The Duterte regime has been in power for more than one year now. Since Duterte’s election more than 13,000 (mostly poor people) have been being killed by the state police in his “war on drugs”.

Despite these widespread killings, there are no massive and widespread condemnation and protests among the poor people, even by the victims’ families and relatives. Instead apathy and fear prevail. A significant portion of the population, even among the poor, felt “relieved” that these “outcasts”, “evils” of society have been eliminated. Even though it is accepted that there are many innocent victims, there is a significant acceptance among the population that this is “justified collateral damage” for the interest of a general cleansing. And the (admittedly manipulated) surveys by bourgeois institutions claim that Duterte enjoys “excellent trust ratings”.

From the moment it entered the capitalist epoch, the history of the Philippines has been dominated by imperialism, first Spanish, then American. Its strategic position in the South China Sea has placed the country in the forefront of conflicts between rival imperialisms.

The nascent workers' movement in the 19th century, lacking in political experience and separated by vast distances from the more developed socialist movement in Europe, was never able to separate itself entirely from Filipino nationalism. As a result, and despite the remarkable courage of the Filipino workers in struggle, the trade union movement soon became a battleground for the competing imperialist powers, with the different unions acting as clients for this or that power.

We have received the information published here from comrades in Korea. Independently of the events in themselves, their significance is also determined by the fact that they are taking place simultaneously with the movements in Spain and Greece, and reveal a certain number of similar features.

The following article about the recent strike at the Giardini del Sole factory in the Philippines is published by the ICC's section Internasyonalismo

The article that we are publishing here has been sent to us by the comrades of the Internasyonalismo group in the Philippines. It shows us the true worth of the crocodile tears shed by the Filipino ruling class, both in power and in opposition, for the suffering of the population as a result of a food crisis which is the result, not of poor harvests but of the capitalist economy's insatiable thirst for profit no matter what the cost. And the cost is paid both in the immediate by the working class and the poverty stricken masses struck by the massive increase in food prices, but also in the long term as the cynical irresponsibility of the capitalist class increasingly ruins the ecological system on which humanity's food production depends.

The article's analysis concentrates on the role of bio-fuel production and the degradation of the rice producing areas by over-farming. One point should be added in our view: the role played by the diversion of speculative capital from the US and European housing markets into the commodities markets - and in particular the futures markets for food. According to Jean Ziegler, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, while the use of grain for bio-fuels is the major culprit in the rise in food prices, 30% of the rise can be directly attributed to speculation on the commodities markets.