PHILIPPINES: Left resists Arroyo's War on Terror hysteria

In early August, three revolutionary socialist organisations in the Philippines — the Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino (Workers Party of the Philippines, PMP), the Sosyalistang Partido ng Paggawa (Socialist Party of Labour, SPP) and the Partido Proletaryo Demokratiko (Democratic Proletarian Party, PPD) — merged into a unified party, which adopted the PMP as its name. Members of the PMP lead the Filipino Workers Solidarity (BMP), the largest left-wing labour organisation in the Philippines.

While in Manila, Max Lane interviewed PMP spokesperson PATRICIO RAMIREZ for Green Left Weekly.

What has been the response in the Philippines to the US-led War on Terror?

The opposition to the return of US troops and bases to the Philippines and to the US War on Terror is significant here and is recognised in the media. But we have to say that the government has the upper hand in the public relations war at the moment. Its War on Terror propaganda has created a favourable climate of public opinion for the return of US troops.

Still, the government knows that there is still the chance that the revolutionary and progressive forces may be able to shift public opinion against US intervention. I think this is what is behind the whipping up of anti-communist hysteria. There have been attempts to organise anti-communist rallies and pro-US actions.

The government has also included the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New Peoples Army (NPA) as terrorist organisations alongside the Abu Sayyaf group and the kidnapping gangs. Some military figures have also tried to openly link some of the legal organisations on the left with the CPP and NPA. This is part of an increased military vigilance against the left.

What other moves have there been against the left forces by the government?

There has been a shift of army battalions from Abu Sayyaf influenced areas to areas where the New Peoples Army has been growing. As the situation of the peasantry grows increasingly desperate in some regions, the NPA is steadily growing again. The Arroyo government is clearly set on an all-out campaign against them. It is only the budget deficit of the government that is preventing a big escalation in the war.

How are these moves impacting on public opinion and on mass sentiment?

The positive thing is that they have generated no significant support or popular response. The anti-communist rallies remain quite small; there is no real popular momentum for these moves.

Apart from the left groups, there was also opposition to President Gloria Arroyo's government from supporters of former president Joseph Estrada. Where is that now?

That support, based among the urban poor or semi-proletariat is still there, but not organised very politically, or very well. Partly this is due to amateurism, but also due, I think, to a fear among Estrada supporters in the elite of seeing these poor people become organised. They are afraid of that. But there is now an organisation called the Peoples Movement Against Poverty, aimed against Arroyo and linked to Estrada. We think the left can intervene in this milieu and these organisations and try to influence them.

How do you see the state of the left today?

To start, the broad spectrum of the left, is still a force that the ruling class must acknowledge and deal with. It is recognised as a force.

The PMP itself is not yet well known and does not have a high public profile. The CPP has a much higher profile and recognition than we do. The PMP needs to carry out a campaign to get its policies and perspectives better known.

Bayan Muna, representing the [CPP-influenced) “national democratic” current on the other hand, has a good platform from which to operate, with three of their cadres in congress and good influence in the media.

How do you view your party's differences with the CPP?

Fundamentally, there is a difference at the theoretical or ideological level in that we reject the Stalinist and Maoist perspectives of the CPP and try to advocate a Marxist-Leninist position. In the political situation, of course, the CPP still plays a positive role, organising and mobilising people. In fact, we are kind of objective allies in that we are often running parallel campaigns with more-or-less the same demands and advocating more-or-less the same analysis of many issues, such as globalisation.

Any alliances, even on single issues, is still prevented by an attitude of extreme sectarianism on their part. They still adopt a position of refusing to work with any other groups on the left.

But while rejecting any alliances with the rest of the left, they are willing to forge alliances with elements within the ruling class. During the struggle against Estrada, they signed a compact with Arroyo. The compact was supposed to commit Arroyo to various progressive policies, but everybody knew that Arroyo was not seriously committed to these. In fact, she gave no open commitment to actually implement them.

Now that Arroyo has declared war against the CPP-NPA, CPP leaders openly argue that vice-president Teofisto Guingona, who hails from the same party as Arroyo, would make a better president.

But you said also that the NPA is growing in the countryside?

The desperate situation of sections of the peasantry is the underlying basis of this. It indicates that guerrilla struggle can still be an effective way of organising peasants in current conditions, although we think it can only develop so far. We question whether such a form of struggle can be the pivotal means to win the revolution itself.

How do you see the agrarian struggle evolving?

We think there are prospects for the revival of a militant peasant struggle. There are two developments provoking this. Firstly, the WTO-style liberalisation of agriculture is causing great disruption. The coconut industry is collapsing as copra substitutes are swamping not just the international but the local market.

At the same time, there are now large amounts of imported sugar coming into the country without import controls causing big disruption in the sugar industry. Rice will next be hit. Coconut, sugar and rice are big sectors.

Secondly, the government's land reform program is entering its last phase. It has being going now for more than 10 years and the government and landowners have used every loophole provided in the legislation to make sure that only government and public lands, usually not commercially viable, have been distributed.

Fertile and commercially viable lands belonging to plantations and large landholdings have not been distributed. In some cases, where distribution has taken place, the land has been taken back.

As the final phase starts, there will be expectations that finally good land will be distributed. There are likely to be many struggles demanding such distribution.

In fact, even now, if you pass the agrarian ministry office you will see tent protests of peasants there every day. There are peasant struggles breaking out separately all over the place. This will escalate, I think, over the next few years. Then the issue will be how to unite them politically into a powerful militant peasant movement.

What would you say is the key difference when it comes to platform or practical ideological work between the PMP and CPP?

The CPP still emphasises the national-democratic character of its movement — that it is a movement of the whole people, including workers, peasants, petty bourgeoisie and also the nationalist or patriotic bourgeoisie. We think it tends to substitute itself, the party itself, for the working class as the vanguard of the revolution, leading the whole people.

We emphasise trying to develop a socialist consciousness among the working class based on the idea that it is only a working class with such a consciousness, that is aware of socialist goals, which will be capable of leading the whole people in the democratic struggle in order to advance to the socialist stage of the revolution.

They tend to call for a democratic coalition government of the whole people, including the nationalist bourgeoisie, where we call for a workers and peasants' government.

From Green Left Weekly, October 2, 2002.
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PHILIPPINES: Left resists Arroyo's War on Terror hysteria