Holding a bloody nose
NPA guerrillas patrolling: they are the real opposition.
Collapse of a strongman
By BOB HURST THERE is a doctine of American Foreign Policy called the "Hold your Nose Doctrine". This says that the US will support any "Authoritarian" i.e. Wing, regime against "Communism", especially tional Communism" how noxious and bloody that regime may be.
The problem for such a doctrine is that people of the countries concerned will not tolerate gangster regimes for ever.
About a year ago the US realised that the Godfather of the Philipines. Ferdinand Marcos. leading the same way as their previous clients in Nicaragua. Marcos had been a loyal ally of imperialism for many rears and the US has two vital ›ases in the Philippines, Subic Bay naval base and Clark Field base.
Though the US was prepared to put up with the Marcos regime's vote rigging. graft and political terror in return for the use of these bases, opposition to growing. This opposition was com-
Right
"Internano matter their was
Marcos
Iran and air farmers.
also closed. with destitute.
Marcos was
Socialist Viewpoint No. 11 March 1986p4 which the imprisoned. real threat. counts. taking the Somoza road, pounded by the effects of the world capitalist crisis on a third world agrarian national like the Philippines. As in many such countries respectable. there has been no land reform. which has meant that this crisis has ruined many peasant and small
Many of the sugar estates are the workers This is compounded by the corruption of the regime which has given three of Marcos cronies a
The result of this has been the development of an insurgency regime has tried to repress with typical "Authoritarian" measures, i.e. murder and terror. Union organisors in the sugar Industry have been murdered and
What worried the US was the feeling that the Marcos regime can not win this war that is developing. Their response was to put pressure on Marcos to clean up his act by holding an early election.
This was more a a gesture than a
There is a Filipino saying that "It is not the voting that it is the counting that counts." Everyone knew that the election would be rigged by Marcos, that didn't matter to the US. The point was that Marcos would appear to have the support of the Filipino people, making US support against the insurgency more
In addition there were no real opponents to Marcos. In a system dependent on graft, the "opposition politicians" or "political leaders" are frequently unsuccessful competitors in the business of government. In the Philippines they were mutually suspicious, each putting forward their own claim as the per-
son who could unite the country against the threat of "communism" which Marcos could not do.
The complication to this system was the emergence of Corazon Aquino as the one politician who had a national appeal and hence the one politician who could realistically challenge Marcos. Corazon is the widow of the politician Benigno Aquino who was murdered at the instigation of Marcos in 1983.
Until his death Benigno was another opposition politician who had fallen out with the regime after being one of the youngest provincial governors and senators. He went into exile in the US and it was on his return in 1983 that he was murdered at Manila Airport. At this point he ceased to be another op position politician and became a political martyr. Corazon was able to take on this mantle of martyrdom and the status of a widow seeking vengeance. In the months leading up to the election Aquino became a realistic challenger to Marcos. even thought the election was going to be rigged and Marcos was planned to win. It was and he did: but not convincingly enough to persuade his US sponsors he could survive.
It is important to remember that this was contest between bourgeois politicians in bourgeois arena. It represents a split within the bourgeoisie as to how best to defeat the insurgency and how capitalism can survive in the Philippines. It is this that has presented such a problem to the
The election was not designed to replace Marcos but to give him a veneer of respectability. Aquino was not the main opponent: the insurgents are. As Reagan has said. the bases are more important than everything else.
Recognising the situation as a split in the ruling class Reagan at first proposed that the two settle their differences and work together, a prospect that was actually absurd. Aquino's threat of civil disobedience was also worrying to the US. since it seemed unlikely her ramshackle political movement could control prolonged mass action, however limited be their objectives.
All this explains the confusion in US reactions to the situation. For the working class it must recognise that it has nothing in common with bourgeois politicians like Aquino. for all her heroism and Marcos' repulsiveness. Any general strike must be directed against the "opposition" as well as the regime. It is unfortunate that the insurgency can not provide the leadership which such a strike needs. Otherwise - at least for now Marcos may lose but capitalism will win.