Warmest greetings of solidarity to the Anti-Chacha event being undertaken by Malaya-Canada in collaboration with BAYAN-Canada in Toronto today. It is my honor to address your event.
We know that the key motivation of the Ferdinand Marcos,Jr. regime for changing the 1987 Constitution is to cling to power and to grab more wealth by opening the Philippine economy to more foreign investments.
Having been a legacy of the EDSA uprising in which the Communist Party of the Philippines and the revolutionary mass movement played the key role, the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines contains important provisions upholding human rights, social justice and economic sovereignty. It contains provisions on agrarian reform, industrialization, and sovereign economic control, which however have not been upheld by all administrations from the time of Corazon Aquino to the current Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.
The positive provisions of the 1987 Constitution need to be asserted against the current economic policy of neoliberal globalization, which have been pursued by all administrations since the regime of Fidel V. Ramos.
As Ibon has noted, since the adoption of the neoliberal policy, domestic manufacturing has gone down to its smallest share in 75 years, and agriculture to its smallest share ever. Under the neoliberal policy regime, foreign direct investments have inflicted increasing ecological damage considering that these flowed into economic activities that plunder the raw-material and human resources of our country.
The neoliberal economic policy has generated a series of disasters for the world capitalist system. It has induced one big financial bubble after another and caused one economic and financial crisis after another, with each later crisis worse than the previous one.
In so far as the Philippine economy, this has been kept underdeveloped, impoverished, pre-industrial and semifeudal by policies preceding the neoliberal policy. It has become even more so under the neoliberal policy regime, notwithstanding the glossy upscale private construction, shopping malls, the rise of import-dependent and debt-financed consumption, the widespread destructive open pit mining, the wanton export of men and women, the business processing centers and so on.
Current conditions in the Philippines and in the whole world are favorable for broadening and intensifying the mass movement within the framework of a broad united front for national liberation and democracy against the US-Marcos, Jr. regime. The growing contradictions between the Marcos and Duterte factions render these conditions even more favorable than ever before.
Your role is decisive in rousing our compatriots and your host people. You can do this through forums, discussions and publications urging our compatriots and solidarity friends to intensify mass protests against the Marcos, Jr. regime’s Chacha scheme. You can arouse, organize and mobilize through all means at your command, including the use of cultural performances, songs, skits, cartoons, comic strips and plays to evoke and popularize the anti-chacha sentiments of the people.
I urge Malaya and Bayan and their solidarity friends to work ever harder and intensify their anti-chacha campaign to inform and mobilize the broadest range of the people in Canada ang gain their moral an material support for the Filipino people in struggle, not only against chacha but also for the entire struggle for national and social liberation.
I wish you utmost success in your anti-chacha campaign.
Mabuhay kayo!
-JULIE DE LIMA
Chair , NDFP Peace Negotiating Panel