Reds Care

Addressing the menace of redscare, redbaiting and red herrings

So What’s in a Name?

Being tagged “leftist” or “communist” may not be an accolade for some, but think twice. One can be proud of being placed alongside Tañada, Diokno and Aquino.

 I don’t remember if it was two or three weeks ago but at about the same time the CBCP decided to up its tempo against charter change, Sec. Raul Gonzales the lapdog he is, made a statement that the only noisy ones in the CBCP are the leftist bishops. The statement hit front page of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

I think it's just deserving to refresh lolo Gonzales’ memories of his times during the Martial Law regime, when he, along with nationalists Sen. Lorenzo Tañada and Sen. Benigno Aquino Jr., both famous personalities of the opposition were tagged by the Marcos government as “leftists” and at one point even as “communist collaborators”.  

Earlier, as a member of the opposition fighting the Marcos dictatorship, Marcos tagged Tañada (Ka Tanny), along with Jose W. Diokno as "leftists". But when both decided to co-found the Bayan (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan), which Marcos described as the largest communist front organization at the time, the tag “leftist” comfortably changed to “communist collaborator”, and later to just plain “communist”.

When Ninoy Aquino, the man whose death many believed to have started the momentum for a popular revolt that ousted the late strongman was court martialed, he was charged of having connived with communist rebels to oust the regime. As a young politician going against Marcos he was a “leftist”. But later on, when Makapili-type hooded figures came forward as military witnesses against Aquino, Marcos changed the tag and claimed Ninoy to be a ranking member of the Communist Party. Hence from being “communist conspirator”, he later became a “communist leader”.

What about the so-called "Batasan 6", the militant leaders and their kind being hounded by the Arroyo government for being the most vocal critics of the illegitimate administration? Aren’t they being tagged “leftists” and “communists” as well?  I don’t really know for sure if they are "leftists" or "communists". But for one, I’m sure they are nationalists, and pro-masses – in much the same light as Tañada, Diokno and  Ninoy were.

So when Raul Gonzales and his ilk points an accusing finger at you and shouts at the top of his self-righteous voice that you are a “leftist”, a “communist collaborator” or a “destabilizer” – smile. What he really meant was that you are a nationalist, a freedom fighter, a defender of the oppressed and above all else, a man / woman of the masses.  

 

posted by: REDHat at 08:21 | link | comments |

GENUINE ECONOMIC REFORMS

Are you curious about which among the political parties aspiring for national leadership stands up and asserts fresh and progressive programs to effect meaningful change in the economy? True to form, most burgis parties and even pseudo-Left parties are so  intellectually bankrupt that they merely echo whatever economic programs from such agencies like the World Trade Organization, World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Since time immemorial, we dream of a Government that would:

2. Encourage the people and the small and medium-scale entrepreneurs to build a self-reliant economy and at the same time confiscate foreign goods that depress or eliminate the local production of goods by patriotic Filipino citizens while urging the broad masses of the people to boycott imperialist businesses and consumer goods;

3. Outlaw all property gained through corrupt and criminal means;

4. Help improve the livelihood of workers, peasants, farm workers, fishermen and handicraftsmen by exercising price control and providing work for the unemployed; and organize the peasants, fishermen and handicraftsmen into elementary cooperative units (mutual aid teams and labor exchange systems) and support every movement for the economic emancipation of the people;

5. Compel the reduction of rent and interest rates towards the full abolition of rent, abolish exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous levies and establish a consolidated progressive tax, collecting a fair agricultural tax and also a fair business tax from the SMEs and large-scale enterprises;

6. Protect and encourage Filipino-owned commerce and industry by providing market guarantees, protection, credit and tax relief;

7. Support the national minorities in their fight against landlords, landlords, landgrabbers, mining companies, logging concessionaires and plantations; and

8. Safeguard the people's health and expand medical services.

Exactamento! These are the real reforms that the country desperately needs. Instead of privatizing, liberalizing and deregulating everything, these reforms would result in democratization of wealth,  easing burdens away from the majority, expand employment and rein in on the foreign monopolies and big business that have for many years falsely acted as if they are our real saviors.

For those curious about this list, these eight points come from the specific economic program of the Communist Party of the Philippines. The CPP adopted its economic program  on Dec. 26,  1968.

Almost four decades since that date, the program remains relevant and attuned to the needs and demands of the majority of the people. The Government would do well to consider these points. Otherwise, the CPP has every right to pursue these slowly but surely, starting from its territories, guerilla zones and base areas, and until they cover the whole archipelago.

This economic program is proof that the Left does not only seek to destroy the rotten economic system, but also build a new one that is self-reliant, equitable, fair and prosperous.

posted by: constantflux at 18:26 | link | comments (2) |

It has sometimes become like the absurd "Battle of the Brainless", with the anti-Left loudly accusing the Left of the non-crime of criticizing all Philippine governments since time immemorial or of not helping any of them at all. They harp on this accusation to lay the predicate on another canard against the Left: that it is only an evil enterprise bent on bringing chaos to the country.

Let's focus first on Marcos and all the succeeding regimes.

It is a matter of pride for the Left and toiling masses of workers and peasants that a New People's Army and a vast rural and urban underground kept the fire of freedom burning nationwide. The Left led the people in unrelenting struggle throughout the fascist dictatorship, offering the lives of many activists in order to end the dark days of tyranny. While other political forces either capitulated or ran far, far away from the dictatorship, the Left stayed in the Philippines, endured the hardships, forged alliances with other remaining political forces, helped prosecute the Marcoses before an international tribunal in Belgium, and propagated nationwide its program of national democratic revolution.

Corazon Aquino did not fulfill her promise to be the "exact opposite" of Marcos. After freeing scores of political prisoners and proclaiming the return of "democratic space", her regime inched towards to the right where landed families like her feel most comfortable. The Aquino government reneged on the question of peace, with the President allowing the AFP to treacherously monitor and later murder many representatives and members of the NDF in the peace talks that ended ominously with the Mendiola Massacre. Land reform was a sham, as evidenced by the still-unresolved problem of Hacienda Luisita. In the 1987 elections, candidates and offices of Partido ng Bayan, the progressive leftist party headed by Jose Maria Sison, were brutally attacked and fell victim to ultra-rightist onslaughts. Economically, Aquino relied not on Filipino people power, but on US economic aid that had many conditionalities, mostly onerous. She decided to "honor" all the fraudulent foreign debts incurred by the dictatorship, and put on our lawbooks that edict that automatically appropriated debt service in the annual national budget. For a regime brought to power by Filipinos themselves, she ironically depended on US war planes to defend her government from disgruntled and mutinous soldiers -- "persuasion flights", pundits calls them at the time. Lest we forget, the next big time demonstration she led was not for national freedom or democracy, but for keeping the US bases in the country.

We now reel from the fakery that is Philippine 2000 under the rabid globalist Ramos. The push for deregulation, liberalization, privatization and denationalization resulted in the loss of national control on many strategic industries and government corporations. The Ramos government signed and ratified the Uruguay round of the GATT that had as an immediate effect the loss of one million jobs in agriculture and the start of the end of Philippine agriculture as we knew it, what with the flooding of cheap imports courtesy of "globalization". "Low intensity conflict" and other psywar tactics turned from bad to worse, with the Ramos government alternating between full-scale war and peace negotiations with the overall goal of attaining strategic victory over the NPA. Addressing the root causes of the armed revolution waged by the Communist Party of the Philippines was, at best, a psywar operation. In fact, after many boasts and repeated deadlines for defeating the CPP-NPA, the AFP eventually failed in spite of well-funded counter-insurgency drives. It was also during Ramos' time that pseudo-Leftists had a heyday, with the precursors of Akbayan performing the utterly demeaning role of being tails to the entire burgis class, dreaming that the burgis would become leftists too. These "leftists" who proudly called themselves either as "non-communist", "post-communist" and even "anti-communist" raided the membership rolls and funds of the groups they hoodwinked for so many years, and launched a grand propaganda war against the national-democratic movement locally and internationally. It made Ramos smile endlessly.

Some other former leftists threw their lot at the camp of Joseph Estrada, helping intall to power the demagogic Estrada presidency. His victory in the 1998 polls was unassailable, but his style and program of government was not. For the Left, it was not so much the form but the substance of the Estrada regime that agitated the movement into calling for his ouster. He declared an all-out war on Muslims in Mindanao. He continued Ramos' sham economic program. He perpetrated a worse form of political patronage and immorality surpassing those of the Marcoses. He cracked down on the critical press. Estrada thought that his electoral win was impregnable but he had to contend with the direct exercise of sovereign power of the people which eventually punished him for his misdeeds by 2001.

How about Arroyo? Her acts of lying, cheating, stealing and suppressing the people are slaps on the face of each Filipino who stood for good government in the nationwide People Power uprising of 2001. Her refusal to allow the resolution of outstanding and unresolved questions on her government's legitimacy since the 2004 elections is symptomatic of an unaccountable political system. It is just too unfortunate that some refuse to open their eyes and hearts, and continue to allow GMA to pretend she is the elected and the best. It is not just the Left that believes otherwise, but a whole united front so powerful that GMA has seen it fit to use Marcosian political repression just to keep her stranglehold on the presidency.

Yes, the Left has criticized each and every regime from Marcos, and even his predecessors, but not because the Left had a simple penchant for criticism. The Left struggled and debated with these regimes because these leaders committed criminal and terrorist acts against the Filipino people, and sought to foil the onward march towards national democracy and progress. For the Left, these regimes were the biggest stumbling blocks to prosperity as we all want it: equitable and sustainable.

All in all, the persistent Left critique on the ruling regimes compel the people to continuously rise up and demand meaningful change, and an end to a system that spawns bad leaders and bad governments.

The "Battle of the Brainless" tactics of those who seek to discredit the Left as "mere critics" seek to absolve all the regimes for their role in the huge mess the nation is in right now. We should not allow such rank stupidity to deter us from holding these regimes and the political elite where they come from accountable.

posted by: constantflux at 00:55 | link | comments (6) |

REDS CARE

This blog is dedicated to all Filipinos who seek progress under a regime of truth, freedom and justice. It is also for those who seek answers to questions about the Philippine progressive movement, its principles, its direction and its prospects as a political force that has persevered in its efforts to empower the Filipino people from the grassroots.

The title plays on the word often used to describe the oftentimes baseless imputations about the progressive movement, or the Left, and the anti-communist and anti-Left ideas that imprison the people's minds for many years now. It is really unfortunate that self-proclaimed pseudo-democrats continue to maliciously pin names on progressives, leftists and communists. Not only does this name-calling show that they intellectual lightweights who cannot stand a decent debate, but also show their contempt and intolerance against so-called subversive ideas and ideologies.

We are a bunch of Filipinos from various walks of life who have dared to speak out in defense of our principles and beliefs. We deem it perfectly legal to be a progressive, leftist, or even communist. We are proud of the libertarian, democratic, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist tradition of the Left. We continue to support the progressive movements, especially led by the workingclass, to whom future leadership of this country and the world belongs.

Those who proclaim the triumph of capitalism and the prevailing system as we know it conveniently forget that the same system, both local and global, has miserably failed to stem the growth of revolutionary and progressive movements. Today, we are being forced to accept the system as the highest level of human development we could possibly achieve. It is a world of poverty and hunger, a world of thievery and plunder, a world of opportunism and exploitation by some of the most recalcitrant and most malignant social forces that only constitute an iota of the world population while the billions of the world's peoples suffer.

We especially dedicate this blog to those who have serious yet sincere doubts or questions about how the Left views the world now and how it seeks to change it alongside and with the people.

Reds - or progressives, leftists, communists - care. We trust that, given a free choice, the people would opt for change and bring genuine progress that so unfortunately the anti-Left forces seek to undermine for their own selfish ends.

posted by: constantflux at 14:32 | link | comments |