Anakbayan’s present for Duterte: challenges

As Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte gets ready to occupy Malacañang, Anakbayan calls on him to heed the Filipino people’s clamor for genuine change.

Duterte’s victory is a clear rejection of the government’s antipoor, antipeople program, policies and of the big business-landlord interests represented by the Aquino administration and Mar Roxas, the ruling Liberal Party presidential candidate. The stunning defeat of the ruling party’s standard-bearer, in spite of the blatant use of public funds and resources to secure an electoral win, shows the deep public disgust with the corruption, human rights abuses, incompetence and everything rotten that litter the “tuwid na daan.”

We challenge Duterte to give weight to this “protest vote” by carrying out his campaign pledge of punishing the corrupt, starting with outgoing President Aquino and Budget Secretary Butch Abad who plundered the public coffers through the pork barrel system.

Also, we counsel Duterte to avoid appointing tainted individuals who are associated with the rotten rule of the Aquino and Arroyo administrations and instead make true his campaign promise to appoint progressives to his Cabinet.

More importantly, we call on Duterte to resume, without delay, the peace negotiations between the National Democratic Front and the Philippine government, which has been stalled for 15 long years during the Aquino and Arroyo administrations.

We call for the immediate release of all 561 political prisoners, 82 of whom are suffering from ailments and 136 of whom are still in the prime of their youth. They are now languishing in jail just because of their political beliefs.

Anakbayan believes that just and lasting peace can be achieved not by rehashing the military solution preferred by previous administrations, but by addressing the politico-economic roots of the armed conflict through genuine agrarian reform and national industrialization. However, this can only be achieved through a serious shift from neoliberal economics, which has been shown, in the last 30 years, to be a “tried and tested” formula for depriving people of access to basic services and for violating their rights. Duterte’s recent pronouncements about expanding privatization, trade liberalization and economic deregulation run counter to this commitment.

We urge Duterte to match his talk about being the “first leftist president” with action by distributing land to the tillers, ending contractualization, prescribing a P750-national minimum wage, providing basic social services for all and respecting civil liberties.

Anakbayan challenges Duterte to adopt a youth agenda that provides free education at all levels, imposes a tuition hike moratorium, and immediately stops the K-12 program which has caused more burdens to students’ families and threatens to dislocate thousands of teachers.

We likewise exhort Duterte to stop blurting tasteless statements and to refrain from performing acts just for the purpose of shocking the public, especially if such statements and acts would demean women, children, LGBTQ and other marginalized sectors of society.

Anakbayan holds no illusions that by his lonesome, one man can effect radical changes within the stifling confines of a neocolonial state, given the continuing entrenchment of oligarchic interests and the hidden hand of US imperialism.

Genuine social change can only come from the collective action of the Filipino people.

Only by uniting with the people’s movement can a Duterte presidency succeed in asserting national sovereignty, empowering the people against the ruling elite and overseeing development that benefits the majority.

—VENCER CRISOSTOMO, national chair, Anakbayan, [email protected]