US-Arroyo regime, Filipino Social Democrats and the AFP death squads,

PRESS STATEMENT
May 19, 2006

US-Arroyo regime, Filipino Social Democrats and the AFP death squads, responsible for the reign of terror and anti-communist witchhunt against national democratic forces in the Philippines

Los Angeles --- If Marx called Christian Socialism the holy water in which the reactionaries dip their fingers in to become holy, we in the First Quarter Storm Network (FQSN) -USA call the Social Democrats led by Fr. Romeo Intengan and Norberto Gonzales as the vinegar that these reactionary brutes dip the wounds of the victims of their deadly terrorist killing campaigns.

The latest pronouncement of Norberto Gonzales that the NPA hit squads are in Manila and are out to assassinate Gloria and some members of her cabinet (including him of course) is a dirty psy-war to set the stage for their death squads to kill leading progressive leaders like the Batasan 5 and other progressive leaders in Metro Manila. No doubt it is a cheap attempt to divert attention from the widespread public outcry nationally as well as internationally against the Arroyo regime’s bloody campaign which has already claimed the lives of hundreds of progressive mass activists.

This can be likened to the killing spree that the US-Aquino regime and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) unleashed in 1986-88 which claimed the lives of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) chair Rolando Olalia, BAYAN leader Lean Alejandro, Atty. Emmanuel Mendoza to mention a few. More than 200 progressive leaders were killed in other major cities of the Philippines and in the province of Pampanga. These people survived martial law but died during the reign of Cory Aquino and the RAM rebels that overthrew Marcos in 1986.

The same modus operandi is being used by the military intelligence: the use of motorcycles and hit men mimicking the hit pattern of partisans of the New People’s Army (NPA). In stark contrast, however, these brutes are trigger-happy and do not economize. While NPA partisans use one or two bullets, they pepper their victims with automatic fire real proof of how craven these death squad cowards really are.

These death squads are the handiwork of the US dirty tricks department and the likes of John Negroponte, the chief of the US national security intelligence apparatus. Negroponte became the US Ambassador to the Philippines and directed the low-intensity conflct during the late 90's. The US-trained Mano Blanco of El Salvador similarly killed Bishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador in 1980 and the much-hated Federales of Mexico decimated the student and peasant movement in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s and the Guatemalan death squads also killed the archbishop of Guatemala City.

These death squads are only good in killing civilians. They cannot measure up in battles against the NPA so they exact their dirty vengeance against their perceived enemies in the open mass movement who are unarmed and defenseless.

The killing of Elena Mendiola and her partner of Isabela , Jose Manegdeg of Ilocos Norte and others who were peppered with high powered-rifles only prove their blatant cowardice. They are real subalterns of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her ilk like General Jovito Palparan and Norberto Gonzales who can only brag by using their propaganda machine well secured in their fortified palaces away from the anger of the Filipino people.

The FQSN holds these people responsible if anything happens to the progressive leaders of the national democratic movement. There is no doubt in our minds that their cowardice has no bounds and they will never stop in their pipedream of liquidating the national democratic movement by any means necessary. But they will fail miserably. The Filipino people will, in the final analysis, topple them from power and mete out justice. #