Duterte Arrested, But the Fight for just peace in the Philippines Continues

The Resist US-Led War Movement joins the millions of Filipinos worldwide celebrating the arrest of former President Rodrigo Duterte, on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity. Duterte's arrest is a victory that was only made possible because of the relentless fight for justice and accountability waged by the Filipino people. Resist resolutely supports the people's pursuit of both accountability for the past crimes of the Duterte regime, as well as an end to those of the current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who continues his predecessor's militarization of rural villages, aerial bombings, strafing, hamletting and other human rights violations in his US-armed and funded counterinsurgency campaign.

Duterte's war on the Filipino people

Under the guise of his "war on drugs," Duterte orchestrated the killing of an estimated 30,000 people, waging a war on the poor and working people of the country while continuing to serve as an imperialist puppet. He did this all with US-provided weapons given to the Philippine National Police or in some cases directly into the hands of Duterte's private death squads.
Anchored on Duterte’s Executive Order 70, which established the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, the Armed Forces of The Philippines and Philippine National Police implemented the joint counterinsurgency plan “Kapanatagan” (“Security”), unleashing vicious attacks on any person they deemed to be “communist” and organizations tagged as “communist fronts.” The anti-people policies spearheaded by Duterte and modeled after U.S. counterinsurgency strategies led to tens of thousands enforced disappearances, extra judicial killings and victims of torture and harassment by state forces.

In 2017 Duterte declared Martial Law in the Bangasamoro region of Mindanao under the justification of the US's own designation of Mindanao as the so-called "Eastern Front of the War on Terror" by former US President Bush.
Duterte oversaw five months of ruthless aerial bombardment, displacement, curfews, checkpoints, among other increased human rights violations.

These acts displaced more than 200,000 people and paved the way for US imperialist exploitation of the natural resources in the region which holds the largest deposits of oil and natural gas in the Philippines worth hundred of billions in US dollars.

Marcos: New puppet, continued attacks on the people

Like his predecessor, Marcos Jr continues Duterte's legacy of terror on the people and subservience to his US warlords. His whole of nation approach to national security and counter-insurgency, another strategy model from US counter-insurgency doctrine, calls for the militarization of civilian agencies and functions, subsuming all the branches of government to military objectives and national security goals. Under Marcos, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and fascist terror continue to be a nationwide policy.

Marcos came to power with full support from his US backers. What he needed to steamroll his Presidential campaign to victory was to build an unsteady relationship with the Duterte family to win over Duterte’s voter base. Upon consolidating power, Marcos decided to dispose of Duterte by prosecuting the arrest warrant of the ICC. This amounts to the US puppet Marcos cutting the strings with Duterte so that he can make full use of the ruthlessly militaristic state machinery that he inherited from Duterte, who in turn inherited it from decades of US overlordship.

In April 2024 during the Trilateral Summit in Washington DC attended by the Philippines, Japan, and the US, Biden revealed his budget request for $128 million for Military infrastructure projects under the Enhanced Defense cooperation Agreement (EDCA)— Far more than the $109 million allocated by the U.S. in the last 10 years combined - with all bases being built in strategic locations facing China, including a military site being built at ground zero in Marawi City seven years after the siege ended. This skyrocketing militarization of the Philippines at the behest of the US war machine is the mantle that Marcos has willingly taken up to protect his own semi-feudal, semi-colonial economic and political interests using the Filipino people and land as a pawn in the US strategy of war against China in the process.

The people’s fight for justice continues

Just as the anti-US base movement of the Filipino people led decades of systematic campaigns against US military presence and formally ousted the US bases in 1992, the struggle for National Democracy and for an end to US military occupation of the Philippines continues to be one of the biggest obstacles to the US strategy of directing its puppet government to aid in its build-up to war against China. With the expansion of US military presence in the Philippines under Marcos, the peace-loving people of the world must stand and unite with the Filipino people's struggle against their country being used as a pawn of US-led war.

While Marcos may have been the one to execute the arrest warrant against Duterte for his own political interests, it was the people who fought against every blow of the overwhelming fascist offensive of Duterte to bring this case to reality. It is the people, and only the people, who will realize justice, accountability, and lasting peace.

Justice for the victims of the drug war!
Cut military aid to the US-Marcos regime!
US out of the Philippines!