Vigilance and vigor in the time of Trump

The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) vows vigilance and vigor in its efforts and campaigns as US President Donald Trump, the new figurehead of US imperialism, has now assumed office.

While Trump’s inaugural address hints of a departure from the overarching policy of US market expansionism and military interventionism, the rhetoric he has adopted as early as the controversial US presidential race reveals that, above anything else, his platform is premised on a politics of exclusion—hounded by the shadow of massive disenfranchisement of groups and sectors that the US supposedly needs protection from.

NUPL, thus, sees Trump not as a departure from but a conjuncture of the US’ ruthless quest for economic dominance and military supremacy, charted by a constellation of proxy wars in different parts of the globe, the enforced economic backwardness of its trade “partners” in the developing world, and the systematic disenfranchisement of groups of people within its own borders.

The ranks of peoples’ lawyers remain vigilant in the face of expected attacks on human rights in the Philippines, where the claws of US hegemony remains latched; as well as in the United States and in other parts of the world, in solidarity with various peoples’ organizations.

With sustained vigor, NUPL continues to call for the abrogation of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement and all covenants enabling the presence of US troops in the country. It remains poised to defend the people’s democratic rights from threats posed by the skewed social order engendered by pervasive US influence over the Philippine economy.

NUPL vows vigilance and vigor at a time when the rhetoric used to supposedly capture popular imagination is peppered with the language of hate, fear and violence.

EPHRAIM B. CORTEZ, secretary general, CRISTINA YAMBOT, public information officer, National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, [email protected]