A mid-year political assessment

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
5/29/2006



We are entering the year’s sixth month and an assessment is timely after: Countless massive popular demonstrations, several anti-Arroyo serious military protests by young officers and then higher officers, a number of dramatic reversals such as the bishopric apology to Estrada and the virtual exoneration by the results of the detained president’s testimonies in the Sandiganbayan, the defeat of the Cha-cha initiative, the resurrection of Estrada and the Edsa Tres forces as the principal and leading opposition leadership. The situation is crystallizing and polarizing.

Global events relative to the Philippine situation must be taken into account, and foremost among these is the revolution transpiring in our fraternal Latin American countries: the patriotic ex-colonel and once-deposed President Hugo Chavez’s triumph in Venezuela, Argentina successful debt re-negotiation and phenomenal economic growth afterwards, social activist Evo Morales victory in Bolivia and nationalization of it natural gas, Ecuador’s nationalization of oil company Occidental, deposed Fujimori impending return to Peru and expected victory of ex-colonel Ollanta Humala in the Peru’s elections.

These Latin American countries have many similarities to the Philippines. It’s not only their colonial past but also their domination by the U.S. and the conservative Catholic hierarchy, centuries of oppression by compradors classes that control and abuse their natural resources and economies, the internal communist-vs.-military conflicts triggered by the 50’s to 70’s proxy Cold War, the banana republic syndrome, and the debt trap and poverty that ensnared them all. Yet now all these countries of Latin America today are breaking the chains of the past.

A most significant insight we found in studying the Latin American situation is the triumphs of the patriotic, nationalist and popular leaders that come from the ranks of retired military officers, non-communist social activists and even from a “elite” patrician. Chavez and Humala are ex-colonels, Morales an indigenous populist leader, Argentina’s Krichner the anti-IMF patrician, while Tabara of Uruguay is a socialist and da Silva of Brazil a labor leader. Chile’s President Bachelet was a political prisoner during the Pinochet regime and now a liberal leader. They’re all break free U.S. stranglehold now.

Notable in all these countries is the earlier withering of the armed communist and anarchist movements. This apparently allowed the patriotic-nationalist forces such as military officers, social and political activists, to focus on the national problems instead of being diverted by the violent insurrection and insurgency. That’s confirmed by our reading of Chavez’s biography and now priming Peru to move forward after Fujimori’s capture of the Sendero Luninoso’s Abimail Guzman (which civil society and U.S. sponsored President Armando Toledo, who deposed Fujimori, wants to release).

The question can now be raised in the Philippines: is the CPP-NPA’s insurgency distracting the Filipino people from the true national-democratic liberation? That is what the Lava-ites have long contended. The CPP-NPA tactics in the field of engaging and liquidating small AFP units and small fry soldiers give the Establishment forces the propaganda ammunition raise the bogeyman of communism and lump all opposition forces, including the Estrada and Edsa Tres forces, idealist and reformist military officers, with it and isolate them all.

Picking up from the lessons of Latin America, it should become clear that when “vanguardist”, i.e. ideologically chauvinist, parties that tend to split the patriotic and nationalist constituencies are sidelined, the broad unity of the people may be attained more quickly. The CPP-NPA is not helping in the unity of the patriotic-nationalist forces with its obsession to promote Jose Ma. Sison as the sole inspiration for revolution, an armed struggle that only alienates the broad masses that still identifies with the lowly small soldier, and insistence on calling itself communist knowing full well that the overwhelming majority of Filipinos are religious and are turned of by that.

As bad as the “re-affirmists” (those who reaffirm Joma’s leadership) are the “rejectionists” led by Etta Rosales who have become as dissolute as the trapos, and their unprincipled flexibility made them tools of Gloria in the 2004 cheating and proclamation.

The worst among the split-ists are those of the Right, i.e. the Black and White (B&W) movement which would not count for anything (being without any mass base or support) if not for the not-so-hidden hand of the U.S. Embassy, the USAID, the Makati Business Club, Transparency Int’l and that caboodle of CIA fronts subverting Philippine sovereignty.

These people of the B&W abided by Gloria-Manapat’s slander against FPJ and the 2004 cheating results until the SGV gave instructions to pressure Gloria for the EVAT. But B&W is inconsequential compared to the “re-affirmists” who provide the Establishment the greatest ammunition to divide the people, giving GMA the excuse to constrain some AFP leaders who might otherwise have joined the movement for change. The anti-thesis to these split-tists is the emerging genuine patriotic-nationalist-reformist retired and active military officers, the progressive Catholic Church-nationalist economics coalition, and the popular Edsa Tres movement.

With President Estrada and FPJ’s (represented by Susan Roces) 40-50% support amongst the people, the unity of these genuine patriotic-nationalist forces could easily steamroller GMA and the oppressive forces. If we hope to see the same kind of liberating but peaceful politics of change as in Latin America then let us learn our lessons: leave behind split-tism and support the unity of genuine patriotic-nationalist forces until victory.

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