Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law
State of Human Rights during Duterte's term
For the past five years, the administration of Rodrigo Duterte had proven to be a deadly crisis of its own, and his sycophants and spin doctors had desperately attempted to conceal the foul stench of decay through a convoluted gyration of lies and hollow illusions of progress, order, and change. The onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic shattered these illusions as the virus brought the world into a standstill and forced it to confront a crisis that had long been in the offing.Yet even a public health emergency did not halt despots like Duterte along with his cabal of rabid red-taggers, seasoned war criminals, and notorious human rights violators from unleashing the rotten contagion of fascism and open rule of State terror upon the people.Stripped of all but the hollowest pretenses of democratic and popular rule, Duterte entered his last year in power with his anti-democratic agenda in full throttle, all under the deceptive garb of a “new normal.” What had been exposed for everyone to see were not really new, but there were now the widening cracks just beneath the ice-thin surface of Duterte’s illusion of popular support and a strong State: worsening socio-economic inequality and joblessness, blatant neglect of basic social services and people’s welfare, massive corruption scandals, a ballooning national debt, mass deception and organized disinformation, and a brutal toll of human rights violations growing bloodier by the day.
Culture of Impunity
Duterte is viciously implementing a war against dissent attempting to silence critics and opposition members, throwing activists and peace advocates to jail, killing “enemies of the State,” and storming homes and communities with threats, intimidation and coercion by State forces. He continues to implement his murderous and sham drug war, leaving thousands of victims and families desolate and crying out for justice. He needed no sugarcoatings of a “democracy.” As vulgar as his ramblings and threats against his critics, Duterte proudly raises an iron fist in openly directing the police and military to “kill, kill and kill.”The police and military men in his Cabinet, who are at the helm of an inadequate, militarized and corruption-laced pandemic response, are recycled and appointed to government positions after shameful records of disservice and impunity, while his minions in the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict who have a penchant for fantastic lies through red-tagging complete the machinery of Duterte’s fascist dictatorship, with an almost absolute assurance that he shall absolve them of any crime.
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