It is high time to dismantle Duterte’s tyrannical rule
Duterte will crumble into pieces with the growing rage and resistance of the Filipino people.
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte was correct amid his imbecilic and vapid character when he said in a past interview that in the Philippines, selected media agencies are used by elite owners to protect their own interest. It’s just that, he clumsily nocked and drew the arrow, then loosed it back to himself.
“It’s not a question of press freedom,” Duterte told reporters. “It’s a question of abuse and protection by the elite of this country who hold the power. It’s about time you, the rich. Son of a bitch, stop your abuses. You are using the media,”
It is Duterte who is a son of a bitch. He is asking those in power to stop their abuses when it is himself addicted to power who has been extremely abusive to the Filipino people. He has his army of media in the face of paid trolls and pseudo-journalists which he uses to spread black propaganda and to cover up all of his grave sins against the Filipino people.
Indeed, the recent attacks on the Philippine press are not just an attack to news media organizations critical to Duterte’s regime, but a clear abuse of the people in power to silence his opposition and to further embolden his paid charlatan army of writers and trolls for the fruition of their propaganda machinery.
As a trying hard copy of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, he is attempting to close and shut down various media entities, including at least 30 radio stations in the Davao region, to forward his own propaganda machinery in being at the forefront of idolizing him like a god and giving justice to his anti-Filipino policies.
It is ironic that the Securities and Exchange Commission, a clear lackey of the Duterte regime, cited the Foreign Restriction of the Philippine Constitution in revoking Rappler’s license to operate. Here is a pro-foreign capitalist government pushing for the passage of laws to completely open the local foreign economy to foreign plunder while digging in the nitty-gritty of the constitution to use against those critical to his regime.
In fact, ever since Duterte assumed presidency, his regime has been consistent in attacking the Philippine press. When he declared martial law in Mindanao, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) entirely controlled the news flow to conceal the truth behind the “terrorist siege” along with his armed forces’ rowdy killings and robbery.
The Philippines remain the most notorious in media killings in the Asia-Pacific region. Duterte made a cryptic and alarming comment in 2016 that proved to be more than just words: “Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination, if you’re a son of a bitch.”
Political persecutions which targeted alternative media practitioners have also risen to alarming proportions. Sherwin de Vera, an environmental journalist who writes a column for the Northern Dispatch Weekly, was illegally arrested for trumped-up charges of rebellion. Sherwin was eventually freed. Meanwhile, Kathyrine Cortez of radiobroadcast outfit Radyo ni Juan was consistently harassed and tagged as a supporter of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Student publications are no exception. A member publication of the Guild reported last September 2017 that they received threats from the AFP that they are part of a watchlist of counterinsurgency program Oplan Kapayapaan.
Duterte rejects all kinds of detractors. The silencing of the press is vital in his establishment of a fascist dictatorship. This is all simultaneously happening while thousands of Filipinos are killed in his drug war campaign, counterinsurgency program Oplan Kapayapaan, and martial law rule in Mindanao.
As a lapdog of the United States, Duterte is undeniably the number one terrorist in the country. And the Filipino people have no other path to tread but the route to an intensified militancy and struggle. The Filipino people should dismantle, resist and frustrate his repressive regime.
Duterte should tighten his grip while he is still in power because the growing and strengthening mass movement will repel and defy his tyrannical rule.
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