after Marcos
The fall of the corrupt right
wing dictator Ferdinand Marcos
was a dramatic and unexpected breakthrough for the opposition in the Philippines. Here DAVE KELLAWAY examines the character of the Aquino
government, the role of the military and the future of the left, especially the powerful Philippines Communist Party (CCP). EVERYTHING IN the Philippines came unhinged with the 'February revolution' as the mass mobilisations in Manila forced Enrile (Minister of Defence under both Marcos and Aquino) to change horses in midstream and ensure Aquino's victory.
The Reagan administration only ditched Marcos at the very last minute. Its plans for reform with continuity, a controlled 'democratic opening' with Marcos still in control, were upset by the strength of mass electoral support for Aquino who was seen as the candidate able to finish with the dictatorship. Despite support for Aquino in the Congress and Senate and even among some elements in the administration the Aquino triumph was no palace coup orchestrated by Washington.
Apart from its economic interests and its concern about the growing strength of the NPA (the New People's Army guerrilla movement), US imperialism is most concerned with keeping its huge Subic Bay and Clarke military bases which are even more strategically important after the loss of Vietnam. Cory Aquino did not seem to provide the necessary insurance against the communists International No 8 January/February 1987
PHILI P I contradictions and divisions within US ruling circles that the Reagan policy in relation to Marcos provoked could reemerge with a vengeance in relation to measures taken by the Aquino government. The Aquino government All the left or progressive forces have to define themselves in relation to the new government. Many of them talk of 'helping' or
the new Aquino government
Tis bourgeois and pro-imperialist strengthening the liberal and progressive wing of the government. At the same time they admit, however, that the progressive forces are in a minority and that the 'revolution' is 'unfinished'. None of the left forces including the CCP are demanding the immediate resignation of 'progressive' elements in the government in order that they will not be
S Piers Cavendish/Reflex of the dictatorship is seen as the crucial precondition for establishing the political space for further progressive advance.
While this may be a correct approach in the initial period it would be wrong to transform it into a systematic political adaptation to what the 'progressive' elements consider 'realistic'. It is one thing to not make the removal of honest progressives a priority or a major question. It is quite another for anybody claiming to defend the working class and poor peasants to actually join such a government or to refuse to press their just demands. The upcoming constitutional plebiscite and legislative elections will be a test for the left's relations with the government.
Apart from the measures dismantling the dictatorship and introducing a form of bourgeois democracy the Aquino government has a relatively coherent capitalist economic project. The Marcos regime was inhibiting a more modern capitalist development. Behind Aquino are bourgeois forces who reject the capitalist irrationality and corruption of 'crony capitalism'. Pro-Aquino forces like 31
the sugar and coconut planters suffered economically from the financial stronghold of the Marcos dynasty.
The Aquino government also has support from bourgeois forces interested in developing the domestic market and placing some restrictions on foreign capital. There is a considerable economic crisis. GNP has fallen three years running, investment is down and there is a $26 billion foreign debt.
Aquino successfully used her support in the Us Congress and Senate to get increased aid from the US. In turn the IMF has been accommodating about recycling the debt. The IMF are aware that with Aquino there is a chance that the lid can be kept on explosive social contradictions — two-thirds of the population live below the official poverty line of $140 a month and 70% of the people
agriculture for a living. reform, as in most dependent countries, the key question.
Aquino is aware that if she wants to win the hearts and minds of the Communist Party (CCP) base in the countryside she has to come up with some form of land reform. But
Bland reform is the key question for Aquino there are entrenched economic interests of a modern agribusiness to contend with. In areas like Negros, the sugar island, the effects of the February revolution continue but real changes in the harsh poverty and the repression of the landowners' private armies are not apparent.
The new Aquino government is unquestionably bourgeois. Pro-imperialist forces are predorinant in it. But it also enjoys a legitimacy from having been brought to power by an anti-dictatorial uprising. This popular legitimacy is stronger than one conferred by a normal electoral victory and is sanctified by the powerful Catholic Church.
The government is therefore able to employ a populist style symbolised by its references to 'people's power', and by the moral authority of the president. The events around Enrile's failed 'coup' bear out the Filippino left's analysis of the unstable and transitional character of the first Aquino government.
Any summary analysis stating it is just another capitalist government and that the key task is only for the left to keep independent of it and raise programmatic demands fails to grasp the contradictions or provide a framework for setting out the tasks. The building of alliances in particular has to come to terms with the real forces active in the situation.
We have seen in Latin America, particularly in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay how 'reformist' governments carrying out a democratic transition after years of bloody dictatorship can win mass support. These governments have even managed to trade off political reforms with economic austerity at 32 least initially.
PHILIPPINES Ceasefire and elections What is the situation today? Enrile's failure has strengthened both Aquino and Ramos, the head of the armed forces. The military hierarchy did not want any adventures at this stage but wants to reunify a divided army and make sure the anti-military elements in the Aquino government are removed or wea-
RAMOS
General Fidel Ramos (above)
commander of the armed forces,
currently backing Aquino. Below is
Enrile defence minister sacked by
Aquino kened. Some reports have talked of a reshuffle to the right, dropping the progressive
ministers but this has not been confirmed at
Cof writing. Opinion polls place
Army Chief of Staff Ramos just behind Aquino in popularity. He is ready to step in if
Aquino falters in her project or imperialism later decides her government is too risky.
The ceasefire is a gain for Aquino and an opportunity for the CCP. The CP-led guerrillas, the New People's Army (NPA) has not had to dump arms nor disband. Its areas of control are not going to be attacked during the ceasefire. The CCP has been given the prestige of being negotiated with on a national level. Its fighters will have time to rest and to reorganise. The NPA has staged impressive political rallies in many regional centres to mark the ceasefire. The military are not entirely happy hence the fuss it made about the NPA carrying guns in population centres. A Filippino columnist quoted in the Guardian refers to the guerrillas' seizure of the propaganda initiative:
'The strongest propaganda message that
has enveloped the country is the NDF
message, not that of the government. It
means the government has been badly
outmanoeuvred. Now the NDF is in Ma-
nila and has become a real force in the
daily conduct of the Government. The
tragedy is that very few seem to realise
what it means.'
Imperialist analysts are worried that a long ceasefire — as long as the NPA maintains its forces — could allow the NPA to regroup and Piers Cavendish/Reflex then eventually re-launch the armed struggle. Of course the Aquino government is hoping to win a political victory over the CCP base by winning a massive majority in the upcoming elections. Then, their argument goes, a limited land reform might erode the communist base to proportions which would allow a military victory over the rebels. Conversely the CCP and other left forces could take advantage of the vast new political space to develop an alternative political project.
the regime is moving to the
Wright
The exact positions of all the left forces towards the new government and Aquino's 'reformist project' will become clearer in the upcoming elections. The CCP's errors If Reagan got the February elections wrong perhaps the main component of the Philippines left, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CCP), got it just as wrong. It saw the election as a farce without significance. It argued that participation in such elections Piers Cavendish/Reflex would only create illusions among the masses, that Marcos was going to win anyway and so the moderate, bourgeois opposition would decline further in influence and there would be a continued polarisation between itself and the dictatorship. In fact instead of refurbishing the regime the February elections deprived it of all legitimacy and brought mass legal, political action centre stage.
How did the CuP get so out of touch with the mood of the people? This is a party that split with about 100 people from the old Stalinist PKP (which eventually ended up
International No 8 January/February 1987
PHILIPPIN ES
supporting Marcos) on a Maoist course. Piers Caterd: 1.2.)
Through revolutionary dictatorship it became the dominant and only action against the
truly national left force in the country leading
a 25,000-strong NPA and active coalitions like
BAYAN with several million members. It went
into sectarian and dogmatic retreat in 1982
centralising its mass work in the various
fronts more as a democratic shield than as a
real united front. It also had a rigid strategic
conception of the theory of prolonged
people's war. Because of this the elections
were seen as a passing event, with no rele-
vance to the overall political-military accu-
mulation of forces.
Of course there was opposition inside the
CCP to the boycott position. Reports indicate
the decision was taken on a close vote inside
the executive committee. 'Joma' (J. Sison)
founder and historic leader of the CCP, who
was released after the elections, was putting
forward a minimum participation position as
early as February.
On the ground CCP activists did not always
toe the hard boycott line. After February the
party made a self-criticism admitting it com-
mitted a 'grave tactical error'.
It accepted
that the dynamism of the bourgeois opposi-
tion was underestimated. The extent of the
regime's isolation was not understood and
the party's agitation was addressed to a nar-
row vanguard instead of the masses. Criti-
cism of the leadership on organisational
points was also made and a congress is said to
be planned (there has been no congress since
foundation!).
More interesting still are the contributions
made by certain leaders about the party's traditional Maoist analysis of Philippine
society as semi-colonial and semi-feudal and
about the weakness of the prolonged people's war strategy. The influence of events in Central America on some of these cadres is demonstrated in the suggestion that sectarian attitudes to the united front should be looked at. With the new political space opened up and now further extended by the ceasefire a Peoples Party (Partido ng Bayan) has been set up by Joma Sison and is clearly a key project of the CCP.
Unlike in a less-developed semi-colonial country like pre-revolutionary Nicaragua there are a range of other progressive forces competing for mass influence with the nat. dems. (national democratic current) as the CCP is dubbed in the Philippines.
The soc. dems. (the social democratic current) has more affinity with Christian Democracy than something like the Labour Party. Its origins are very much linked to the Catholic Church which is the country's overwhelmingly dominant religion. This current was particularly inspired by Jesuits who set out consciously to provide an anti-communist alternative, including by establishing American style 'free' trade unions.
Martial law, the influence of liberation theology, Latin American experiences and the revolutionary example of the NPA activists inspired many younger soc. dem. militants to take more radical positions. A whole current, Christians for National Liberation daughter has been smuggled in: it's the first time they have met since Woman guerrilla of the New People's Army at a training camp. Her (led by 'Ed' de la Torre) went into the na- her birth. International No 8 January/February 1987
Happ Year PETE tional democratic current although maintaining its autonomy. Today the moderate social democrats are among Aquino's closest advisors and the more progressive wing are both inside and outside the government.
Small Marxist groups like the Independent Caucus which broke with the national democratic-led Bayan coalition over its unity tactics have seen their political influence grow because of their involvement along with progressive social democratic forces in the pro-Aquino coalition. The Independent Caucus came about after failure of unity moves between several small groups and the CCP at the beginning of the 1980s.
The groups involved were in agreement about a democratic conception of socialism, the use of Marxist and non-Maoist analysis of Philippine society, a non-manipulative use of the united front and on the need to present socialism openly as a solution.
This set them apart from the CCP's national democratic approach which tends to separate the two phases of national liberation and socialism. Independent Caucus activists 34 are involved in a further regroupment pro-
PHILIPPIN ES New People's Army, the fighting arm of the CCP ject of the non-CCP socialist left called Bisig (see IVP 8 Dec, 1986).
The latter groups, progressive social democrats, community-based organisations and human rights bodies have formed Lakas (Peoples Power) in the wake of the elections. Essentially it represents the forces which supported the Aquino campaign. A declaration dated March 2 catches the ambiguous poli-
'[In February 1986] the decisive factors
were the power of the people, the
power of faith and the unwavering leader-
ship of Corazan Aquino ... the Popular
revolution involved the seizure of state
power by the people, it was essentially a
political act. However it remains unfin-
ished. To become a social revolution,
social relations and social structure need
to be transformed... To accomplish these
tasks, the people's power must now be
systematically articulated and translated
into a cohesive, organised and sustained
force, which will promote people's demo-
cracy, national sovereignty, justice and
equity' (IVP 103 14 July 1986)
hih/Balle
Declarations by CCP leaders in praise of Aquino do not yet amount to capitulation and participation in a bourgeois government or even non-participatory external support (since Aquino has ruled out such participation in any case). If there was such a division over the electoral boycott there would surely be even bigger internal ructions over any such major change of position.
The regime is adjusting to the right but the Enrile/pro-Marcos people are still a force to be reckoned with (they intend to stand against Aquino in the elections), the army is still not reunified, the mass movement is stil: in a big upturn, the left is still strong anc Aquino's political project can still produce big contradictions inside the ruling class anc for imperialism. Events in 1987 could be as important as in 1986. • This article has been based on the extensi:! coverage of the Philippines in Internationa Viewpoint a fortnightly magazine published unir the auspices of the United Secretariat of the Fei= International. i
The Brazilian Workers Party
THE EMERGENCE of the