Philippines: Duterte and Marcos are stealing the elections

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines.  

The Marcoses and the Dutertes, in collusion with the tyrant’s henchmen in the Commission on Elections (Comelec), are robbing the 2022 elections right before the very eyes of the Filipino people. The stealing is being carried out brazenly by rigging the automated elections and the Comelec’s “unofficial quick count” fed to the media, to perpetuate the six-year Duterte tyranny and bring back the thieving Marcoses to power.

The almost nightly mass rallies of hundreds of thousands of people across the country and the widespread outpouring of support both from the middle classes and toiling masses during the past several months are proof that the Robredo-Pangilinan opposition tandem are the real winners of the vote.

Thus, a great number of people are justified in their outrage against the Comelec over the thousands of malfunctioned vote counting machines. The bigger steal, however, was carried out by the Duterte-appointed Comelec preprogramming of the Smartmatic vote counting machines that shaved and padded votes in Marcos’ favor. This was combined with massive vote-buying, preshading of ballots, as well as armed coercion, harassment and red-tagging especially in the rural areas.

With absolute control over the electoral system, Duterte is stealing the 2022 elections with the same ease as he stole the 2019 elections. As we have pointed out earlier, the May 2022 elections are stacked up for Marcos with the system of “automated counting” under the control of Duterte, his Comelec appointees and their Smartmatic programmers.

The results have been preprogrammed to make it appear that Marcos won by a “wide margin” and make his “victory” appear “beyond question.” The rapid release of “unofficial” results was meant to overwhelm and paralyze the people with awe, and preempt election protests and street protest actions.

Duterte and the Comelec, however, are over weaving the illusion of a Marcos “landslide victory” over opposition leader Leni Robredo. It has left the people incredulous. Statisticians looking into the results released by the Comelec’s “transparent” server are seeing the machine-pattern of vote count increments and distribution of votes, which they believe to be inconsistent with mathematical laws.

Marcos’ preprogrammed “victory” grossly obscures the fact that the Filipino people are disenchanted with tyranny and dictatorship, and have had enough of the oppressive policies and repression under the Duterte regime which Marcos Jr. promotes and praises. The broad masses of workers and peasants, the unemployed masses, the rank-and-file employees and small professionals, who have been at the frontlines of the anti-tyranny movement, are all fed up with corruption, military and police overspending, extrajudicial killings, abductions, torture, unlawful arrests, red-tagging and terrorist-labelling, national treachery, unmitigated government borrowing, increasingly burdensome taxes, low wages and unemployment, rising prices and economic crisis due to neoliberal policies.

Because the right to count the vote has been taken away by the automated elections, the people, opposition political parties and the media have no way of independently verifying or challenging the results of the elections. Many, especially among the petty bourgeoisie (middle classes), are dismayed by the outcome of the Comelec’s “quick count.” They tend to lay the blame on “the masses” for “voting a thief.” They harbored the illusion of a “fair elections” under Duterte’s tyranny. They discount the basic fact that the elections were stolen, and that in the final analysis, the people’s votes did not matter. They must be encouraged to break out of their individual shells, get organized, unite with the broader movement of workers and peasants and help wage widespread mass resistance.

Even as the broad democratic sectors question the results of the elections, they need to come together to express the people’s collective disgust over the prospect of Marcos’ return to power through deceit and disinformation. They must denounce Duterte and the Comelec and work to frustrate their attempts to usher Marcos back to power.

Through the years, the ruling reactionary system has allowed the political and financial rehabilitation of the Marcoses. For several decades now, and especially during the past several years, historical facts were distorted and people fed with false information which not only pervaded social media, but promoted as well in textbooks which poison the minds of schoolchildren about the “golden days” of the Marcos dictatorship. Imelda and the Marcos family have evaded punishment despite conviction over a number of cases of corruption and human rights violations. The tyrant Duterte, himself, has been a key peddler of the Marcos lie.

The battle to stop the return of the Marcoses to power has not yet ended. Knowing who really won the May 9 elections, the people must be aroused, organized and mobilized to expose and fight election rigging and prevent the cheaters from seizing power.

The broad democratic sectors have to gather all their strength and courage to unite and mobilize the greatest number of people in marches and demonstrations to block the Marcos’ path back to Malacañang. They must remain indefatigable and militantly pursue their quest to make the Marcoses and the Dutertes pay for years of plunder and oppression.

The Marcos-Duterte stealing of the elections clearly show the further deterioration of the rotten ruling system. Thus, people are being drawn to join the revolution. Since last night, we have received reports how many young people are asking how to join the revolutionary underground and the New People’s Army. Conditions for wider civil war are arising in the country. The Party is determined to unite and lead the Filipino people in their struggle for democracy against tyranny and dictatorship, and carry forward the national democratic revolution with utmost resolve.