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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Defeating the Communists II
By Antonio C. Abaya Written Feb. 06, 2007 For the Standard Today, February 08 issue Actually, the communist movement in the Philippines has been at the tipping point to irrelevance since 1989. That was the year the People�s Liberation Army swept through Tienanmen Square in Beijing with their armored personnel carriers, machine-guns blazing, resulting in the death of hundreds of students who had massed there in their hundreds of thousands to demonstrate for more democracy in China. That singular act of fascist brutality reverberated throughout the world and alienated even leftist sympathizers, especially in Western Europe . Only a few publicly applauded that massacre, among them Filipino Maoists such as Jose Maria Stalin of the CPP and Crispin Beltran of the KMU. Joma�s and Beltran�s unwavering support for the Chinese crackdown on unarmed demonstrators cost them dearly. Church groups and other funding sources, especially in Germany and the Netherlands, which had previously (and naively) considered the CPP/NDF/NPA a humanitarian organization fighting for social justice, went sour on the Filipino Communists and cut off their financial support. The loss of much of their Western European funding was a major blow to the movement and for a while they turned to counterfeit dollars. In 1990, one of their Dutch couriers was arrested by Swiss police when he tried to deposit $3 million to the NDF�s bank account in Switzerland , half of which turned out to be counterfeit. 1989 was also the year when millions of East Europeans � East Germans, Poles, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians, Bulgarians � literally walked out on their governments in massive, spontaneous and leaderless cross-national demonstrations of discontent, forcing their communist regimes to resign. Except in Romania, where Nicolae Ceaucescu and his dynasty tried to hold on to power, the demonstrations were a peaceful, non-violent, bloodless exercise of People Power, a magnificent repudiation by the most ordinary of citizens of the evident failures of Communism to improve their lives, even after 45 years. The reformist contagion eventually spread to the Soviet Union , already softened by the glasnost and perestroika initiatives of Mikhail Gorbachev, and in 1991 the Soviet Union itself collapsed in a largely peaceful transformation - a few tank shells had to be lobbed at some hold-out Soviet parliamentarians - that ended 74 years of absolute Communist rule. The ultimate indignity came when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was actually outlawed, for several months, by the new Russian parliament. These twin events in one single, memorable year � the massacre at Tienanmen and the collapse of Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and, later, Russia � shredded the ideological appeal of Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, especially among urban intellectuals. But it did not snuff out the Communist insurgency in the Philippines . And the reason for that is that the overwhelming majority of the warm bodies who make up the NPA are not there because of ideological commitment, but because they are reacting to local conditions of social injustice: landlessness, joblessness, hopelessness and despair, brushes with corrupt local officials and abusive police or military personnel. The NPA merely provides an existing structure through which they believe they can seek redress for their very real grievances. Only a tiny minority � probably no more than 5% - are ideologically committed Marxist-Leninist intellectuals, mostly from the middle-class, who actually believe they are helping build the Communist utopia of the future, in which there would be no more exploitation because society would have evolved, inevitably and �scientifically�, from feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, to Communism. And they believe it is their historical mission to accelerate that inevitable transformation by waging revolution � both underground and above-ground � against the bourgeois state. Joma Sison himself likened the Communist movement to a Warrior who uses both a Sword (the NPA) to strike blows against the enemy, and a Shield (the front organizations of the NDF) to parry the blows of the enemy. A Shield, if swung with sufficient strength, can also deal a lethal blow to the enemy. For example, a welga ng bayan, which, under our liberal democracy, the Communists have been allowed to wield in the past and will no doubt be allowed to wield in the future, can paralyze the economy, throw thousands of people out of work, and discourage investors from putting their money here. Marxist-Leninist intellectuals like Joma and Fidel Agcaoili and Satur Ocampo and Teddy Casino and Lisa Maza and the others cannot be convinced by any empirical evidence that Communism has been a failure. They believe that the events of 1989-1991 were temporary setbacks, from which the movement will recover, and that the victory of Communism is inevitable, �even if it takes hundreds of years.� In fact, in one of his most recent public pronouncements, published in the Nov. 6, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Joma wrote: �The epochal struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between socialism and capitalism, will take a long time, hundreds of years, with ups and downs, twists and turns�..� (Emphasis mine.) I reacted to this in my article Hundreds of Years ( Nov. 14, 2006 ), archived in www.tapatt.org. One can interpret this Joma statement as a left-handed admission that his revolution has been less than a success, that victory will not be achieved in his lifetime or in the lifetime of Fidel or Satur or Teddy or Lisa or Jorex and Wendy (in the TIME magazine article mentioned in my column last week). But he has to make this statement in order to be true to his Marxist-Leninist ideology, which posits the inevitable triumph of Communism. However, since the overwhelming majority of the warm bodies in the CPP/NDF/NPA are motivated, not by ideology, but by local grievances, it is possible to undercut the movement by wooing that majority away from the doctrinaire, ideologically-motivated minority. But how to do this within the context of American style-liberalism has eluded the Filipino political leadership for decades. As mentioned in the first part of this essay, the communist movement in East Asia was defeated through draconian measures. In Malaysia and Singapore , through constitutional means (i. e. the Internal Security Act); in Thailand , Taiwan and South Korea , through suppression by their military governments; in Suharto�s Indonesia , by summarily executing hundreds of thousands of the comrades. In September 1987, right after the first coup attempt by Gringo Honasan and the RAM against President Cory Aquino. then Vice-President Doy Laurel asked me to accompany him on a speaking tour of 13 military camps in Metro Manila, Luzon , Visayas and Mindanao . At Mactan Air Base, a pair of Philippine Navy officers, who claimed they were from RAM, sought an audience with Doy, during which they proposed an Indonesian Solution to solve the communist problem here. In the details of their proposal, they estimated a death toll of 1,000 communist leaders alone, 50,000 if rank-and-file members were included. At that time, the NPA was estimated to have 26,000 fighters, so their estimate of 50,000 dead comrades included members of above-ground front organizations. In the late 1980s, when the global communist movement was already in its last death throes, an Indonesian Solution would have been difficult to justify before the world community. Even more so would it be in the first decade of the 21st century, when an anti-communist crusade has already become an anachronism, the communist menace having been replaced by Islamic extremism. Suppression of the communist movement through a military coup d�etat and takeover is also very unlikely in the present circumstances. Because of its reputation for widespread corruption and the apparent involvement of some of its highest officers in cheating during the 2004 presidential elections, the Philippine military suffers from low esteem in the eyes of the public, especially among the middle-class. A take-over by the present military leadership, either to protect the Arroyo presidency or to grab power for themselves, would be met by such widespread civil unrest that the junta would find it hard to govern. Idealistic military officers whom I have talked to favor something similar to Malaysia �s and Singapore �s Internal Security Act, implemented under an elected or revolutionary civilian government. But even that can succeed only under certain conditions. (To be concluded). ***** Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles since 2001 in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |