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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| Hundreds of Years
By Antonio C. Abaya Written Nov. 14, 2006 For the Standard Today, November 16 issue When Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote and published The Communist Manifesto in 1848 in what was then known as Prussia , they were convinced that the Communist Revolution was at hand. Prussia was in turmoil. Agricultural harvests were poor and the economy had ground to a halt. Germans were hungry and out of work. Revolts broke out in neighboring France , and set off similar revolts in Prussia . Students and workers were rioting in Austrian cities, which led the Austrian emperor to dismiss his prime minister and promise a new, democratic constitution. Rioting spread to Berlin and other German cities. It was in this setting of widening anarchy and pent-up expectations for a better social order that Marx and Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto, � with its apocalyptic first line, �A spectre is haunting Europe � the spectre of Communism.� The Old Order in Europe was dying, amid the dehumanizing squalor and fetid slums brought about by the Industrial Revolution, and a New Order was struggling to be born. Marx and Engels believed they were the midwives of that New Order � Communism - and they expected its birth soon! Not sometime in the indeterminate future. They did not write that the supposedly inevitable triumph of Communism was hundreds of years away. No one would have joined their movement if the oppressed masses had been told that the Communist utopia, when there would be no more exploitation and everyone would live happily ever after, would be attained only in the year 2148 or later. Marx and Engels were convinced that the Communist Revolution was at hand and that the supposedly inevitable triumph of Communism would follow soon after. That it did not happen in 1848 or anytime soon after did not faze those who believed in that self-fulfilling prophecy. In 1871, hopes were again high that the Communist Revolution would soon sweep the continent and establish that New Order in the most highly industrialized capitalist countries. Defeated in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the French imperial regime under Napoleon III faced a citizens� revolt in Paris which demanded a democratic, republican government and a socialist management of the economy, and which set up a citizens� Commune in the city to bring about this brave new world. In the two months of the Paris Commune (March to May 1871), the communards were able to establish a proto-socialist regime, made up largely of elected workers, which carried out promised social and political reforms, and which attracted even some loyalist soldiers to defect and join the revolt. But it was soon crushed. In the years leading to the Great War (1914-18), as the First World War was then called, hopes were high among socialist intellectuals that the workers of the world would unite in a spirit of international socialist brotherhood and refuse to join in the coming war, which was deemed a creation of war-mongering capitalists out to rearrange the wealth of Europe among themselves. But patriotism and ethno-centric jingoism proved to be more compelling than socialist brotherhood, and the working classes enthusiastically marched off to wage war against each other under their respective national banners Germany, being the most highly industrialized country on the continent, was expected by socialist intellectuals to be the launching pad of the first socialist revolution, following the Marxist logic of the inevitability of transition from capitalism to socialism, and finally to Communism. But the socialist revolution, when it came in 1917, did not occur in any capitalist country in Europe, but rather in the backward feudal peasant society of Russia which, untouched by the liberating influence of the Reformation and the Age Enlightenment, had suppurated for centuries under unrelieved oriental despotism. Other socialist revolutions occurred in other feudal peasant societies ( China , Cuba , Vietnam ), none in any capitalist society, in direct refutation of the Marxist dialectical logic that capitalism inevitably leads to socialism, thence to Communism. (The capitalist countries of Eastern Europe � East Germany , Czechoslovakia , etc � did not turn socialist as a result of a socialist revolution. They were merely overrun by the Soviet Army in 1945.) To turn the Marxist dialectic even more topsy-turvy, the most important socialist states � the Soviet Union and its East European vassal states, the People�s Republic of China, and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam � have since all turned their backs on the economic core beliefs of Marxism and have re-embraced capitalism and the profit motive. Whatever happened to the allegedly inevitable triumph of Communism? It is in this context that one must read the recent statement of Joma Sison, in the Nov.09 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, embedded in a series of articles meant to commemorate the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the de-communization of Eastern Europe in November 1989. Wrote Joma, apparently with a straight face: �The epochal struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie, socialism and capitalism, will take a long time, hundreds of years, with ups and downs, twists and turns. In the last 150 years since The Communist Manifesto, the revolutionary proletariat has won great victories every 50 years after some big defeat.� �Great victories every 50 years after some big defeat.� Marx and Engels did not mention anything resembling that cyclical timetable. So this is pure Joma. Russia turned socialist in 1917 and abandoned the Communist goal 74 years later, in 1991. Does Joma believe Russia will revert to Communism sometime around 2040? China embraced Marxism-Leninism in 1949 and re-embraced capitalism, starting in 1979 or 30 years later. Does Joma see the return of doctrinaire Marxism-Leninism in China sometime in 2030? There is no law against whistling in the dark, but what is the scientific (a favorite Marxist adjective) basis for his hopeful projection? Or, to use another of his favorite phrases, �the concrete conditions of the concrete situation� may tell him that he is inside a tomb., isolated from all other reality. Or perhaps he is just trying to save face. In the 1980s, he predicted that the NPA would reach �strategic stalemate� with the AFP by - and he was very specific - the year 1992, after which the NPA would then go on a �strategic offensive� until final victory is won ��.hundreds of years from now? This is not even original. About ten years ago, on separate interviews in media, Nelia Sancho, former beauty queen and former NPA amazon warrior, and the late Dr. Jesus Lava, one of the founders of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP), proclaimed that the victory of Communism was inevitable, �even if it takes hundreds of years.� Did these ivory tower intellectuals ever sit down and calculate what the population of this country would be hundreds of years from now? I did (Anim, Pito, Walo, Sept. 01, 2004 ): 167.7 million by 2030; 336 million by 2056; 672 million by 2082; 1.34 billion by 2108. Under a more optimistic set of assumptions, our population would be 129m by 2025; 201.7m by 2050; 307.4m by 2075; 424m by 2100; 849m by 2200; 3.2 billion by 2400; 12.8 billion by 2600; 51.2 billion by 2800; and 204.8 billion by the year 3000. Happy Standing-Room-Only Revolution, Joma. Reactions to [email protected]. Other articles since 2001 in www.tapatt.org OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |
| Reactions to �Hundreds of Years�
These guys are dreaming or, rather, are out of touch with reality. They have to dig much deeper. Teddy Tagle Jr., [email protected], Nov. 16, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww You should forward your column to Joma and Satur Ocampo. Hope springs eternal. I forwarded your column once to Joma's website, but I never got a response. Ruth Enriquez, [email protected], Nov. 16, 2006 MY REPLY. The Communists pretend I do not exist. Spares them the need to refute my critique.. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hi. Tony. The socialist intellectuals may have not thought Russia to become the launching pad for the first socialist revolution but our Lady of Fatima did prophesy it in 1917. In July, 1917, our Lady appeared to the three children in Fatima, Portugal and said that unless man changes his sinful ways, God would allow Russia to spread her errors throughout the world. It was difficult then to imagine Russia would become a threat to world peace, having been badly defeated in World War 1. Our Lady of Fatima had called for the consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart as early as 1917. In October 1917, following our Lady's apparitions, Lenin and Trostky launched the Bolshevik Revolution which brought Russia down on her knees under the yoke of atheistic communism. (In like manner, World War II had been so accurately prophesied by our Lady of Fatima in 1917.) Through the years, Sister Lucia had been repeatedly telling the Popes to consecrate Russia. Finally in the 1990's, Pope John Paul II together with the College of Bishops consecrated Russia to her Immaculate Heart. And soon after, came the succeeding developments leading to the fall of Communist Russia. Do you want to know what our Lady's message to the Catholic visionary, Christina Gallager in 2003 is? You will be surprised again as to how prophetic the message is. Best regards. Bobby Tordesillas, [email protected], Nov. 16, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Joma has become such a caricature. He's so detached from reality, like Imelda, that I'm so keen to meet them both. (Who isn't fond of the perya?) I find it mildly amusing that he's still at it (just look at that sentence with words such as 'proletariat', 'bourgeoisie'). What's even more irritating is that he's oblivious to the fact that he's taken sanctuary in a successful capitalist country like the Netherlands where his living allowance is paid for by Dutch taxpayers. Of course, if I were a grandstanding Filipino politician, I would keep Joma 'relevant' because he does give a good excuse for junkets to Scandinavia for 'peace' talks. Sadly, unlike Joma's stipend, these business class seats to Oslo are paid for by Filipino taxpayers. Nash Toledo, [email protected], UK , Nov. 16, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony: It is quite obvious that Joma Sison is completely out of touch with reality. Communism is dead, Period. To hope that it will be around 100 years from now is to be delusional. No objective condition can ever resurrect Communism again, ever. Democratic Socialism is the dominant wave now, and it has every chance of remaining as the dominant wave 100 years from now. Mariano Patalinjug, [email protected], Nov. 16, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Mr. Abaya, This might interest you. In one of the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen's writings, he wrote that after Vladimir Lenin became mentally ill ("crazy"), the Communist Party abandoned him. And in Lenin's final days of mental illness, the only ones who took care of him, were the nuns. The saddest part of Lenin's life, however, is his "Life after-life": �An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.� Fulton J. Sheen Pierre N. Tierra, [email protected], Nov. 17, 2006 MY REPLY. In the biography of Lenin in wikipedia.org, mental illness was cited by the central committee as the reason for not reading Lenin�s Last Testament . But there is no mention of any nuns caring for him in his last days. Lenin died of a stroke. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hello Tony, Your article mentioned about the growing population of our country in the coming years, so what do you think will happen to our people who are now below poverty line? I would also assume that most of the offspring will be coming from the poorest sector of the country. How will they live? How about shelter? Education? Health? and most of all our pride as a Filipino? It is so sad to think that instead of moving forward like our neighboring Asian countries, the Philippines went backward and sinking so fast while our politicians are doing nothing but to enrich themselves and their co-horts. The gap between the Rich and the Poor is so wide and nothing is being done. Corruption is so rampant everywhere you go, and our people is suffering from the worst services from our government. Justice is only for the Rich and the Poor people are used as sacrificial lambs. The Rich get away without paying Taxes while the Poor and middle income people are pounded to pay more. This is not the Philippines that I envisioned when I was growing up back there, I have had high hopes until I knew that it is hopeless and left. 16 years ago when I left right after the big earthquake, the Philippines is still struggling with a little hope to overcome the problems left by the dictator. Instead of overcoming the problems, it went worst as the new politicians, left hungry and powerless before, had the opportunity now to do what they want. Nobody ever thought of ways to improve the situation, to provide food, shelter and clothing for our people. Nobody realized that the country needed foreign capital, more exports, and better food production to keep it going. Instead of welcoming foreign capital, they scare them by asking for too many requirements and cut before they come in. Multinational companies left for other countries. The only thing keeping the Philippines going now is our OFW's, they keep the Dollar-Peso ratio down, they send millions of dollars to their families and make small investments on small businesses from their savings. Without them, the Philippines would have sunk much more and our poor people could have suffered much worse than they have. The only thing left now is prayers and hope that this will work though. Iimpossible but we should never give up.........Thank you, Fred Santos, [email protected], San Ramon, California, Nov. 17, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Saving face or blind faith? Either way, Joma's trapped in a cocoon of his own creation. To be scientific and logical, people have to be left-brained. Pinoys have proven over time to be right brained people or "feelers" which is why, for example, "bahala na," "pwede na yan," "oido," "ang tancha ko" dominate our vocabulary. As for our politicians and self-proclaimed messiahs, let's just say they're harebrained, to say the least. Proof? The state of the nation. Raffy Alunan III, [email protected], Nov. 17, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww (Copy furnished) What is not generally known is that Karl had a great sense of humour and could easily fit the Gugma mould. Reynaldo Gonzales, [email protected], Nov. 17, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Joma has many illusions embracing communism. Maybe even after his death, he will establish a commune in hell with Satan as their supreme chief. TO HELL WITH JOMA! Thanks to you for this articles. It adds up to my knowledge about the roots, principles and ideology of communism. TO HELL WITH COMMUNISM! Tony Dalagan, [email protected], Fairfax , Virginia , Nov. 17, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww When people are in a Godless ideology, they believe that they can get themselves made by their sheer intelligence and abilities. Unfortunately, the minds of men, albeit superior intelligence, can only "see" as much as their brains will allow them., and this is the pitfall and hopelessness of Joma. His messianic complex also fails to accept that man by choice will always want to be free. If Joma only read about Adam and Eve.... And fortunately for Filipinos and defenders like you, we are ever wary of the deceptions of these red-flag waving component of our society. Look at Satur Ocampo. He marched with Cory Aquino at the height of the GMA-step-down movement, but his presence in the rally of the farmers at Hacienda Luisita a few days ago shows that for their ilk, it will always be a matter of opportunism to shorten their protracted struggle (100 years?). Angie Diaz, [email protected], Nov. 17, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Indeed, I recall the words of V.I. Lenin (Marx?) when he said �Revolution is the midwife of an old society pregnant with a new one!� It might as well be true but revolution need not always be bloody as the Bolshevik and Jacobin were. Our unfairly degraded EDSA 1, for example, could have shown the way had not that media lionized and spoiled brat Gringo Honasan led the wolf pack that destroyed much of the gains of that peaceful revolution. With regards to the world population, it has been said by economists and demographers that the planet Earth and its resources can sustain a population triple of what we have now. While It may appear on a simple straight line projection that we need not worry for the next couple of thousand years (we�d all be on a very much advanced state of decomposition by then anyway) with our population�s exponential growth, that limit may very well be reached much sooner than we think. Like the lilies that doubles its growth daily and half-covered the pond in ten days, the pond will choke NOT after 20 days but on the 11th day! Cheers! Edgar J. Tria Tirona, [email protected], Nov. 17, 2006 MY REPLY: Not to worry for the next couple of thousand years? A population that grows by even only one percent per annum, compounded annually, will double in about 90 years. The world�s population was 6.08 billion in 2000. It grew to 6.45 billion in 2005, or a growth of six percent over five years, or an average of 1.2% per annum. World population is expected to reach 7.89 billion by the year 2025, or a growth of 29% over 25 years, or an average of 1.16% per annum. It would be safe to project that by the year 2100, the global population will have swelled to about 12 billion, with most of that growth coming in countries that are now registering more than 1.16% population growth rates: first and foremost Black African countries, followed by predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa, and predominantly Roman Catholic countries in Latin America plus the Philippines.. I�m glad neither I nor my children and grandchildren will be around to enjoy that heavenly bliss. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Hello Tony, Our population is growing and growing fast, but how do we intend to feed them? shelter and clothe them, which are the basic essentials of living? How can our government cope with basic services? Health, Security, Peace. Education, Democracy, Roads, Bridges, Power, Etc. Etc.Etc.... If I have the power to change things I would have made Philippines a "DUTY FREE" country just like Hongkong and Singapore, not only on certain areas where all kinds of technical smuggling is happening right now. A Duty Free atmosphere would make foreigners come to buy and spend also on tourism. It would bring foreign capital and investments, Hotels and Restaurants would prosper. We could bring in more machineries, and farm equipments to modernize farming and improve food production. Our production can be fully automated for mass production with cheap machines and raw materials. This will enhance more exports with quality products that can compete anywhere. It will provide employment and stability for our people. We can expand growth to the provinces and keep our people there. We can create groups to produce components and another group to assemble finished products on every community. That's the way Japan started, and Hongkong started with Duty Free but now is a major manufacturer of toys and watches that distributes throughout the world. What should be done in the Philippines: Demand that there should be a Filipino partner in every foreign investmant of at least 10% on the first 5 years of existence and gradually grow to 15% on the next 6-10 years, and then at least 25 % on the 11th and 15th year to 40% on the 16th thereon. Tax all sales transaction by 2% for infrastructure to provide better Roads, Bridges, Communications, Ports, Airports, better Train facilities and services from Luzon to Mindanao (for faster transport of goods and avoid highway tongs). Create manufacturing company and depots around the Train tracks. Eliminate red tape and bureaucracies in dealing with the Government and keep the atmosphere "Very Investment Friendly". This is a lot of work and dedication, but I think this is the only way that could save Philippines and our people from complete holocaust. Benefits that our people will get: More employment, cheaper foods and goods to buy, improve buying power, prevent our people to flock in major cities, Hotels, Restaurants, Resorts will have more business and create more employment that can pay better wages, small businessmen will have a chance to grow, exports will improve to bring in more dollars, and most of all our pride and dignity will improve. Our Domeatic Helpers can return and work with decent wages, our Intelligent Filipinos working abroad can be utilized when they return because of competitive wages back home, and many many more. This would give us more positive results than negative, especially for our people and our country. It would give us identity and a Nation that we can be proud of. These plans can be refined and studied for best results, but it has to be done to improve the present situation and for the years to come. Fred Santos, [email protected], San Ramon, California, Nov 18, 2006 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dear Tony, Thanks for the new reflection. I am glad I am back on your mailing list. I think Joma and the Old Left are now past history. I have always felt that the real contribution of Marx was his diagnosis and critique of the capitalist system. He provided the theoretical-historical framework for what Charles Dickens had translated into powerful concrete characterization and drama, melodrama for some of it. What we might miss therefore is the valid critique and grounds for protest and revolution. Where he missed the mark completely was in his prescription and his inversion of Hegel's dialectics. I have been rereading both Marx and Dickens because I find both totally relevant to our Philippine situation. I am attaching some reflections of my own that you might find at least interesting -- something I had prepared for the bishops a few years ago. Thanks again. TING (Sixto K. Roxas), [email protected], Nov. 18, 2006 AVERTING A BLOODY REVOLUTION: Analysis and Program Reflections by Sixto K. Roxas November 10, 2005 The Depth Of Our Current Crisis The Philippines is facing its worst crisis since the founding of the Republic. It is part of the gravity of that crisis that very few, least of all our political leaders, are aware of the depth of it. A great majority of our people still believe that somehow or other, the elections of 2004 will offer fresh hope that the continuous slide of our society and increasing misery of our people will be turned around. That hope is certain to be betrayed. At which point the only recourse will be overt revolution. Forces are already forming for that explosion. Soon or late that explosion will come. The root cause is the failure of both republican and authoritarian forms of governance, over the 58 year history of this Republic, to deliver to the people a development that is sustained and sustainable, equitable and satisfying for the great majority. A comparison of the basic long term trends in the country with the year-to-year movements of the indicators of economic performance defines the gravity of the present crisis. The persistent growth in population, and the on-again-off-again fluctuations in the indicators of aggregate demand for and supply of requisite goods and services, the resulting uninterrupted deterioration in the internal and external purchasing power of the peso, the persistent and uninterrupted growth in our country�s debt to foreign countries and international institutions, the growth in the numbers of families living below the poverty line, the increasing out-migration of our labor force and the accompanying increase in the country�s dependence on the remittances of earnings of our people doing assorted menial tasks in foreign countries � all these are symptoms of a deepening malady. The growing disenchantment of the population with the processes of our so-called democratic system, with the results of the electoral process and the erosion of confidence that the electoral process is effective in giving us leaders that can satisfy the rising expectations of our growing population are already evident in two popular uprisings that have deposed two presidents, and a third that has given us a short glimpse of the horrors that can result from an uprising by the suffering urban poor. The End of the Road for Palliatives In the past the effects of the repeated failures of development policy were alleviated by extraneous factors that provided safety valves salving the growing misery with hopes of change from election to election and preventing the discontent from becoming intolerable and leading to out and out revolution: The existence of a land frontier up to the mid 1950s made it possible for families unable to find livelihood opportunities from the cash economy to set up subsistence villages in new areas. When the land frontier was closed, the slow growth in productive employment was eased by government pump priming projects financed out of additional taxes on imports and on corporate business or from increases in government debt from local and foreign creditors. Natural resource based export industries � both the expansion of traditional primary exports, and new exports such as bananas and marine products, picked up the slack from the tapering off of earnings from logs (as the country�s forests dwindled) and from minerals as the reserves of developed mines pushed the margin of extraction to economically sub-marginal deposits. These safety valves have reached the limits of their serviceability. The exploitation of natural resources and the reliance on monocrop plantation agriculture in the face of growing landlessness of the population and the lack of industrialization to provide alternative non farm livelihood for the labor force have reached the limits of their capacities to sustain the continuous growth of population. Over exploitation of timber and mineral resources are already causing ecological disasters. Giving up on the prospects of fulfilling their desire for a better life in their respective communities, families have resorted to migration. First from their rural villages and small towns to the big cities. The cities are now in crisis as well unable to match the immigration with sufficient growth of livelihood, and raise enough revenues to provide housing, utilities, health and other social services. Finding city life in the country intolerable, massive emigration to other countries have become another outlet. Over 3,000 Filipinos now leave the country daily to seek opportunities abroad! Absent a solid industrial base that limits the capacity of our local economy to produce goods and services competitively either for local consumption or for export the country�s capacity to supply the population with goods from either domestic agricultural or industrial production or from imports, and services from essential utilities has become severely limited. The capacity of the national government to give a superficial impression of economic prosperity through pump priming has reached the limits because of the size of the domestic and foreign debt and the growth in the debt service as a percentage of the national budget. Revenue from additional taxes is rendered doubtful because of the failure of the asset and income base for taxes to grow precisely because of the failure of the whole development strategy to create wealth and income sources for the population. These constraints will limit the ability of the national government to continue on the development path it has pursued since 1986. If the elections push through, it is not likely that they will result in a regime that will pursue any radical change in approach to development. They will offer no hope therefore of turning around the continued deterioration and immiseration of the greater mass of the Filipino population. When this happens, after 12 elections, an 18 year dictatorship, it is likely that the people will lose hope that this political system can offer them a change in their life conditions. They will be open to alternatives � even radical alternatives. The Alternative Strategy There is no alternative but to institute immediately the development strategy that has been found to work in other countries � a formula defined by two imperatives: genuine agrarian reform and industrialization, the formula that developed the countries of Europe and Japan in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Taiwan, South Korea, China in the second half of the previous century. It is a strategy already embodied in our 1987 Constitution but honored by our government more in the breach than in the observance since its passage. What has been lacking is what the country lost with the passing of the previous generation, an ideology that pursues national development and industrialization with a passion. We shall label that ideology �nationalism,� but it is a nationalism that is quite different from the nationalism of the 19th century that pushed the imperialism that made the Philippines a colony of the United States , and that brought the world to two global wars. It is the ingredient that historians such as Gerschenkron have said has been essential to all national developments throughout history, the element needed to �break through the barriers of stagnation in a backward country�� Our government�s faith in the profit motive and the market has failed us. We have ignored the lesson of historical experience that �� to ignite the imaginations of men, and to place their energies in the service of economic development, a stronger medicine is needed than the promise of better allocation of resources or even of the lower price of bread. break through the barriers of stagnation in a backward country�� It is the utter absence of this ideology, this ingredient that has featured in all development in history, that has prevented our country from rising out of the bog in which we seem to have gotten stuck for the past forty years. The organizers of the Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya together with organizations of peasants, labor, students, business, religious, academe have organized a movement called Peoples� Action for Nationalist Governance to advocate a new nationalist ideology. The Peoples� Action For Nationalist Governance 1. The Setting � The year 2004 a) This is presidential election year, and discussions of candidates and party slates and platforms fill the media in print and air waves. This is the eleventh such election in the 58-year history of the Philippine Republic. b) Ten past elections elected as many presidents and two bloodless revolutions � demonstrations of Peoples� Power � replaced two. But through it all the promised improvements in the conditions of the greater majority of the Filipino people have failed to materialize. Ten elections and two revolutions have raised and betrayed promised prosperity for all. c) Peoples� Power I of 1986 that overthrew the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos reinstated a democratic republic and embodied a vision of a truly sovereign nation in the Constitution of 1987 in which was laid out the course for the development of a just economic order effectively controlled by Filipinos for the benefit of the majority of Filipinos. But over the years the leadership the electoral process has put at the helm has systematically deviated from that course and violated both the vision and the letter of that organic act. d) The profile of the new leadership that aspires to lead the country in the eleventh electoral process offers no promise of any deviation from the path that the government has followed since 1987. e) The basic position of The Peoples�Action for Nationalist Governance is that the electoral process itself is flawed as an instrument for selecting a leadership that will change the ruling order responsible for the continued immiseration of our people. f) It has organized a movement to seek an alternative course for the abolition of the ruling order in favor of one that will achieve a genuine, sustainable development for the good of the entire Filipino nation and not just that of an elite minority and its retainers. g) The Movement is radical in the full sense of: i) Viewing the current condition of the Filipino people and the path on which it seems launched as being intolerable and the ruling economic, political and social order as being fundamentally responsible for that condition and the historical course on which Filipino society is launched. It thus says no to the ruling order and no to any reformist program that does not seek its complete overthrow; ii) Having a vision of an alternative economic, political, social and spiritual order that ensures a better life for the majority of the Filipino people, more suited to the geographical, historical and cultural circumstances and characteristics of the Filipino nation and its island habitat; and iii) Harboring the faith and confidence that such a vision is attainable, and possessing the commitment and determination to organize itself to achieve the transformation that will replace the ruling order with a new, just and human alternative. h) The 30th of this month of January 2004 will mark the Thirty-Fourth anniversary of the protest of the nation�s youth against the regime of then President Ferdinand Marcos that ended in violent reprisals from the government�s troops, and left martyrs to the cause of freedom. i) The Peoples� Action Movement views this occasion as an opportunity to raise the battlecry for mass action by the people to seek through peaceful means the total transformation of the existing economic, political, and social order and the establishment of a system of governance that will honor and satisfy the demands of the majority of Filipinos for a better life for themselves and their children and a sustainable path of evolution and development for the Filipinos and the Philippines. 2. What�s To Be Done? a) The Movement�s Program � its diagnosis of the present condition of the Filipino, its critique of the ruling order, its vision of the alternative, its plan of action � must be fully articulated in appropriate documents and embodied in a passionate Manifesto. b) This Manifesto must be launched in a public demonstration and fully propagated at all levels of society and throughout the country. c) The Movement�s Program must be translated into the specifics that demonstrate what each sector of society, at each level of community in the nation, now disadvantaged by the present ruling order, will gain from the realization of the new order established by the program. Those sectors must be mobilized then to throw their support behind the program. d) The program design will mobilize all levels of communities, all sectors of society within each community -- farmers, fisherfolk, artisans, small and medium traders and manufacturers, market vendors, landless peasants, professionals, service providers, civil servants, educators, students, women, youth, religious leaders and their lay constituents � in village, towns and cities � by demonstrating to each how much better they will fare under the new order than under the present ruling system. Their awareness will be awakened and their perceptions sharpened in workshops and discussion groups. e) The churches and schools will be mobilized to conduct these workshops and raise the levels of consciousness and awareness of every age-group and occupational sector of the population at all levels of the community. f) The protocol for organizing at all levels will embody the approach found effective in other similar movements, the triple process of SEE, THINK, ACT, or OBSERVE, ANALYZE, ORGANIZE at each level of community organization and in each sector. g) Each step in the process will be served by suitable protocols: for factual observation, for analytical diagnostics and for strategy, tactics and operational techniques of organizing. Appropriate programs for training of trainers and of leaders and facilitators will be designed and instituted through the channels most effective in each group and locality. h) The unit organization will start with �Consciousness Circles� that eventually combine and become formalized into groups of individuals or families in �Action Clusters� and grow into �Basic Ecclesial Communities� following an evolutionary process in stages along a maturation trajectory. 3. Resource-Mobilization Plan and Logistics or �Where do we begin?� a) Severe limitations in starting capital require great ingenuity and resourcefulness in mobilizing resources to seed the movement. Start-up capital will cover four items: i) The design and preparation of the entire program (including the protocols for the triple process of OBSERVE (Participatory Action Research), ANALYZE, ORGANIZE), the writing of the Manifesto, and their documentation. ii) Publication of the Manifesto � full page ads, printing of copies, translation into dialects. iii) January 30 Launching Rally iv) Training of core group of trainers and facilitators. b) If these first four items are covered and prove successful, then the follow-up, echo rallies in various communities and sectoral organizations, subsequent training sessions, organization of �Consciousness Circles� should become self-financed from a combination of volunteered services, contributed facilities by schools, religious orders, civic organizations, local NGOs in various communities and sectoral groups, and converted private individuals. wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Gringo above the Law? Dear Mr Abaya, I just have to get this load off my chest. I hope you can write on this. What makes Gringo think he is above the law? What gives him the right to ask for house arrest when even Erap was not granted his request? Why do people and voters fall for this kind of sham heroism? What gives him the right to run again for re-election? The constitution? What kind of constitution is this that allows law-breakers to run for office? And when I ask, I'm not thinking only of Gringo. I'm also thinking of Ttrillanes, Jalosjos and perhaps many others whom i haven't caught up with anymore. What kind of vision does this constitution set for the youth. Freedom, maybe but what about morality? Bless you that you can write. Angie Diaz, [email protected], Nov. 17, 2006 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |