*Press Statement*
*February 25, 2016*
*Reference: Marie Hilao-Enriquez, Chairperson, 0917-5616800
*
* Angge Santos, Media Liaison, 0918-9790580*
*30 years of EDSA uprising:
<http://www.karapatan.org/30+
discontentment persists, rage mounts
<http://www.karapatan.org/30+
http://www.karapatan.org/30+
Thirty years after the people’s victory to overthrow the Marcos fascist,
corrupt, and puppet regime looms the threat of the return of the Marcos’
son, confidently inching his way to the realm of power with his well of
resources from the loot of the past. The past that Marcos Jr. arrogantly
refers to as the country’s glorious days.
Marie Hilao-Enriquez, Karapatan chairperson said the threat of the return
of the Marcoses “Clearly, shows that after 30 years of EDSA and five
succeeding regimes later, the same unjust social structures that
necessitate a revolution persist,” adding that, “only a determined people
and their decisive action can bring about a genuine change—freedom and
prosperity, a humane society and just and lasting peace.
The five regimes who held the reins of power, she said, “not only failed to
uplift the nation, but also to truly serve the majority of the poor
Filipinos. They harped on the wrongs of the preceding regimes to cover up
the essentially the same oppressive and exploitative system they
perpetuate. The masses have been anesthetized for a second after EDSA have
awakened to the same harsh realities, unchanged by the promises and hopes
of EDSA.”
Hilao-Enriquez added that the BS Aquino regime, the latest of the regimes
that followed the dictatorship “desperately failed to sustain the people’s
victory and fulfil their hopes. Instead, like his predecessors, he
continued to deceive the people with statistics of a farce development,
albeit the statistics of the increasing number of poor and hungry,” which
is ironic, she said, because B. S. Aquino III is a son of a Martial Law
martyr, Ninoy, and the so-called icon of democracy, Cory.
BS Aquino, like his predecessors, catered to his clique and foreign
master’s interest to the detriment of the greater majority. He compromised
sovereignty with his signing of the controversial Enhanced Defense
Cooperation Agreement (EDCA). He gave up patrimony by allowing foreign
corporations to engage in unbridled exploration and extraction of the
country’s mineral resources.
“Unemployment, landlessness, corruption, dwindling social services, low
wages and pensions that could not cope with continued spiralling of prices
of basic commodities, criminal negligence of victims of disasters, high
cost of education worsened by new policies, such as the K-12, and a lot
more debacles characterized the B. S. Aquino regime.”
Worse, Hilao-Enriquez said, “he adopted past administrations’ solution to
quell the people’s unrest. He activated his killing machine with a
rehashed counterinsurgency operational plan, Oplan Bayanihan, courtesy of
Pentagon.”
As Aquino steps down, he leaves behind a grim statistics of 306 extra
judicial killings, 27 enforced disappearances, 15 massacres, 108,938
evacuees mostly from militarized areas, 557 political prisoners, including
19 National Democratic Front peace consultants.
Realization from experience is a catalyst. No substantive change will occur
for as long as the interest of the ruling elite and its US imperialist
master is top of the agenda. No substantive change will occur for as long
as the great majority remains in its dire plight. “Only the people’s
collective and decisive action can reverse the oppressive and exploitative
system we are all in,” ended Hilao-Enriquez. ###
