Duterte’s martial law is actually the anti-thesis of his touted “movement for change.”

the tongue only as a prelude to chastising the CPP-NPA’s call for intensification of tactical offensives against government forces in response to martial law.

This was followed by a chorus of peace spoilers questioning the NDFP’s sincerity in the ongoing peace talks. It is a line repeated ad nauseam in the mass media as the trigger for Duterte’s decision to withdraw the GRP negotiating panel from the 5th round of talks. It conveniently obfuscates the fact that martial law was indeed intended and in actuality is being used against the CPP- NPA and communities suspected to be under its sway.

In fact, with the acquiescence of Congress to Proclamation 216 and the imprimatur of the Supreme Court, the AFP has become more openly assertive about targeting the NPA. While Duterte has not withdrawn his “all- out- war” declaration against the CPP-NPA since February and has now cloaked the military’s abuses with the “legality” of martial law, Lorenzana has the gall to call for the collapse of the peace talks citing recent NPA tactical offensives.

Duterte’s martial law is actually the anti-thesis of his touted “movement for change.” In the hands of the pro- US militarists in the Duterte regime, it is being used as an extraordinary tool for fascist repression. The thousands of extrajudicial killings in Duterte’s ruthless “war on drugs” is a portent of what is bound to happen in the intensified “war on terror” under martial law.

It would be foolhardy to think Duterte was merely engaging in hyperbole when he said that like Marcos’s martial rule, his would be just as “brutal.”

Should Duterte extend martial law beyond 60 days and/or expand its coverage to the rest of the country, he will be dooming any remaining reformist impetus in his regime. In so doing, he will also doom the GRP- NDFP peace negotiations already in limbo because of the GRP’s insistence on a premature bilateral cease-fire before any agreements on basic socioeconomic reforms and Duterte’s policy of holding

political prisoners hostage to the NDFP’s capitulation.

And yet the second major lesson from Marcos’s martial law comes to the fore. Rather than douse the flames of rebellion and revolution, martial law can only fuel more armed and unarmed resistance.

In fact, Marcos’s martial law was said to be the number one recruiter of the New People’s Army.

The US- backed Marcos dictatorship was eventually ousted from power by a people roused by its rapacity, brutality, and mendacity.

Martial law could indeed be the harbinger of a revolutionary upsurge that could seriously challenge, weaken and even bring down a completely reactionary and isolated Duterte regime.

CAROL PAGADUAN-ARAULLO is a medical doctor by training, social activist by choice, columnist by accident, happy partner to a liberated spouse and proud mother of two. carol_araullo@ yahoo.com