with rewards of cash and promotions in rank,” Sison said.
Sison also noted that Duterte “declares grandiloquently that justice will catch up with those who steal government funds,” but alleged “his closes allies, the Marcoses, Arroyos and Estradas.,” were the “biggest plunderers.”
He added corruption was “now rampant from the level of the Office of the President and his Cabinet down to lower levels.”
“The ease of doing business, without vetting or without proper public bidding, has been abused for the purpose of graft and corruption. His friends have been caught stealing public funds but mostly they go scotfree and when removed from office they are reassigned to other lucrative positions,” he said.
As for Marawi, he said Duterte “sheds crocodile tears” over the “destruction of lives and properties.”
He said it was the chief executive “who ordered the devastation of Marawi Ciy and refused to heed the advice of the Sultan and leading families of the city to negotiate with the Maute group and Abu Sayaff group.”
He said Duterte “used the siege of Marawi to proclaim Mindanao-wide martial law in order to attack other communities and grab the land for foreign and oligarchic interests in mining, plantations and logging.”
“Now, he makes a new false promise to fulfill the promise of Mindanao with public funds which have not at all flowed for the urgent and adequate reconstruction and rehabilitation of Marawi City,” he said.
Independent foreign policy
Sison also assailed Duterte’s statement the country would continue to follow an “independent foreign policy” in dealing with nations, noting that the chief executive “has retained all the treaties, agreements and arrangements that allow the US to dominate the Philippines economically, politically, militarily and culturally.”
He said Duterte was “in fact traitorously selling out the sovereign rights of the Philippines over the West Philippine Sea to China and plunging the Philippines into a debt trap in connection with overpriced infrastructure projects,” saying he “has not dared to file a diplomatic protest against the Chinese encroachment on and militarization of the West Philippine Sea with the use of artificial islands.”
“He does not say much about solving the problems of underdevelopment, mass poverty, unemployment, soaring prices of basic commodities and services. He merely repeats a series of generalized promises, like looking after the welfare of the OFWs and seeking the pertinent agreements with their host countries, abolishing contractualization and establishing the Coconut Farmers Trust Fund and adopting a land use policy which is most likely to favor corporate and bureaucrat land grabbers at the expense of the indigenous people and the peasant masses,” Sison said, noting that the chief executive did not mention Proclamation 360 that terminated the peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in November last year in his speech.
He said this was proof Duterte “does not want to address the roots of the armed conflict through comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms in order to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace.”
“It is the patriotic and progressive forces and the broad masses of the people uniting and rallying against the tyrannical, traitorous and corrupt Duterte that present the true state of the nation,” he added.
Peace talks with the Communist rebels were supposed to resume in June, but the government suspended these, citing the need for a public consultation.