Ellecer “Budit” Carlos: We are going through a revival of the Marcos dictatorship

Frank Barat (FB): Hi Budit and thanks again for
doing this, I know the situation in the Philippines is bad at the moment so it
is great you're taking the time to talk to us.

Budit:
Thanks to you and TNI for making these interviews possible and giving us an
opportunity to foreground the situation in the Philippines and what the many
stakeholders around the world can do to help us.

FB: About your personal situation, I know you have
had issues trying to get back to the Philippines following a trip in Europe,
and that you received threats from the government. Can you tell me more about
this?

Budit:
Actually I did not get threats from the government but this administration has
put in place a very well oiled and efficient propaganda machinery. So when
Duterte took office in June last year they deployed propagandists here as well
as in various parts of the world where you have a huge concentration of
Filipino migrants.

Filipino migrant workers are an important support base
for this president as they are sort of the decision-makers in the family. Our
economy is dependant on them. So it is important that his popularity is
sustained there, amongst Filipinos abroad. This administration has also made
full use of government information and news agencies to sustain this
president's anti-human rights rhetoric. So both online and offline this
propaganda machinery actually sustains that culture of bullying and lynch mob
methods. Those who provide active consensus to president Duterte's rule. They
took advantage of a very disoriented and frustrated public and that is what
enables him to operate on what is still a very strong support base. The attacks
that I have received that also other human rights defenders receive here in the
Philippines is from this propaganda machinery sanctioned by government.

FB: The overall situation in Mindanao and elsewhere
is therefore terrible, right?

Budit: Yes,
actually, the EJK and forced disappearances and torture, the gravest forms of
HR violations, were there even before Duterte. As Philip Alston the former
special rapporteur on EJK said during his visit to the Philippines – while the
Philippines has undertaken admirable efforts to respect HR there is still a
strong undercurrent of lawlessness, meaning that the state itself has been
making use of vigilante groups and non state armed groups to stifle dissent and
eliminate opposition.

The Philippines ranks number 2 as the most hazardous
place for those protecting the environment. So that has been carried over, not
stopped during the Duterte administration. The difference is that this
government that Duterte has put in place, has allowed mass murder to take place
and defined this particular section of Philippine society, drug dependents and
petty drug dealers as especially worthy of elimination.

Also while this impoverished sector is being attacked,
he has also, together with the propaganda machinery I mentioned, actually paved
the way for public acceptance of possible attacks on HR defenders. So it is a
very tense situation where all type of agents of change are threatened in the Philippines,
because he has defined HR activists as the enemies of the state – those
who protect criminals and those who prevent development.

So, with a huge chunk of the population being misled
and misinformed, there is permission for a total crackdown on all sorts of
activists. Given the breakdown of peace talks with the big left currently
looming, when this happens this will put at risk all activists, all people
working towards change in the Philippines. Because the state machine will not
discriminate between who is with the left or not, all of us will be seen as
part of the big left, so this is a very precarious situation for us at this
point in time.

FB: How do you explain the support that Duterte
enjoys. The Phil Start global recently reported that 80% of the population had
high trust in Duterte. Is this because of the propaganda?

Budit: There
was actually a survey released on Oct 8 by Pulse Asia that reveals a sharp
decline in his popularity. Of course he is still popular, but this survey also
shows that a huge number of Filipinos do not really trust him and have doubts
of the validity of the claims of the police that everybody they were arresting ‘fought
back’.

So that means that the war on drugs popularity is
losing traction and president Duterte's popularity is slowly declining as well.
His popularity is quite hyper-inflated and it's the efficiency of this
propaganda machinery that bloats his popularity amongst the Filipinos. We
believe that there is a huge silent majority, because of the climate of fear
that he has put in place. But to really explain why a significant number of
Filipinos actually came to rely on Duterte, you have to begin with the people’s
frustrations for 30 years. We should trace the problem back to the EDSA
revolution in 1986, which promised radical social reforms, a redistribution of
the nation's wealth and most importantly the democratisation of central
services and opportunities.

These are actual requirements for all Filipinos if
they are to be lifted out of poverty, but these promises were never fulfilled
and so the five regimes before Duterte never made any inroads into delivering
the essentials of a life of dignity for everyone. It is the accumulated
frustration of the people that have made them put their hopes in a populist and
violent president.

A second reason would be that his cornerstone program,
drugs and crime, affect most the most impoverished sections of Philippines
society, the poorest of the poor. They are not able to advance themselves, let
alone pay for private security. Essentially, that is why so many Filipinos,
disgruntled and frustrated with an inoperable criminal justice system have come
to subscribe to this alternative justice dispensation system that this
president is offering.

Just as with any other government policy that is good
on paper but in practice is inoperable, Filipinos are willing to take on and
accept the alternative, turn their faces away and let is happen. It is
important to let Filipinos know about the importance of due process and the
transparency and checks and balances that our still dysfunctional criminal
justice system has to offer. Only really repairing this system is the answer,
together with investing in a life of dignity for everyone.

FB: Can you say more about the war on drugs? Are the
big drug lords affected?

Budit:
Actually, based on the patterns that we have seen since his election, the drug
war operations of the police and vigilantes seem to be confined to the most
impoverished urban communities. Essentially there is a double standard in
implementation when it comes to private sector subdivisions. They undertake
leafleting, information campaigns, against illegal drugs. But when it comes to
the most impoverished urban communities, they undertake violent and hardline
operations, kicking down doors and shooting people directly without arresting
them. This has been the pattern since June of last year. It is sad that instead
of providing the most basic services and opportunities to those most neglected
and forgotten during recent administrations, this president has chosen to
assault the most brutalised people in Philippine society.

FB: How does the alliance among social movements
develop strategies to address this?

Budit: I
want to start with one correction. Duterte is making use of governmental news
and information agencies. But in the Philippines we still enjoy a strong
independent media. The courageous ones, the ‘night shifts’ as we refer to them,
still document the killings and provide independent figures as compared to the
disputed figures that the police put forward. These government news agencies
together with the other section of this propaganda arm have mastered the art of
shaping public opinion and manipulating the truth. Spreading lies and half
truth. It is actually an information war that is going on, a war of narratives,
with various independent news agencies trying to counter the narrative and the
framing put forward by Duterte's propaganda's arm.

Now, referring to social movements here in the
Philippines, it is only now that the process of unification has begun. In recent
months, there has been a disappointing period of disunity among social movements.
The left, for example, was disorganised. Some progressives here unfortunately continue
to give legitimacy to this violent president. I would categorise progressives
here as 1) those who are still engaging with the Duterte administration and 2)
another section that is already working towards defending, opposing and
resisting this regime and its violent policies. Even before Duterte, the left
was disunited. In the early 90’s, the Philippine left began to break up, so you
have various splinters and now it is urgent for difficult talks of the broader
left to take place that can unite these forces and provide a critical opposition
to the rise of tyranny facing us. Because what we are facing is a relapse into
dictatorship.

FB: What is the role of international solidarity?

Budit: Given shrinking space in the Philippines it is
becoming more difficult for us to operate and express dissent. More and more it
has become crucial to actually revive what once was a strong solidarity
movement for the Philippines.

More and more have come to see that this Duterte
juncture is not actually a separate episode. In Philippines history, with the
Marcos dictatorship, this is actually a relapse, a resurgence of what we failed
to quell in 1986.

What appeared to have been a people's revolution was
in fact a revolution of the bourgeois. It was a revolution that was hijacked by
the élites, thus another elite actually took the place of Marcos and his
cronies.

We were never able to overturn this impressive
exploitative set-up. We started of course to regain some democratic space, but
we were never able to hold the perpetrators of the Marcos dictatorship to
account: the president after Marcos, the late Aquino, her slogan was peace and
reconciliation. So we were never able to go through what is referred as
transitional justice and create a truth commission to institutionalise what
really happened during the dictatorship.

This enabled the Marcoses to actually stage a well
orchestrated political resurgence. The Marcoses are one of the main funders of
Duterte. The possible vice-president, Bong Bong Marcos is the son of the late
dictator. We should see this Duterte juncture as a continuation of the Marcos
dictatorship, a revival of the Marcos dictatorship. And what Duterte is doing
now is quite similar to what Marcos did. Activists of the past, those who were
members of the solidarity movement during the time of the Marcos dictatorship
should continue what they began.

International solidarity work is important, not just
in bringing out the truth on what is happening but also to help strengthen
Filipino organisations as well as addressing the Human Rights crisis which is
being used as a tool to advance authoritarian rule. 

FB: Thanks a lot Budit.

Budit: Thank you so much for having me.