PHILIPPINES Reagan switches horses
By HARRY SLOAN REAGAN just got in on the act in time.
After his outrageous public goof in which he suggested that the coons had been on bint elections had been "on sides", he was finally pressed by advisors to abandon his support for the hopelessly discredited Ferdinand Marcos.
With Reagan having been silenced, the US fall-back option was swung into action. It worked like magic:
• The information produced by the US-funded and Church-backed electoral monitoring organisation "Namfrel' was relentlessly pushed in the international mass media;
• US military aid to Marcos was publicly cut off;
• Leading pro-US figures in the Marcos military establishment -Defence Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and army chief Fidel Ramos - began their "rebellion", calling for public support to help force Marcos to hand over power to Cory Aquino whose. majority in the election had been rigged into a claimed Marcos victory.
• The US-backed "rebellion" was warmly supported by Manila's Archbishop, Cardinal Jaime Sin, urg: ing people into the streets to defend the rebel stronghold
• As the realities of the situation began to break upon the Philippines' military - with the recognition that the Pentagon cash subsidies would only be available once Aquino was installed - more and more army units followed Ramos in opposing the ailing, discredited old dictator.
The whole process, using a mixed language of pacifism and bourgeois democracy, succeeded brilliantly in achieving a political revolution in the Philippines, with the entire capitalist state machinery. incuding the armed forces, intact: with the position or the capitalist opposition parties strengthened; with the influence of
Aquino no answer for workers the Church increased: and with the militant guerrilla opposition led b
he New Peoples Army, and witl the working class and its trade unions pushed temporarily out of the picture.
In this sense, it is possible to see a grain of truth in the apparently bizarre statements from Moscow and Eastern Europe insisting that the whole Aquino challenge to Marcos was a CIA plot. Following their habitual stance of being the very last to oppose tottering and hated dic tatorships (remember Cambodia 1975 and Iran), the Kremlin leaders focussed their opposition on Aquino and their support on Ferdinand Mar cos. They rushed to congratulate the Socialist Viewpoint No. 11 March 1996 p2
(Above) Discredited Marcos ousted by (below) second-choice Aquino.
CORY DOV AQUINO AUREL CONTE old anti-communist on his election "victory" and complained of "evident and open political interference from Washington.
The Soviet response is clearly not simply based on the evident pro-US sentiment shown by Cory Aquino, her reactionary running mate (now Prime Minister) Salvador Laurel, and the upwardly-mobile new General Fidel Ramos. It is also an attempt to toady up to Marcos' own projected image as a Philippine "nationalist" leader; Marcos even made a point of using anti-American slogans in his election campaign.
Marcos had swaggeringly threatened to force renegotiations with the USA over the giant military
PHILIPPINES bases at Subie Bay and Clark Field -while knowing all to well that his main credential in maintaining dictatorial control in the Philippines was that he was Washington's man driving the military and gravy train.
Interestingly Marcos is not by any means the first reactionary anticommunist leader to be grovelled to
"'nationalist" by Moscow: one as a early infamous example was Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in the late 1930s; since the war a similar stance has been taken to a succession of Arab, African and Latin American
So what is the significance of the change of government in the Philippines? Is it simply a hands-down victory for the imperialists, repolishing the facade of "democracy" after the battering it received from Marcos?
Clearly not: Reagan and the US establishment would much have preferred the old dictator they knew and loved to continue to keep the lid on Philippines politics. But if he was to lose control they had to capitalist government to take his place: Washington has learned hard and bitter lessons from its lasco following the abrupt collapse of sponsored regimes:
•in Cuba where Batista abdicated on the last night of 1958;
• in Iran, with the collapse of the Shah:
• in Nicaragua with the defeat of Somoza:
•and Grenada with the abrupt ousting of the Gairy regime in 1979.
Aquino's candidacy offered the US the chance to prepare a fall-back option with genuine mass support, enlisting the entire radicalised mid. dle class for an anti-communist, reformist campaign for bourgeois democracy-
Aquino s political inexperience 1s a positive advantage for the USA - as is her family background, as owners of one of the world's largest private sue paration sand central croin
Marcos system capitalism".
Her cousin is a key monopoly operator in the lucrative coconut, cement and brewing industries. Cory Aquino, the *53-year old housewife is not so much ro-capitalist as capitalist herself. ler courage in the face of Marcos' intimidation was however reinfored by a genuine swell of popular support for a democratic alternative, as shown by her mass election rallies.
But she is no radical. Backed up by the unsavoury Salvador Laurel, who has boasted that he would run the show as Prime Minister, and by a mixed bag of 50 liberal" and not-soliberal advisors, Aquino from early in the campaign hedged on her inital pledges to remove the US bases; offered an economic programme little different from that of Marcos; and
General Ramos and Defence Minister Enrile - quick to change sides. angled for a foothold among "reforming" army officers by promising to ditch some of Marcos' old guard of generals. She has also suggested she might lift Marcos' vicious anti-union laws and even seek a ceasefire in the guerrilla struggle.
But there is little prospect of any drastic changes. The reasons are clear enough: • The economy is wrecked, $24 billion in debt to the IMF and Western bankers and having actually shrunk by 10% in the past two years. Aquino will see only capitalist solutions to this crisis — and they will be impossible to achieve if trade unions are allowed freely to defend their members.
• The military machine - Marcos' power base — is intact — with Ramos and Enrile still in charge. They want increased US aid, and are using the civil war against the NPA as the excuse for demanding it. A ceasetire is therefore unlikely - unless the NPA take the lead in surrendering
• The Communist Party, the most militant unions and the guerrillas were not drawn into the Aquino campaign, though they did not vigorously fight for their own line of an electoral boycott. This political independence Socialist Viewpoint No. 11 March 1986 p3
was not entirely of their making. Repeated advances to Aquino and offers of assistance in exchange for ministers were firmly rebuffed.
But in the absence of serious concessions to the demands of Philippine workers and peasants, these forces will continue to gain ground and pose a real threat to the new government.
One reason for US concern at the corruption of the Marcos regime was its evident inability to defeat the guerrillas. There is little reason to believe that essentially the same army will have any more success now, in the aftermath of the old dictator's widely welcomed downfall.
•Even in the unlikely event that Aquino and her bourgeois advisors did decide to make major concessions to the mass movement, they would be faced with the obstacles of a Parliament still sewn up with a majority of Marcos supporters installed by the last exercise in ballot rigging. The only ways to escape this straitjacket would be to resort to Marcosstyle rule by decree, or to invoke mass support to challenge to validity of the Parliament, and force a new election. It seems more likely that the Aquino government — which has no interest in fundamentally challenging the status quo of Philippines capitalism — will simply take those measures which can be achieved within the existing constraints.
Importantly. remember that however cynically I they have since been used, the events in the Philippines were not
stage-managed Washington: they were the outcome of a worsening balance of threatened Marcos since 1983. The rising strength of the trade union struggle in the cities. the guerrilla offensive in the countryside, and democratic opposition was making it impossible for the USA's first choice to hold the line.
All these forces will be strengthened by Marcos' downfall: they press forward with their demands, and will now be opposed by the opposition of yesterday, by the Church and by US imperialism.
The key issue for Philippines workers and peasants is therefore the extent to which they can build fighting organisations politically incapable of taking up the fight for jobs, land reform, housing, wages, democratic rights and for an end to
Learning the lessons of the 1986 "February Revolution", explaining the reasons why it will not achieve the demands of the masses.
Wto organise the tighting strength of the workers will be vital tionary Marxist leadership in the Philippines.
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 "Interna- no 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
Othe 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
Tit 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.
BOLIVIA Veteran