Aquino on borrowed time
workers' movement have been arrested, tortured assassinaled. In many towns and villages government troops collaborate with armed anticommunist vigilante groups, Togerher they terrorise and murder people who are thought to be NPA sympathisers, who join unions or who simply try to grow food on strips of land fringing the sugar plantations.
The miserable poverty of the mass of the people, as in US troops on manoeuvres in the Philippines the days of martial law, gues unalleviared by social reforms. A particular bone of contention is the long: promised land reform, a piece of draft legislation currently lost in the labyrinths of Gongress. "Aquino's laric reform scheme has been progressively watered-down and deprived of substance.. warns the leader of the sugar wurkers" union, Serge Cherniguin. * ..If she yields to the pressure of the big landowners who make up ber entourage (and isn't slie also one of them?) the peasants themselves will force a redistribution of land.'
Indeed, as Aquino's refusal to break with the old system of privilege and patronage has become incrcasingly obvious, the working claws hay sturted to mobilise on a number of different fronts. Significantly, the failed coup attempt in argue lor a clear line against imperialist intervention in Central America, not allowing the movement to be divided on the question of thr Guatemala accord • GILL LEE August followed a transport strike that paralysed the capital, Manila, and five other
The strike was provoked by an inflationary 18 per cent rise in fuel prices suddenly imposed by the government to appease the International Monetary Fund and help to repay interest on the country's crippling 526 billion foreign debt. The resniting explosion of popular discontent gave a new boost to the left, uniting in action the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines. workers from the KMU radical won federation and the Bayan (New Patriotic Alliance) coalition of mass organisarions.
Just as Aquino has failed to maintain her mass base, she has failed to keep the loyalty of the military reformists in the army. Demoralised and divided, the various military factions with no political parties of their own to represent then, Tele cheated by Aquino's electoral success in May which heraided the new rise of the big families. Many were deeply dismayed us well by the democratic space opened up by the popular movements, permitting organisations such as the Partido ng Bayan (People's Party, launched in August 1986 by former political prisoners) to run in the
backstreet abortions!
elections.
This ycar's August rebellion led by Colonel Gregorio Honasan revealed rhe growing strength of a fascist current in the armed forces. Homasan and the majority of his 1,000 mutineers. are still at large. Meanwhile the far right doctrine they stand for -under which Aquino and the "military reformists' are dismissed as being soft ob communism and half-heared in their war against the guerrillas — continues to win the sympathy of a broad swathe of young officers.
There is now a real danger of a fascist take-over like that of Chile in 1973 which could plummet the country into a nightmare of repression. One important difference, however, is the exisrence of the cenacious 24,000-strong New People's Army with 17 years" experienice of waging armed stroggle against the government. Quick to take advantage of the milirary's disarray following the Honasan coup attempt, the NPA launched a number of unprocedented offensives on cconomic targets and continues to build up irs: arsenal. It has offered Aquino negotiations on forging a united front against an army coup.
The Americans, for their part, are worried about the divisions among the varicus ruling class interest groups in the Philippines - divisions that the guerrillas have been able to exploit. The US therefore keeps its eges in all baskets — the general staff, the government and business circles. In a situation where the unly two options apen for the bourgeoisie are to retain Aquino as a figurchead for the army or have the military push her aside, the Americans would probably prefer to see her stay because of her "democratic" world image. But their priority remans to safeguard their crucial strategic interest in the region through their two Philippines naval bases and to saleguard the vast interests of US capical there, however this can be best achieved • KATHY LOWE SOCIALIST OUTLOCK no 4 November/Decembe 1987
OХ2СТОВИA, the das after the aniversary of rhe passng ch the 1967 aborton act, tie loureenth atempt to restrict ite provisions was introduccd to: parlamenr in the forin of David Niton's pravate member'+ bill.
The bill socks to amend the 1967 aborcion act to reduce came Jumits for abortion» to 18 wucks. Ar present, there o go cime specified in the uct and the corrent limir ol 28 wocks; or viability, whichever is thr Inwest, connes Crom the 1929 inlatit life preservann act. Ilus act was intended to deal with the problem of mlanticide originally. By amending the 1967 art, the bill would leave the way opca for further amendments to he arder ar cumullee stage: Pro choice groups and others have set up a campaign Fight