Category: the left

Red is a spectrum

ANTONIO CONTRERAS

… To be left or right is determined by someone’s view of the economy. Being on the left means believing that globalization should primarily serve humanity instead of the interests of global corporations, that corporate interests should be regulated to protect the environment because they wouldn’t do so if they are left alone, and that corporations should have social responsibility and should not be fixated on profits only. A leftist believes in economic regulation and in protecting the marginalized, even if it means interfering with the operations of the free market. Hence, leftists believe in minimum wages and price controls. They believe in taxing the rich more, and using taxes to finance social programs that would even include investing in the arts. While some leftists are socially authoritarian, most leftists are socially libertarian. They adhere to individual freedom, and would support divorce, same-sex marriages and abortion. They oppose the death penalty.

Being an activist for these causes, and questioning state authority, when done peacefully and under the ambit of laws, should not and cannot be considered as dangerous to the Republic. Under these rubrics, I am personally a leftist who is also a social libertarian. My score in the political compass test is a minus 6.88, with minus 10 being the score for being perfectly leftist, and a minus 7.23, with minus 10 being the score for being perfectly libertarian. I am not even a centrist by all accounts.

There has been too much confusion in the way popular and ordinary discourse has branded the left as essentially communist, and then further committing an egregious error of associating communism only with the armed left. Some even go to the extent of associating the left in general, and communism in particular, with authoritarian regimes. This is the ground from where red-tagging emerges as a pejorative, where liberal-progressives who espouse leftist and libertarian beliefs end up being lumped together with Marxist, Leninist and Maoist rebels, and worse, terrorists.

This corruption of political labels and categories has to end. Being leftist is different from being an armed rebel, in the same manner that being an activist does not necessarily mean that one has taken up arms to topple the government. Likewise, it is a fallacy to contrast communism with democracy, considering that there are communist and socialist parties that compete in democratic elections in countries like India.

The ideal response to red-tagging is to clarify that not all kinds of red should be tagged as enemies of the state. Environmental activists who propose green economies tend to be leftist in orientation, and so are feminists and gay activists. Organized labor unions tend to be leftist in orientation. The hatred being espoused by many diehard Duterte supporters and Marcos loyalists toward liberal activists, that even translate to their dislike of the US Democrats, is misplaced simply because they are premised on fallacious imaging and assumptions. There are many good people who are fighting for socially relevant causes that under these misinformed rubrics would fall in the category of enemies of the state. A cursorial look at history would reveal that practically all major social benefits that people now enjoy, from wage protection to social amelioration policies, are largely the result of leftist and progressive activism. These include giving ayuda (financial assistance) and educational assistance.

… The solution to political violence is not red-tagging but to make sure that the interests of the marginalized are served by legitimate institutions of the state. And the better response to red-tagging is to show that some types of red are, in fact, essential in achieving that end.

NACHO, 22

sharing here katrina’s facebook posts on ignacio “nacho” domingo.  we didn’t know him personally, had not heard of him (yet–what a waste), this UP scholar and student leader, apparently a most promising and gifted young man, whose untimely and tragic death so crushed us that we haven’t been able to get it, him, out of our minds, needing to figure out what it was all about, wanting to understand why and how and who and when events escalated so quickly, to a point of no return.  this is neither to sensationalize the loss nor to intrude on the family’s privacy, rather, to shed light on, the better to grasp, what went wrong, and to beg that we all guard against it happening ever again.  then nacho would not have died in vain.

Katrina Stuart Santiago

2 October at 12:43

Those screencaps were released ANONYMOUSLY by a new (now deleted) Twitter account, and dated from two years ago. It was released Sept 25 (11:00AM) by an account called @rhosigrambles. By the afternoon UP ALYANSA (4:31PM) and KALikha: Kasama Ka sa Paglikha ng Arte at Literatura Para sa Bayan (7:49PM) released statements of condemnation.

By early morning of Sept 26 (1:08AM) the UP College of Mass Communication Student Council released a condemnation, promising accountability for any form of “impunity.” By the afternoon, STAND UP (4:20PM) called out the “offenders” for “bastardizing principles.” Students’ Rights and Welfare Philippines (9:35PM) followed suit talking about the “safety of our educational institutions” and stating “UP Sigma Rho Fraternity, particularly its members <name 1>, <name 2>, and <name 3>, who were PROVEN VIA SCREENSHOTS and testimonies to be involved in hazing, as well as sexual and derogatory remarks made on and regarding certain women, to reassess its reasons for existence, present themselves in investigations, hold itself accountable, and thus face the consequences of their actions.” (all caps mine)

By Sept 27 (4:34PM), the University of the Philippines Administration had announced that they were “investigating allegations” and have placed “suspects on preventive suspension” and “will file formal charges where there is evidence to support such a move.” The UP Diliman University Student Council (5:58PM) followed suit with its own statement talking about disciplinary action.

These official statements are all based on screencaps of a conversation from TWO YEARS AGO, released anonymously. A conversation that involved students who were being called “suspects,” and already penalized by the university with preventive suspension, with not enough evidence to file formal charges.

This was NOT just about social media lynch mobs. This was about institutions quickly and swiftly and thoughtlessly making decisions given those mobs. No one’s hands are clean. Certainly NOT the University’s, and NOT its organizations.

October 3

I have 122 screencaps as we speak, mining whatever is still left of tweets that were posted from Wednesday, Sept 25, to Sept 28 when he died, to the post-narratives since. I have gone back to all the statements that were posted. I’m told that before his death, the Mass Comm Student Council FB comments sections were terrible, but I missed that completely.

In fact, I missed this whole thing as it was happening — my Twitter network is obviously removed from it. But there was still enough to go back to, and while it takes time to find the right key words, once you find it, it’s a very depressing blackhole that proves why and how we have come to this point.

I have no time as of yet to write about this at length. But here’s a thought: the noise of groups and the social media mob, demanding quick action and condemnation, there is a downside to that. There is a massive problem with that, especially when we’re talking about private individuals, about REAL PEOPLE. Not everyone is Duterte. Not everyone is just operating with impunity and is a product of the macho-fascist rule. I don’t know why we even have to remind ourselves that.

A question: Where was hunos-dili in this case? When even the institutions did not practice restraint, did not spend some time to put things in perspective, did not even ask questions about whether or not responses are commensurate, or did not wonder about the possibility that these kids don’t even believe what they believed 2 years ago. When institutions are at the mercy of mob rule — who then is in control? Whose responsibility is it to make sure the kids are okay?

#StateU #SocialMediaCrisis #SocialMediaPH 
#LynchMobs #MobRule #CallOutCulture

SONAkakasindak 2017

imagine. the president who disappeared on us twice last june (including on Independence Day) for several days at a time due to undisclosed health issues — nagpahinga lang daw — delivered a two-hour speech in congress, then went outside the batasan and berated the leftist rallyists for some fifteen minutes, and then went back in for an hour-long press conference.  all this with nary a hint or whine of weariness.  awesome performance for a 72-year old.  i wondered what he was on, some upper, surely?  or maybe he was just still super high from the overwhelming support of the house and the senate that had recently okayed the extension of martial law in mindanao for another 5 months?

whatever.  the speech was vintage duterte.  belligerent, brusque, bellicose.  unrelenting on the drug war.  no apparent change in strategy: first, kill the demand, that is, kill the addicts.  second, stop the supply, that is, the drug lords, and so he continues to seek the death penalty.  meanwhile, or should i say, otherwise, nakita naman natin ang nangyari kay espinosa the druglord at kay marcos the policeman.  yung una na-rub-out while in jail, yung huli nasuspend sandali tapos naibalik rin sa puwesto at tila mapo-promote pa in 6 months.  ika nga ni duterte sa minamahal niyang mga pulis at sundalo, yang mga human-rights-human-rights, wala yan! I.HAVE.YOUR.BACKS!  ang sweet, di ba.

but i must say, he pushed the right buttons a few times — calling out the mining industry that pollute farms and seasides  and, even, calling for industrialization, wow!  calling out the supreme court for the RH TRO, and, even, america for refusing to return the bells of balangiga — quite effectively confounding critics, raising hopes anew, even if only a little.  cheap thrills.

the bad news — though good news to many — is that the president seems to be gearing up to call off the peace talks with the Left.  i suspect that if there had not been that ambush on his PSG the week before the SONA (No ceasefire, no prior notice: Joma explains attack on PSG convoy.  read also satur ocampo’s Gov’t ceasefire demand snags peace talks anew) the president’s men would have come up with some other reason anyway.  sa joint session of congress pa lang nuong july 22, when it convened to vote for the extension of martial law in mindanao, maya’t maya ang ungkat sa CCP-NPA, almost in the same breath as the maute and abu sayyaf and other terrorist groups.

but the peace talks, the CASER (Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms) round, especially, is our only hope for a truly “comfortable life for all.”  without it, duterte’s campaign promise of a new economic model that will lift the masses from poverty will remain just that, a promise.  balik na naman tayo sa trickle-down eklat and dole-outs just because the president’s economists are loathe to give up the goose that lays their ilk (and only their ilk) the golden eggs, pardon the cliche.

nakakasindak sa lahat, of course, is that the mayor who called for a stop to lumad killings in 2015 is now the president who threatens to bomb lumads and their schools to extinction for being allied with the Left.  if the president follows through on this, it might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.  again, pardon the cliche. (we have become a nation of cliches.)

i guess, like erap, the president made campaign promises vis a vis corruption and the economy that he didn’t realize were undoable until he was himself in the driver’s seat?  i guess it was too good to last, the president’s accommodation of the Left that is, was? unprecendented in recent history.  and then, again, Can DU30 afford a break with the Left?   read marlen v. ronquillo:

A year ago, in his SONA, Mr. Duterte promised a “peace for the living“ with a peace pact with the Left and the Muslim secessionist groups in mind. His accommodation of the Left is unprecedented in recent history. Through a series of tactical moves—naming Leftists to his official family, convening a serious peace panel that promptly opened up peace talks with the leaders of the Left, and supporting that peace process wholeheartedly—his strategic goal was to make history by going the way of Colombia in dealing with the FARC.

As mayor of Davao City, Duterte dealt with the Left. He left the Left alone and the Left left him alone to pursue his Davao agenda. But that was a smaller, more manageable setting.

Now, all of these grand initiatives on a national scale are in jeopardy.

Question: Can DU30 afford a break with the Left, the one sector that he wants on his side and did a lot of political accommodation to win it?

The Left is often dismissed as a “sunset group” but the application of that is limited. As a rebel group with an agenda of seizing state power to put in place a government of central planning guided by Marx, Lenin and Mao, that is deemed as next to impossible. Its chosen road to state power, that of encircling the seat of power from the countryside and peasant hordes overwhelming the reactionary forces of the state, is now a failed approach. As far back as the 1970s, a group of heretics led by the late Popoy Lagman wanted to change strategy from the Maoist version to the Nicaraguan model.

… While the Left has a very narrow path to seizing state power, it remains the most potent enemy of the established order. It is the only group with an above-ground force, an army of ideologues that can argue from the mainstream, a cadre of Marxist intellectuals that can speak from a perch of high moral ascendancy. There is nothing more morally right than preaching from a perch of liberating the poor, the huddled masses.

The Left is spread out and almost omnipresent. It has leaders and advocates from the academe, the small businesses, organized labor, the peasantry, the Church and almost every institution that matters.

There are uninvolved people who nonetheless believe in the rightness of economic parity, social justice and egalitarian causes, which makes them sympathetic – and closer to the left-wing beliefs – than any other belief system, including the flawed liberal democracy. I know of many good and decent people under this category.

And when the Left opposes a particular government, it is with fire in the belly and the rage is not dictated by focus groups and survey results. The mainstream oppositionists would not oppose a President as popular as Mr. Duterte. The Left will fight and fight to the death the most popular President on the planet.

Mr. Duterte knows this. Deep in his heart, he does not want an enemy as relentless and as committed as the Left.

What the strategists of Mr. Duterte fear most is a tactical coalition between the Left and the mainstream groups. Once this happens, the opposition to Mr. Duterte will not be of the timid, calibrated kind. But the type and kind of protests that embody the fury of the Left – go for broke and without heed of the consequences.

At this point, the last thing Mr. Duterte needs is the Left protesting on the streets with fury in the eyes and fire in the belly.

High stakes confirmation hearing

Carol Pagaduan-Araullo

On Wednesday, three progressive Cabinet members — Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Gina Lopez, Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, and Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano — will be up for confirmation by the powerful Commission on Appointments (CA).

They have been twice bypassed by the CA and subsequently twice reappointed in the interim by President Rodrigo Duterte. But because the current CA has approved a rule that a Cabinet member may only be bypassed three times after which the CA will have to reject or confirm the concerned official, it appears that Wednesday will be the final showdown.

Read on…