The group said in its statement yesterday that its ultimate aim is to free Filipinos from alleged “bondage of repression by illustrados and their oligarch masters.”
The group issued the statement signed by Bishop Nilo S. Tayag as “lead convenor and founding national chairman,” claimed it had some “Filipino Guardians” as members.
Punto called up Abel C. Pablo, head of the press bureau chief of the group, who said Tayag is the same activist who figured prominently in the 1960’s as chairman of the Kabataang Makabayan. He provided photos of Tayag during the congress when the statement was signed.
The statement also listed retired Gen. Danilo Lim, national chairman of RAM/ Guardians, as among the statement signatories.
Other signatories included Gerona councilor Ronjie Daquigan, identifi ed as coordinator for Central and Northern Luzon, lawyer Rodel Manzanilla as chief for finance and logistics support, and Pablo as press bureau chief.
“The statement was a product of a congress we held last Monday (Oct. 22) in Gerona, Tarlac,” Pablo said.
“More than 300 factions of the Filipino Guardians can only be unified through the leadership of Digong (Pres. Duterte) and through his guiding ideology as well as the Rebolusyong Duterte for Revolutionary Government,” the statement said.
“Once and for all the vision and mission of all Filipino Guardians all over the whole length and breadth of the entire Philippine archipelago can once and for all be achieved through forging this organization into a quasi-military organization or People’s Militia, to help the Armed Forces of the Philippines or AFP, the Philippine National Police or PNP, the National Bureau of Investigation or NBI, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Administration or PDEA and other government agencies carry out the all-out war against illegal drugs, graft and corruption, criminality ,” it said.
The statement, which was littered with grammatical errors, lamented “that from the time of Aguinaldo to Aquino III, in a period of 119 years, the masses of our people had been robbed, plundered and have been kept in extreme poverty and ignorance.”
This ended with the ascendancy of Pres. Duterte in Malacanang, the statement noted, as it urged Filipinos to “take advantage of this once in-a-lifetime opportunity to indeed transform our society from…deterioration, degeneration, disintegration and possible demise.”
The statement said that “when President Duterte assumed the presidency, he effectively started a revolution to transform the Philippine society even in fact he belonged to the family of traditional politicians and among those Illustrados. (Yet) he embraced the cause of the working class, the peasants, the fisher folks, the jeepney and tricycle drivers, the urban and rural poor, the professionals, the youth and students as well as the small businessmen, making him the leader of a genuine revolution for the masses of the Filipino people.”
The group said “it is imperative that all classes and sectors of Philippine society especially the marginalized, the disenfranchised and the underserved must band together in solidarity to support the Rebolusyonaryong Duterte for Revolutionary Government for there is no other way to change our society from its present detestable and despicable conditions of existence of our people demanding their right for a decent and good living and not just mere subhuman existence.”
It said that “Filipino Guardians whose number is reaching around five million can be a veritable force and instrument of the Rebolusyonaryong Duterte in the transformation of Philippine society for they have been organized since 1976 some 41 years ago with definitive patriotic and nationalistic ideology.”
