Category: the left

left out of EDSA

from carol pagaduan-araullo’s valentine column Remembering EDSA ‘People Power.’   leftist rhetoric that places the “organized progressive forces”  in EDSA in 1986 (an insignificant truth) and credits, or is it, blames, US intervention for the peaceful outcome (a significant untruth).

… EDSA “People Power” was a standoff between two armed camps, that of Ferdinand E. Marcos-Fabian C. Ver and Enrile-Ramos. The US and the anti-Marcos reactionaries as well as the organized progressive forces and the spontaneous masses occupied the gap between the two armed camps.

Violent confrontation between the two could have broken out at any moment so it is misleading to describe it as a “peaceful” phenomenon. Only US intervention and the growing numbers of people on the EDSA highway fronting Camp Crame prevented the Marcos-Ver camp from aggressively attacking the Enrile-Ramos camp.

medyo dated naman, and obscurantist rin, ang reading na ito of EDSA — as dated as the myth of a miracle peddled by cardinal sin, as obscurantist as the left’s refusal to acknowledge its mistake in refusing to support cory and boycotting the snap elections.

yes, america from the beginning warned both the enrile-RAM camp and the marcos-ver camp to desist from violent action, or else.  but marcos defied the americans, ordered marine commander tadiar’s tanks to ram through crowds on EDSA sunday and advance to attack the rebel soldiers in camps aguinaldo and crame, and again on EDSA monday morning when the marines managed to make it into camp aguinaldo (enrile had moved to crame when the people stopped the tanks) and marcos through the vers ordered colonel balbas to fire cannons and howitzers at camp crame across the highway.  both times, the marines defied marcos’s orders — throngs of civilians were all over the place, including their own families — and that was the end of marcos.  the americans, indeed, played a part in EDSA but only in giving marcos a way out of the palace, and that was already on day four, EDSA tuesday, the battle was over.

but what’s truly amazing is the blind spot of the left when it comes to cory and EDSA.  i guess because cory was so burgis and a hasyendera to boot?  they must have hated it when  EDSA practically fell on her lap, awarding her the presidency.  but it’s not as if it was a painless exercise for cory who had to rise above personal issues with enrile who was after all ninoy’s jailer for seven years and seven months.

Before the display of People Power in Ortigas, the idea of Cory meeting with Enrile in the dark of night to plot against the dictator was inconceivable. Not only did Cory and Ninoy suffer unspeakably in the hands (so to speak) of Enrile, Cory was also convinced that she could bring down Marcos (and Enrile) without violence—she did not need a military arm. Enrile, for his part, must have been loath to take orders from a woman who had no experience in running a government; and perhaps he was not convinced that Marcos could be brought down through non-violent actions alone.

But after the awesome display of People Power—when the people risked life and limb to protect Enrile in the name of Cory—the two could behave no less grandly by rising to the challenge and transcending personal interests. Cory rose above her resentment of the military, Enrile rose above his ambition to become president, and space was created where the two could face each other without rancor (if temporarily) and work out a mutually acceptable arrangement, join hands against a higher common cause.

People Power called for Cory and Enrile to reconcile their differences for the sake of the nation, and the two did, not by butting heads but through creative negotiation. No doubt Enrile came to the table with certain demands in exchange for his support. Such as, perhaps, an end to the boycott of crony businesses, and, it would seem, immunity from suit.

As for Ramos, who knows what he asked for. Cory’s anointment in the next presidential election may have been on his list.  [EDSA Uno: A Narrative and Analysis with Notes of Dos & Tres (2013) page 159]

quite funny too is how pagaduan-araullo’s rhetoric on EDSA is sounding like enrile’s who is still upset that EDSA is not celebrated on feb 22, the day of his defection with gringo’s army and fvr’s police forces that set off the four-day uprising.  here, pagaduan-araullo complains that the role of the organized left, the “progressive and revolutionary forces,” is being played down and airbrushed from historical accounts.

But “people power” was passed off as merely the massing-up of people spontaneously responding to the call of Cardinal Sin to support the Juan Ponce Enrile-Fidel V. Ramos mutinous forces. They had been galvanized by the experience of the fraud-ridden snap presidential elections that stole victory from Corazon C. Aquino.

The objective of the emphasis on the unorganized mass of people is to play down the role of people’s organizations that had initiated and sustained anti-dictatorship struggles throughout the dark years. The purpose, then and now, is to airbrush progressive and revolutionary forces from the historical account of the uprising itself.

well, not in my book, where i track what the left, right, and center were up to over the marcos years, the snap elections, the six-day crony boycott, and the four day uprising.   i even quoted from a 1992 joma interview [pages 215, 302], and of course authors like mark thompson.

Jose Maria Sison ~ The masses led by the Party were there!  In EDSA, when there was a call for the bravest spirits to take over Channel 4, 500 Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) members were there, and when I refer to BAYAN, I mean that the influence of the Party extends; I don’t mean that BAYAN is not an independent organization. But the myth that the Party obstructed or was a block, that’s not true. The most progressive  people, 500 of them from BAYAN, went over to seize Channel 4. [Kasarinlan. “Interview: Jose Maria Sison” by Kathleen Weekley. 1992. 74.]

Mark R. Thompson ~ BAYAN was caught off guard by the foiled coup, and, although some of its members joined the crowds that protected the military rebels, its role in the people-power insurrection was insignificant.  [Anti-Marcos Struggle. 1996. 157]

Jose Maria Sison ~ The highest concentration of progressive forces was at Malacañang. During the days of the downfall of Marcos, from February 22 to 25, probably 80% of the people in EDSA went there spontaneously, or came from the unorganized sector. … 20% of the people were, you might say, progressive, and most of that 20% came from the progressive mass organizations. Around Malacañang, the percentage was higher, even up to 90%. Kilusang Mayo Uno, KADENA, and the League of Filipino Students concentrated there.  [Kasarinlan. 74]

insignificant naman talaga ang presence ng “organized progressives” sa EDSA.  even if they had not shown up, the four-day uprising would have proceeded and ousted marcos without bloodshed anyway.  and while it is true that the struggles of the left during martial law deserve playing up (as it is played up by leftist pundits in mainstream and social media to this day), even more so does ninoy’s suffering and sacrifice.  imagine how much darker and uglier and dirtier the conjugal dictatorship might have played it if there had been no ninoy in jail who kept the protest alive in the hearts of many many filipinos, unorganized but totally opposed to marcos and martial rule, too, and surely our numbers were greater than the left.  naturally, the balance of power post-EDSA “overwhelmingly favored” the “unorganized” coryistas.

sa totoo lang, i would love to engage with an “organized progressive” who has read EDSA Uno the book.  i thought the left did a great job in mendiola.  EDSA monday pa lang, day three, nandoon na sila, freaking the marcoses out (so to speak).

Apparently brought by rumors that Marcos had fled the country, several hundred people gathered near Mendiola Bridge, only to find the usual dense row of barricades still in place, along with combat-ready Marines wearing white armbands.

There were at least 50 soldiers toting Armalites and grenade launchers; a sand-bagged emplacement on one side of the bridge behind the wire sprouted what looked like the muzzle of an M-60 machinegun, with a long belt of ammunition trailing onto the pavement.

Far from being daunted by the sight of arms and troops, the people started doing something which would have been unthinkable (and possibly fatal) just weeks ago: they started dismantling the barricade.

While the Marines watched, the iron horses (so long a famous symbol for frustrated demonstrators) were dragged towards waiting companions who started tearing them apart with rocks, small pliers and bare hands.

“A remembrance,” said one man as he displayed a strip of barbed wire he had twisted off. Strips were bent into circles and then decorated with yellow ribbons.

About four of the iron barriers were stripped bare before the Marines fired warning shots into the air (a student said later that someone had thrown a rock at them), sending people scampering down CM Recto Ave. [Alan C. Robles, “Mendiola Barricades Disappearing” The Manila Times. 25 February 86]

i gather “the people” referred to were leftists, i mean, organized progressives?  it would be nice to get some confirmation.  but here’s a gem from lino brocka, the activist and national artist.

Lino Brocka ~ Minsan pa, maniwala ka, nakatayong ganyan ang mga sundalo, nariyan naman ang puwersa ng BAYAN. Hintayan. Tense talaga. Biglang may tumawid sa tulay mula sa BAYAN side papunta sa mga sundalo. May dalang pagkain. Alam mo ba ang ginawa ng mga sundalo? Ibinaba ang mga baril nila at pumalakpak! Pagkatapos, kumain sila nang kumain. Diyos ko, sabi namin, tao rin pala sila. Gutom na gutom! Eh ayun, matapos nilang kumain, tinanganan uli ang mga baril nila!  [“Lino Brocka’s Election Drama” The Sunday Times Magazine. 16 March 86]

and then there was this, on the night of EDSA tuesday, an hour after the marcoses had escaped via US choppers.

10:15 P.M. • As the mob dismantled the barbed wire structures, the militants stood up, tightened their ranks, and dispersed. Why did they disperse? Why did they not lead or join the mob that “conquered” Malacañang? [Gus Mclat “Savoring a Glorious Moment in History” Sunday Magazine of Malaya. 23 Mar 86]

good question.  though i think it was quite a class act, haha.   and smart.  otherwise they would likely have been blamed for the unorganized looting of malacanang that ensued an hour or so later.

Ninotchka Rosca ~ Romeo Candazo of Selda (Prison Cell), the organization of former political prisoners, said: “ … you have to appreciate the dilemma of our people. They went to EDSA only to be confronted by the faces of those who tortured them. It was a heavy trip.” [Endgame: The  Fall of Marcos. 1987. 144]

yes, EDSA was a heavy trip for the left, but it’s been 30 years.  time to level up the discourse.

lean alejandro (1960-1987)

he was assassinated 26 years ago today.  soon after, i wrote this piece for the manila chronicle (via iskho lopez ).

IMAGES OF LEAN

When I heard that Lean Alejandro had been shot — my son had been watching That’s Entertainment when GMA-7’s character generator spelled out the news — my heart sank.

I never met Lean but I had encountered him often enough on television these last four or five years to feel like I knew him, and to be touched by his death.

The images are clar. In Marcos’s time, of an angry and audacious young activist. In Aquino’s time, of a recalcitrant critic.

Television didn’t tell me about the beachwalk slippers, but I might have guessed, given his upper torso’s usually nondescript look. Which I thought added considerably to his credibility as a spokesman for the colonially oppressed.

When Lean plunged into electoral politics last May, I read it as a sign of his willingness to work for reforms within the framework of Cory’s system. When he lost, and bitterly, I hoped he would recover. A couple of months later, I caught him hurling questions at the military about the ambush of Bernabe Buscayno, and it was good to see and hear him back in form.

Constant and consistent, and always up front, Lean registered as no other leftist did. In my wildest dreams for this dawning age of Aquarius, I had seen Lean eventually sitting down with centrists and rightists of his generation, together hammering out a nationalist ideology and program of government which would make our fragmented nation at last whole and dynamic and sovereign.

But he’s gone now. Which means a change of cast, which will in turn change, even if subtly, the final product. Unless, of course, Lean’s spirit is kept alive, his words and works remembered and shared, in time to be added to, enhanced, and brought to fruition.

Which is, I know, optimistic of me. In reality, I wonder if we’ll ever see Lean on TV again. In a film documentary, for instance, like we did Ninoy and Evelio. Or will he go the way of fellow leftist Rolando Olalia — already a fading, because unreinforced, memory.

mining & the NPA, chacha & the environment

‘Victory to the noble in heart!’
By Elmer Ordonez

A VIDEO of mining operations and the havoc wrought in the mountains of Surigao is making the rounds of social media and the Internet. It was produced by GMA network as a segment of Reporters Notebook. Unable to watch it on TV, I was glad a friend e-mailed to me the video which shows wide swaths of once forest cover now baring reddish soil as results of open-pit mining—truly destructive of the pristine environment fast vanishing from our land. In Surigao large wooded areas have been gouged with machine hoes and payloaders to harvest mineral ore which are borne by trucks to the sea wharf for loading in cargo ships.

The video came together with a Star report about the New People’s Army (NPA) raid on the mining firms’ camp where dump trucks and heavy equipment were torched, three security guards killed, and two hostages taken.

A reader wrote, “After watching the video, I realized that the rebels’ belligerence is called for and completely justified. Victory to the noble in heart!” The reader, an award-winning fictionist, is not a partisan for the rebel movement, but she must have been so outraged by the miners’ assault on our diminishing forest cover and the pollution it has caused that she could not help but express herself thus. “Victory. . .” may well be for all those fighting for clean air, clean water, environmental protection — the green “armies of the night.”

Another reader involved in anti-large scale mining advocacy in Surigao del Sur wrote that Manobos live in the area. “It is difficult and dangerous to do mass work there because local executives of towns are pro-mining; they get huge amounts and benefits from the mining companies,” she said.

Official reaction to the NPA raid is typical. The president condemned the raid and expressed concern that this would discourage foreign investments. The government’s chief negotiator in the peace talks called the NPA raiders “more of bandits than rebels.” The police chief in the same Kapihan forum cried NPA “extortion.”

On the other hand, PNoy’s adviser on environment is on video saying (prior to the raid) that the mining firms have violated the Mining Act of 1995; his DENR secretary maintains that the government pursues development not at the expense of the people.

Actually the government was remiss in enforcing the laws on mining and environment while the NPA chose to punish the erring mining firms in keeping with the policy enunciated by Luis Jalandoni, chief negotiator of the National Democratic Front in the peace talks. In a statement (October 5), Jalandoni criticized the president’s reaction to the NPA raid as thinking “only . . .of favoring foreign investments, even if extremely exploitative.” He points out that “1) the extraction of nonrenewable resources such as mineral ores for export at dirt cheap prices kills the Philippine prospects for industrialization, 2) the indigenous people are subjected to dispossession of land, mass dislocation and ruination of their lives and culture, and 3) the unbridled mining poisons the environment and damages agriculture and other forms of livelihood.”

Jalandoni reminds the government about the petition filed by the Tribal Coalition of Mindanao et al. with the Supreme Court on May 30, 2011 against the targeted mines that have already poisoned the rivers and creeks and the coastal waters of Claver, Surigao del Norte.

The petition for a writ of Kalikasan (calling for a temporary environmental protection order against the mining corporations) cites a UP study finding nickel levels in the river/water systems in the area as high as 190 mg/l while the maximum level of nickel in drinking water should only be 0.02 mg/l (according to the Department of Health and the Bureau of Food and Drugs).

For years now civil society, environmental groups and church groups like the Ecumenical Bishops Forum and the Catholic bishops have expressed alarm over the destruction of our natural resources to extract mineral deposits as in Marinduque, Negros, Benguet, Zamboanga del Norte, and Surigao. The purported financial returns for the government from the Surigao mining are shown in the video to be a pittance (P 13.7 million in taxes) compared to the P144.4 billion in profit going to the mining companies for 2010.

Now both houses of Congress are agreed in principle to change the economic provisions in the charter apparently to favor foreign investments, in keeping with the lawmakers’ neoliberal tendencies. On the other hand, the progressive party-list groups and members in the House are pushing for a People’s Mining Bill to regulate the operations of mining firms and address ecological concerns for people’s welfare.

It is time for the government to reorient its economic policies for the benefit of the people, particularly the poor and indigenous peoples, and not to endlessly feed corporate greed. It is time to take seriously environmental concerns since the country is experiencing disastrous results (like floods) of past neglect and acquiescence to foreign control.

Victory, indeed, to the noble in heart!

ninoy’s LP would have welcomed satur & liza

i’m not crazy about manny villar but he scores pogi points (with me anyway) for welcoming leftist lawmakers satur ocampo and liza masa as senatorial candidates of the nacionalista party.   this, even if villar knows (i’m sure) that the NP wasn’t satur’s and liza’s first choice, or even second, more like a last resort, and only after much ideological soulsearching re the bongbong marcos connection.   read jojo robles’s Missing out on history, referring to, who else, the LP’s noynoy aquino.

The latest significant political event is the decision of leftist lawmakers Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza to go mainstream by joining an established party in their historic run for the Senate, after serving three terms in the House as party-list representatives. Of secondary importance is the decision of the Liberal Party of Noynoy Aquino not to take in the two, allegedly because of the demands made by various leftist groups to distribute the land on which the Aquino family’s Hacienda Luisita stands to the farmers who work its fields.

… Villar’s NP was not the only party that was in talks to include Ocampo and Maza in their Senate lineups. Both Chiz Escudero’s Nationalist People’s Coalition (whom Ocampo and Maza supported early on) and the LP (when Mar Roxas was still its standard-bearer) had also wanted the two to become part of their own slates.

When they filed their certificates of candidacy, in fact, both Ocampo and Maza indicated their party affiliation as “independent.” Both said at the time that they were still undecided about which party to join, and that they were still in talks with leaders of these mainstream political groups regarding the compatibility of their respective platforms and other issues.

Of course, the virtual breakup of the NPC ticket with the withdrawal of Escudero from the presidential race and his resignation from the party (plus the decision of Loren Legarda to run as Villar’s running mate) effectively ended talks between the two prominent leftists and the coalition founded by tycoon Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco. Villar and his group eventually filed their certificates, but left two slots vacant for Ocampo and Maza.

As for the two leftists’ plans of joining the LP ticket, that was decided during a meeting last month in Makati between them and party leaders Aquino, Franklin Drilon and Florencio Abad, among others. During that meeting, according to Ocampo, a “relaxed” Aquino declared his displeasure over the leftists’ efforts to have the land that his family owns distributed to the farmers there.

Over dinner, Aquino recalled a protest action staged several years ago by leftist groups who wanted the Luisita land given to the farmers outside the house of his mother, Cory.Noynoy apparently still harbored a grudge against the leftist organizations that have been blaming Mrs. Aquino for exempting her family’s plantation from her showcase land reform program and the death of militants during the Mendiola massacre outside Malacañang early in her term and at the plantation itself.

In a media forum shortly after the meeting, Ocampo recounted that he advised Aquino not to take the Luisita issue personally, since it had been festering even before he was born. However, Ocampo stressed that if Noynoy Aquino also became president, he would have the obligation to resolve the problems at the hacienda, which was “corporatized” through a stock distribution program instead of being divided among its tenant-farmers.

* * *

Ocampo, however, said that the Cojuangco family plantation was not the only stumbling block to their entry into the LP senatorial slate. They also noticed that Aquino and the other LP leaders did not seem too interested in taking in them in, allegedly because of the vast number of candidates who wanted to join Noynoy’s slate and the fact that decision of who gets in or not was not solely the standard-bearer’s to make.

“[Aquino] was silent about whether we would be included among those they would consider. There was nothing categorical like that. There was no statement that we could be considered,” Ocampo told reporters at the Serye forum. Instead, according to Ocampo, what they were told was that the applicants for the remaining slots in the slate were already too numerous as it was.

“They said there were many falling in line, more than double the number of slots, and there were special groups lobbying to be accommodated,” Ocampo recalled. Apparently, the LP had already found its “token leftist” in Rep. Risa Hontiveros of Akbayan, another party-list group that has broken away with Ocampo’s Bayan Muna, Maza’s Gabriela and the other left-leaning organizations that have gone “aboveground” in the House.

… Yesterday, in announcing the first-ever endorsement by the country’s major leftist groups of a presidential and vice-presidential tandem, Ocampo called the partnership a “mutual adoption” of platforms. Makabayan, he said, wil adopt the NP’s platform while the NP also agrees to accept Makabayan’s program of government.

… Of course, this is not really the first time that left-leaning organizations have attempted to barge into the elitist old boys’ club that the Senate is sometimes known to be since the ouster of Marcos. In the 1987 senatorial elections, the Left fielded an entire Senate ticket under the Partido ng Bayan coalition, but none of its candidates won.

What’s significant is that the Left is now attempting to win in the Senate through a “traditional” party like the NP, after shopping around for suitable groups among the current opposition field. This time around, after their long experience of harnessing the party-list system, the leftists seem to believe that they’re finally ready for political prime time.

It’s unfortunate that Noynoy Aquino and his traditionally bourgeois collection of yellow-clad supporters may have missed out on this major political development. And to think that he’s supposed to be the candidate who’s hell-bent on changing the status quo.

and, really, this antipathy towards the left is soooo NOT ninoy.   read The Filipino as Dissident from ninoy’s Testament from a Prison Cell.   is noynoy in denial about ninoy’s connection with joma sison and ka dante?   if ninoy were alive he wouldn’t think twice about having satur and liza run for the senate as LPs.   RAs and RJs welcome.   mar roxas, before he slid down, was on the right track.