The Roxas Puppet Regime, 1946-1948

As predetermined by the heavy financial and propaganda support extended by U.S. imperialism to his electoral campaign, Manuel Roxas was elected as the last president of the puppet commonwealth government in April 1946. He became automatically the first president of the puppet republic of the Philippines upon the proclamation of nominal independence on July 4, 1946. His imperialist masters favored him because he could be threatened with prosecution for his pro-Japanese collaboration and he could therefore be bound to bat for the unequal treaties that they wanted to extort in return for a general amnesty exculpating him and others of the ruling classes from the charge of treason.

The newly-established Liberal Party prevailed in the reactionary elections over the Nacionalista Party but, despite the fraud and terrorism perpetrated by the military police and civilian guards, six congressional candidates in Central Luzon and three senatorial candidates who had run under the DA- NP alliance and who were known to be opposed to the unequal treaties being prepared by U.S. imperialism won. Their number was enough to prevent a three-fourths majority necessary for ratifying treaties in Congress and so they were prevented from taking their seats in Congress on the first day of its session on the trumped-up charge of committing electoral fraud and terrorism in Central Luzon.

On the very day that the sham independence of the Philippines was granted and the puppet republic was inaugurated under a proclamation enacted by a foreign government, the puppet president Roxas had to sign the U.S.-R.P. Treaty of General Relations nullifying Philippine independence. This treaty empowered the U.S. government to retain its supreme authority over extensive military bases which it could expand at will, guaranteed the property rights of U.S. corporations and citizens as being equal to those of Filipino corporations and citizens and put Philippine foreign relations under U.S. government direction.

Under the Roxas puppet regime, other major treaties and agreements were made to elaborate on the basic colonial subservience of the Philippines to U.S. imperialism. These were the Property Act, the Bell Trade Act, the U.S.-R.P. Military Bases Treaty, and the U.S.-R.P. Military Assistance Pact. The Property Act provided that all real estate and other property acquired by the U.S. government or its agencies before and after July 4, 1946 would be respected. The Bell Trade Act explicitly required the Parity Amendment in the colonial constitution to enable the U.S. monopolies to plunder at will Philippine natural resources and operate public utilities, prolonged free trade relations between the Philippines and the United States and placed Philippine tariff and peso currency under U.S. dictation. The U.S.-R.P. Military Bases Treaty gave to U.S. imperialism extraterritorial rights for 99 years in U.S. military bases at more than twenty strategic points in the Philippines. The U.S.-R.P. Military Assistance Pact provided for continued U.S. control over the local reactionary armed forces through the JUSMAG which would advise and lend or sell weapons and other equipment to them.

The Tydings Rehabilitation Act required the ratification of the Bell Trade Act, with the Parity Amendment, before the U.S. government would pay war damage claims exceeding \$500. Also, the Vogelback Treaty turning over U.S. war surplus property to the Philippine puppet government made it an obligation for the latter to accept the Bell Trade Act and other unequal treaties. When the war damage payments were made, these went mostly to the U . S. monopolies, the comprador big bourgeoisie, the landlord class, the bureaucrat capitalists and religious organizations. In the disposition of the U.S. war surplus property, there was rampant graft and corruption similar to that in the disposition of relief goods during the Osmena puppet regime.

Aside from being responsible for the imposition of unequal treaties upon the Filipino nation, the Roxas puppet regime was responsible for the extremely vicious attacks against the peasant masses which were intended to strengthen landlord power in the countryside. The Maliwalu massacre and the Masico massacre were some of these heinous crimes. And yet, the bourgeois reactionary gang of the Lavas and Tarucs persisted on the line of bourgeois parliamentarism. It caused the Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Magbubukid to submit a memorandum to Roxas begging for land reform, the dissolution of the civilian guards and the recognition of the right of peasants to bear arms for self- defense. The tricks of the shyster were being employed in a life-and-death struggle instead of implementing a firm policy of arousing and mobilizing the people for revolutionary armed struggle.

The most blatant act of obsequiousness perpetrated by the bourgeois gang of the Lavas and Tarucs was its support for the “pacification” campaign launched by the Roxas puppet regime against the Party, the army and the people. Party cadres were put under the custody of the military police and went around asking the people to lay down their arms. This act of sabotage of the Lavas and Tarucs cost the lives of so many people, cadres and Red fighters. The Lavas and Tarucs spread the lie among cadres that the “pacification” campaign was a mere speaking tour. It was in fact a campaign of terror against the people, the Party and the people’s army. Workers in the city and peasants in the countryside fell victims to this campaign.

The people could not be cowed. They were eager to defend themselves and as a matter of fact did so in a spontaneous way against the depredations of the enemy. But every time they raised a clamor for armed revolution, the bourgeois reactionary gang of the Lavas and Tarucs would seize the initiative within the Communist Party and pretend to respond to the clamor. In 1947, it removed Pedro Castro as general secretary on the ground that he proposed to convert the Party into an open mass party on an equal footing with the Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party. But in his place it put Jorge Frianeza who was even worse because he openly advocated all-round cooperation with the Roxas puppet regime notwithstanding the brazen acts of fascist terror against the Party, the army and the people.

Knowing no bounds in its hatred of the people, Roxas’ puppet regime outlawed the Hukbalahap and the Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Magbubukid by presidential edict on March 6, 1948. On behalf of U.S. imperialism and the local reactionary classes, the Roxas puppet regime never hesitated to attack the people.