15 November 2021
‘This is preposterous! President Duterte keeps on saying he wants to retire from politics, yet here we are. Sara Duterte said she will not run, yet look what happened. They have no palabra de honor,’ United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK) chair Dolores Balladares-Pelaez emphatically said in reaction to the latest elections news, wherein President Rodrigo Duterte may be running against his daughter Sara Duterte-Carpio for vice president, with Bong Go and Bongbong Marcos as their running mate respectively.
‘It is clear that they are treating the Philippines as their mere plaything. They are not concerned with the future of the Philippines, only with consolidating power within their family and clique. This is like a telenovela, only that it is badly-written with the twists already expected by the audience, and the actors are neither loved nor handsome.’, Balladares-Pelaez explained.
According to the UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK leader, the recent turn of events reflects Duterte’s desperation to stay in power and escape accountability from his gross human rights violations. Balladares-Pelaez cited Duterte’s “bloodied hands” referring to the thousands he ordered killed through his war against the poor under the guise of fighting drugs; the hundreds killed to silence dissent; the hundreds forcibly abducted, such as the most recent case of Steve Abua, peasant organizer and a cum laude Statistics graduate of University of the Philippines; or the formation of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), which is responsible for red-tagging and vilifying progressive organizations and individuals, and its continued existence despite calls to defund it (which was responded to by the Senate, and slashed by Php24 billion the proposed budget for this task force); in addition to his regime’s failed, militaristic and fascist pandemic response; and the higher unemployment and hunger rates.
UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK said they and other organisations of overseas Filipinos globally will be joining an internationally-coordinated action on November 18 to denounce Duterte’s hand in allowing former Philippine president and dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes Cemetery) in 18th of November 2016.
‘No one is buying the drama they are selling. Marcos, Duterte: They are all in it for themselves. We must end this now. Make the villains lose! Make the ordinary people win! Let us further expose Duterte and Marcos to prevent them from winning. Let us form broader unity against this coalition of clowns and monsters. Duterte, wakasan na!’ Balladares-Pelaez concluded.###
