| Run, Joma, Run By Antonio C. Abaya October 11, 2002 Joma Sison is running out of options and running out fast. His communist party and its political and military arms � the NDF and the NPA, respectively - have been labeled a foreign terrorist organization by the US, the UK and his host country, the Netherlands. Can the rest of the European Union be far behind? (This was written weeks before the EU actually tagged them terrorist on November 1). The (capitalist) Dutch government, which had earlier denied his petition for political asylum, has stopped giving him the monthly stipend that was keeping his communist soul still attached to his socialist body. He cannot now afford even the vegetarian diet that he famously said he has had to resort to to make ends meet. What to do? What to do? I had written earlier that he was planning to move to neighboring Belgium should his appeal for reconsideration of his denied petition for political asylum not be sustained by the Dutch or European courts. But that option is also wearing thin in the present situation. Belgium, partner in NATO and the EU, will most likely follow the lead of the British and Dutch governments, declare his CPP-NDF-NPA a foreign terrorist organization and deny him political asylum. Joma should have followed the advice I gave him more than six years ago, and which I repeated in this space a few months ago, and that is, to move to the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea. At least, by living out his exile in a fervently socialist country, he would be consistent with his socialist principles. By choosing to stay in a disgustingly capitalist and ex-imperialist country like the Netherlands, Joma left himself open to the charge of enjoying a fat and flabby burgis existence while his troops suffered a skin-and-bones struggle for survival in the boondocks. If the anti-Marcos activists in the US were steak commandoes, Joma and his crew in Utrecht are steak revolutionaries. Except that, now, there will be no more steak. ***** Run, Joma, run. To the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea, trainor at one time of NPA assassins, including those who killed an American colonel near the Jusmag compound in Quezon City. And run fast before North Korea discovers and adopts profit capitalism like the People�s Republic of China. Overshadowed by the looming war in Iraq, North Korea is undergoing some very radical changes that bode ill for the future of allegedly scientific socialism. For the first time since the founding of the reclusive state in 1948, North Korean workers are being paid, not in ration coupons, but in cash. And the value of the cash is said to be 20 times the value of those ration coupons. But the costs of basic commodities and services � food, energy, transportation, housing � have been suddenly increased to 30 times their previous levels. And there are no noisy militant groups like Bayan, Bayan Muna, KMU, Akbayan, Gabriela, Sanlakas, BMP and other communist fronts to protest these wrenching changes since North Korea, of course, is a communist country and does not allow any protest from anyone. Only education and medical care will remain free. Everything else must be paid for in cash. This is only one step away from the commonsensical capitalist dictum that prices must reflect the cost of production. Failure to recognize this fact of life, in order to maintain a social good (low prices), was one of the major reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was one of the boastful claims of Soviet socialism that the price of a loaf of Soviet bread had been unchanged since the 1920s. But this meant that sometime between the 1920s and 1989, when the Soviet Union finally collapsed, the cost of producing that loaf of bread exceeded and was progressively outstripping the income that the Soviet state (the sole producer and vendor of that loaf of bread) derived from its sale. This meant that the state�s resources went more and more into subsidizing low prices rather than in increasing production. And this was true not just of bread but of everything else since the state owned all the means of production of goods and services, including even taxis, shoe repair shops, tailoring shops, tobacco kiosks and turo-turo restaurants. Low prices, true, but shortages of everything from eggs to automobiles, which led to widespread corruption and, despite the belated reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, disenchantment with allegedly scientific socialism and its eventual collapse. Mercifully, the pragmatic Chinese under Deng Xiao-ping were able to avoid this hardening of the arteries by re-introducing the profit motive into Chinese life. Can Kim Jong Il do the same for North Korea? I doubt it. More likely, pauperized North Korea will be absorbed by South Korea in the same way that impoverished East Germany was absorbed by West Germany. It is difficult to see a brighter future for Pyongyang. Its annual earnings from exports are estimated (it is secretive about it) at about $680 million � even less than Swaziland�s $825m or Azerbaijan�s $885m � while Seoul�s exports total a staggering $144 billion. Its national ideology of juiche or self-reliance, long admired by the late communist ideologue Renato Constantino Sr. and the IBON Data Bank, has gotten it exactly nowhere. That is why I�m telling Joma: Run, Joma, run. To North Korea before it, too, discovers the profit motive and becomes the backyard of Seoul and the sweatshop of the chaebols. Joma and Jong have maybe two years � at most ,five � to weep into each other�s beers and ask each other where they had gone wrong; they had nothing but the noblest of intentions for everyone. A fitting finale for the Last Great Maoist ***** NOVEMBER 2. Reacting to the European Union�s terrorist tag, Joma said that the blacklisting could result in the scuttling of �peace talks� that the government suspended last year and pave the way for a �fiercer armed revolution.� It should be recalled that the suspension of the �peace talks� came after Joma�s NPA assassins killed the governor of Cagayan Province and a politician of Quezon Province, both of which qualify as acts of terrorism in any language. The scuttling of the �peace talks�, if it should happen, means that Joma and his crew will no longer have the pompous prerogative to pretend that they represent a government separate from and equal to the government headed by the Arroyo administration. This pretense was and is absurd since they control no territory except for some uninhabited mountain hideaways, and are not recognized as a government by any sovereign state This charade, first begun during the Aquino presidency, was meant to pave the way for the return home of Joma and crew, not as failed revolutionaries, which they are, but as social reformers who have forced the reactionary government to make social reforms it otherwise would not have made, or so the folklore would claim. That is why one of the preliminary agreements signed by the communists with the trapo government is a laundry list of so-called reforms they want the trapo government to make. No one in the trapo negotiating panel has/had any nerve or guts or brains to demand reforms on the communist side too, since all that the trapos were/are interested in was �peace,� peace at any price, in aid of election or re-election. Certainly, a revolutionary movement that has been left behind by history, which cannot point to any functioning successful model of its ideological principles, is badly in need of reforms itself and has no moral right to demand it of others if it cannot reform its own sclerotic self. ***** . The bulk of this article appears in the October 28, 2002 issue of the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine. |
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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Reactions to �Run Joma Run� I THINK we need a new �ism,� one that puts together the best working principles of capitalism, communism/socialism and discards the bad ones. While the end objectives of all these �isms� is a better quality of life for all, there are excesses and dysfunctional practices with all of them. Or, is humanity really made to have inequality much the same way (as) in the animal kingdom where the strong reign and get all the goodies as well? Even in the heavens, or in the church, or in any community there is a pecking order. The struggles for equality and the good life for all seems to be a continuous �work in progress� with no ending�and this is mankind�s curse? While Joma�s beliefs have run out their course, the need to fix the country has not. Without the dedication of the Jomas of this world, how will we be able to fix the ills of the country? The world, the Philippine most especially, needs a new �ism� for this millennium�. Nonoy Yulo. [email protected] November 3, 2002 MY REPLY. It is futile to have complete equality (�pantay-pantay�) as the Soviets and the Maoists tried to do in their time. The societies they came up with, at any rate, were not really all that egalitarian. The nomenklatura of the Soviet elite ended up with special privileges and perks previously enjoyed only by the Romanov dysnasts and boyars. As for the anthill egalitarianism under Mao, I don�t think there is anyone in the present Chinese ruling class or general population who wants to go back to that surreal past. Realism and pragmatism suggest that the equality any society should aspire for should be equality of opportunities and equality under the law; any other equality is artificial and is itself dysfunctional. Equality of opportunities is achieved through good basic educational facilities available to all for free or at nominal cost up to tertiary level; but it does not mean denying the rich and other private groups the right to have their own snob schools if they so want. Equality of opportunities also involves making credit available to entrepreneurs of even modest means. But it does not mean subsidizing his or her business if and when it fails. Equality under the law means just that, that all citizens are equal under the law; that rich and poor alike must suffer to the same degree the consequences of their deliberate actions, and that no one can violate the law and get away with it, no matter how rich and powerful he or she is. Many countries, especially those in Scandinavia, as well as the Anglo-Saxon countries (Canada, Australia, New Zealand), plus countries like Switzerland and the Netherlands , have achieved something close to equality of opportunities and equality under the law, but they would be the last to claim that they have attained a state of perfection. It is, as you put it, always a work in progress. But there is no shame in that. In our part of the world, Singapore would be close to what the Scandinavians and the Anglo-Saxons have achieved in functional and pragmatic egalitarianism with the caveat that Singapore, being Asian, protects communitarian values above individual values. South Korea has shown that it seriously tries to achieve equality under the law when it accused, tried and convicted two former presidents for corruption and sentenced one to death, the other to life imprisonment, even if both were later pardoned by a new president. That new president himself bore the consequences of equality under the law when two of his sons, separately, were accused, tried, convicted and jailed for corruption and influence peddling. I do not know what �isms� Singapore and South Korea operate under, but Scandinavia achieved its level of civilization largely under the principles of democratic socialism; so did the Anglo-Saxon countries under their Labor Parties, which are an offshoot of Western European social democracy. Personally, I have always been attracted to democratic socialism even when I was a member of Joma�s communist front Kabataang Makabayan. ���������������������������� JOMA IS not a problem. He is a joke. What is a problem and intractably so is the undying devotion his Filipino guerillas are giving to him. He has no successful ideology to flount (sic) about and he is conducting a revolution by remote control. How indescribably stupid these ideologues are. Anyway, back to Joma. Had he taken your advice, he would have been starving by now. (That was the idea, to let him starve, but with dignity and in accordance with his socialist principles. ACA). By the way, the Philippines� move of declaring the CPP/NPA a terrorist organization is a long thing coming. It has to be the US to take the initiative of doing that. Another proof of us freezing on our pathetic ass doing nothing unless Uncle Sam says so. It is unbelievable for our government not to even wonder how could these local terrorists carry on a war for so long without outside financial help. It is absurd how Bayan and all those leftist organization carry on a seemingly endless string of rallies without financial support from somewhere. Think of this. A single bullet from an NPA kills one. The rallies conducted by these leftist organizations have more financial impact to the country than the loss of one policeman���. Joe. [email protected]. November 4, 2002 MY REPLY. The CPP/NPA/NDF gets its money from two sources: from �revolutionary taxes� extorted by their cadres from business corporations operating in areas infested with NPAs, and from voluntary contributions collected by na�ve Western European funding organizations, mostly Church groups, who think the Maoists are a humanitarian outfit fighting injustice. Now that the European Union has correctly labeled them a terrorist organization, expect the European funds to dry up, and the �revolutionary tax� collection to step up. �������������������������� I TRULY enjoyed this article. You should resume writing for a daily newspaper. You are one of the reasons I subscribe to Manila Standard. Thanks for putting me in your mailing list. Romy Bernardo. romyber@I- November 4, 2002 MY REPLY. I�m glad you enjoyed it, but I do not write for the Manila Standard. That must be another Tony Abaya. According to Larry Henares, who devoted an entire column to the subject, there are fifteen of us Tony Abayas. ��������������������������� I AM GLAD that I have re-established contact with you again. Please include me in your mailing list. Little by little, I am catching up with your past articles. I just read your October 11 article on �Run Joma Run.� I am particularly interested in your September 19 article on �Where We Are Headed� and your September 12 article on �Thinking the Unthinkable.�. Keep up the good work. Jun Tambunting. antonio@tambuntingcom.. November 5, 2002 ������������������������� YOU SEEM to be happy about the predilection (sic) Joma Sison is in right now, but to me there seems to be no good news in pushing people in doing things they are forced to do. The problem with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is that she depends so much on the Americans on aid, ideas, worldview and even vision of governance. She has to resort to American worldview of who are enemies and friends. But this vision is very myopic and can benefit only the Americans. What good will it bring us if Joma and his 20,000 or 15,000 armies (sic) are branded by the Americans as terrorists? Will it ever bring them to surrender or abandon their fight? Will branding them terrorists mellow them? No way, the more they will prove in (sic) the world that they are terrorists? (sic) It could have been good if these 15,000 or even 1,000 are captured and behind bars, and proving them as terrorists will legitimize the government�s seize (sic) of them. But these are 15,000 strong army (sic), who are never been (sic) identified by the government and who will roam our streets, and God forbid, will terrorize us if they may? (sic). Making the US brand them as terrorists will only expose to the whole world our AFPs inefficiency and weakness. If the US has 10 or so pockets of terrorists in their soil, the Philippines has 15,000 terrorists on the loose. What good of an image (sic) will it bring the Philippines abroad? Will investors and tourists still come here knowing there are 15,000 terrorists in every towns and cities (sic) of the Philippines? Now, GMA is also pushing to include MILF on the list of terrorists. Now that will add up another 15,000. We may all as well run to other countries, and let GMA and the 30,000 terrorists remain here! Magno Simbulan, Baguio City. [email protected] November 7, 2002 MY REPLY. Maybe it is not such a bad idea, that you all run to other countries. I understand some of the Simbulans are already in the country that you all hate so much, the USA. It could improve your command of the English language. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO |