Bulatlatan
Written by: Rosendo Monteroso; signed May 20, 2010
Published: Bulatlatan, May 26, 2010;
Source: Bulatlatan snapshot at the Internet Archive;
Markup: Simoun Magsalin.
Comrade Mao-Zedong had been so clear in his teachings. Practice is primary over theory. He rhetorically asked in his philosophical writings, “Where do correct ideas come from? Do they fall from the sky? Are they innate in the mind? No, they come from social practice and social practice alone.”
Comrade Mao taught us that only revolutionary practice validates the correctness of a revolutionary theory, tactics or policy. A theory has to undergo a series of validation and improvement through summed-up practice before it could be upheld as correct, appropriate and beneficial to the people’s interest.
The revolutionary Party should now conduct a serious and comprehensive summing-up of the Utrecht Mafia’s initiated policy and conduct in participating in the reactionary presidential elections of 2010. We should carefully study whether that policy was consistent with the objective situation and whether it further strengthened or weakened the revolutionary forces. We should fully grasp the lessons from this political experience in order to formulate the appropriate post-election policy and tasks that serve the Five Year Central Plan to achieve a qualitative leap towards a strategic stalemate in the revolutionary balance of forces.
The recent engagement by our Party and revolutionary movement in bourgeois reactionary electoral politics was a miserable failure. It failed to advance our goals in the open militant movement and alliances. It failed to educate the masses politically on the bankcruptcy of the elitist bourgeois democracy and all the political processes under its system. Neither did it considerably advance the tactical interest of our protracted people’s war. Sison and his cohorts in the Utrecht Mafia merely dragged the whole revolutionary movement into the murk of bourgeois reactionary politics.
The proposition and policy to engage in the recent national elections was initiated by the Utrecht Mafia led by Jose Ma. Sison. Misrepresenting the Party, the NDF and the NPA, they did not only commit the whole subjective forces in a bourgeois reactionary political exercise, but they also forged an open alliance with a reactionary faction masquerading as “pro-poor” and “progressive.” Open political personalities of the national democratic movement (Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza) were lined-up with other traditional politicians, including the political heir of the murderous dictator Marcos. Sison must have suffered ‘political amnesia’ or he was totally aware of his ‘politics of expediency’ in forging a deal with the Nacionalista Party, the former flagship of the US-puppet Marcos and the core of the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan party of the martial law years.
Worse than this was the open endorsement by Sison of the reactionary presidential candidate, Manny Villar, by stating in our Party publication that Villar “is seemingly the most progressive among the presidentiables.” The Makabayan coalition, a political alliance of party-led national democratic electoral parties, naively took pride that its nationalist and democratic electoral platform was accommodated by the Nacionalista Party. Aside from the overt cooperation, Sison and his local cohorts accepted “political dirty jobs” that used our legal forces in smear-up campaigns against other presidentiables, while sparing Villar and his party from censure for their own corrupt practices. The Utrecht Mafia missed the point that they allowed our revolutionary forces to be used in rehabilitating the political image of a rotten reactionary party that has long been rejected by the Filipino people.
Sison’s brilliant “tactic” caused the revolutionary party, army and united front to confuse the masses. A year before the national elections, we have already arrived at a conclusion that bourgeois reactionary politics had reached the acme of its bankcruptcy and political isolation, thanks to the shameless corruption of the Macapagal-Arroyo faction. However, the Sisonite tactic of participating in the bourgeois reactionary contest merely supported the ‘political resurrection’ of the tattering reactionary ruling system, by allowing it to recover the people’s trust with the full cooperation of the revolutionary forces!
This Sisonite tactic was even replicated in the local political scenes where Bayan Muna and Makabayan chapters sealed deals with detestable reactionary politicians. Our own legal cadres and organizers mobilized our forces in the political sorties of reactionaries, and encouraged the masses to applaud the empty promises and demagoguery of traditional politicians.
The multi-million donation of Villar (₱102M) to the Utrecht Mafia and their local cohorts were squandered in expensive political multi-media advertisements of Ocampo-Maza and the partylists Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Anakpawis and Kabataan Partylist. Notwithstanding were the operational funds for political sorties of the Nacionalista Party in our political bases that required millions of pesos for local mass mobilizations, political gimmicks and widespread postering. There were only trickles from that huge sum that found its way into the party coffers and for the guerilla front requirements. “Savings” from the electoral campaign funds were retained by the Utrecht Mafia, Bayan Muna and by ‘enterprising’ local elements among them who ‘squirreled away’ saved funds into their own pockets. The pouring in of sizable cash for electoral campaigns offered a situation for opportunism and corruption among our own forces.
In the countrysides, the front committees were encouraged to levy revolutionary taxes on traditional politicians in the form of “permits to campaign” and in certain cases, in “political cooperations” that committed votes by the revolutionary mass base to local politicians. What Sison committed on a large scale was replicated by the front committees in their areas of operation. Our mass base who underwent decades of politization, were submitted by their revolutionary Party to the reactionary electoral process. Areas already under the jurisdiction and leadership of the organs of political power, became part of the arena of reactionary politics. How can revolutionary political power be consolidated when the revolutionary leadership themselves rub elbows with traditional politicians and allow the reactionary political exercise to be held within its jurisdiction?
The policy of participating in the reactionary national elections confused the leaderships of our guerilla fronts and our revolutionary mass base. The fact that Sison committed 5 million (padded) command votes to Villar, actually committed our own revolutionary masses to engage not only in the rotten political exercise, but also to vote for the reactionary traditional politicians Many Villar, Loren Legarda and some Nacionalista senatorial bets. It became ironic that the very organized masses who already attained genuine political consciousness on the moribundity of the reactionary system, were all of a sudden ordered by the revolutionary party to participate in reactionary political processes.
The only sound and correct policy within the recent electoral period was the call for tactical offensives that will coincide with the electoral exercise itself. The intention was to recover the effects of the opportunist “participation policy” and to seize the opportune situation that the services of the reactionary armed forces and police units were tied down to electoral duties. However, due to the over-arching policy of participation in the reactionary elections, the call for tactical offensives became awkward in the face of our own legal and revolutionary forces that were participating in the political exercise. Legal political forces could be overheard criticizing the people’s army for attacking AFP units escorting ballots and voting machines. An NPA command in Luzon had to make a public explanation that it did not mean to sabotage the electoral convoys but to annihilate the isolated AFP units in their unguarded moments. In short, the call for tactical offensives did not garner maximum gains.
The opportunist policy and conduct of participating in reactionary elections did not only begin in this recent national elections. It has been adopted since Sison and the Utrecht Mafia, initiated the revolutionaries’ political “horsetrading” in reactionary politics in year 2000. Sison negotiated a tactical alliance with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo against the Erap administration in supporting the EDSA II and in the tactical cooperation with GMA in the 2001 participation of Bayan Muna partylist and in the controversial 2004 national elections against FPJ’s presidential bid. Despite the Party’s backtracking in 2005 due to the expose’ of the ‘Garci tapes’ and the successive cases of graft and corruption committed by the First Couple, the opportunism committed by Sison in political “horsetrading” was not seriously viewed by the Party leadership as a major error. Although it was obviously opportunistic that Satur Ocampo raised the hands of Gloria Arroyo in a Makati Miting de Avance, and several months later Ocampo was calling for the impeachment of the isolated presidency, calling it a US-Arroyo regime. The recent participation in national elections and tactical alliance with a faction of the reactionary classes (Nacionalista Party) was the acme of Sison’s right opportunism.
Finally, what the revolutionary movement attained after several decades of struggle in eroding and weakening the reactionary political rule came to naught in just a matter of few months. The revolutionary Party failed to lead the masses towards the revolutionary path in the face of the reactionaries’ effort to recover the people’s trust in the bourgeois electoral reform and process. The broad spontaneous masses who were already denouncing the ruling system in 2008–2009, were yanked back by the reactionaries into the reformist road without any effective contest from the revolutionary party who called for electoral participation.
Sison apparently ignored the Party Central Committee’s analysis in December 2009: “The chronic crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system in the Philippines is rapidly worsening and is making the big compradors, landlords and their political agents more than ever incapable of ruling in the old way. The broad masses of the people are intensely desirous of revolutionary change and they trust the Communist Party of the Philippines as the leading force of the revolution.”
Sison’s policy of participation and conduct in the bourgeois reactionary elections went against the Central Committee’s December 2009 conclusion on the broad masses political mood: “The broad masses of the people have long become disgusted with the puppetry, corruption, mendacity and brutality that have characterized every reactionary ruling clique. They are therefore intensely desirous of revolutionary change and strongly wish the revolutionary party to lead and hasten the advance of the struggle for the overthrow of the entire ruling system and establish the people’s democratic state.”
The revolutionary Party has to urgently criticize the opportunist policy of participating in reactionary elections and the unprincipled conduct that all the more wrought political damage on the revolutionary Party, the organized revolutionary forces and the broad masses of the people. Only after such critique of Sison’s policy could the revolutionary Party, the People’s Army and the National Democratic Front with its organs of political power, promptly bring the revolutionary masses back into the revolutionary path of achieving the strategic stalemate in five years.
We should denounce the opportunist political horse-trading by the Utrecht Mafia and urge them to reintegrate in the revolutionary practice within the country to grasp the actual conditions and revolutionary mood of the masses. We should refrain them from officially representing the revolutionary Party, United Front and People’s Army in forging alliances with other political forces in the country without the approval of the appropriate Party body. This should also apply on their conduct of peace talks with the reactionary government, which could impede the growth of our revolutionary armed struggle in exchange for the superficial attainment of a ‘status of belligerency.’ The actual leverage in the peace negotiation table could only be created in the fighting fronts here in the country and not anywhere else. They should come home and ‘share the weal and woe’ of our revolutionary cadres and members and the masses of our people.