By Alecks P. Pabico
PCIJ; Philippine Center for Investigative
Journalism
http://www.pcij.org.ph/
An excerpt from "i The Investigative
Reporting Magazine" April-June 1999
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Breaking out of the CPP-NPA-NDF National
Democratic Mold
RA (REAFFIRMISTS)
RJ (REJECTIONISTS)
* Sison-led *
PARTIDO PROLETARYO DEMOKRATIKO
-
"Third Force" Bloc
* Tiamson-led *
REBOLUSYONARYONG PARTIDO NG MANGGAGAWA
* MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY
- Visayas Commission
OF THE PHILIPPINES -
Central Mindanao Regional Committee
- Central Luson split group
* PARTIDO NG MANGGAGAWANG PILIPINO
- Komiteng Rehiyon ng Metro Manila-Rizal
*
METRO MANILA-RIZAL REGIONAL PARTY
COMMITTEE
-
KRMR Bloc, bulk of ABB
Open, legal Open,
legal
* KILUSAN PARA SA
* SOSYALISTANG PARTIDO NG PAGGAWA
PAMBANSANG DEMOKRASYA
- Liga Sosyalista, KRMR breakway group
-
Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Proletaryo,
breakaway
faction of PKP-1930
-
Left-wing faction of the Cordillera
Peoples
Liberation Army
-
breakaway faction of the Partido
Demokratiko-Sosyalista
ng Pilipinas
*
PADAYON
*
ALAB KATIPUNAN
*
AKBAYAN
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECTER IS haunting the revolutionary movement
in the Philippines - the specter of seemingly
interminable splits.
In the seven years since Armando Liwanag
issued his "Reaffirm our Basic Principles
and Rectify Errors" document, the Left
- or more appropriately, the Left of the
national democratic (ND) tradition - has
gone through an unprecedented period of metastasis.
The once monolithic movement that at its
peak in the mid-1980s commanded 35,000 Party
members, 60 guerrilla fronts, two battalions
and 37 company formations, and foisted ideological
and organizational hegemony in the progressive
politics during the Marcos dictatorship is
now history. Out of it have emerged fragments
of disparate groups - eight at least - that
continue to wage "revotution" in
similarly disparate forms .
Not since the "re-establishment"
of the Communist Party of the Philippines
(CPP) under the banner of Mao Zedong Thought
by Amado Cuerrero (nom de guerre of Jose
Ma.'Joma' Sison) has there been a serious
split in the revolutionary movement. In 1968,
Guerrero broke away from the Jesus Lava-led
Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, or PKP, over
ideological differences, criticizing its
abandonment of armed struggle and its shift
to nonviolent legal and parliamentary means
in pursuing the socialist revolution. In
turn, the Lava leadership expelled him from
the party on charges of "left adventurism."
Three decades later, Cuerrero (now believed
to be Liwanag) would find his dominion stirred
by a similar storm, this time whipped up
by his "Reaffirm" document. Reminiscent
of the Lava act, he had also charged the
"splittists" with Left opportunist
sins such as "urban insurrectionism,"
"military adventurism," and "gangsterism."
While internal in nature, the crisis in the
ND movement has not been insulated from the
shock waves generated by the dramatic dissolution
of thc Soviet Union in 1989 and the subsequent
collapse of most communist party governments
of Eastern Europe. Though he dismissed the
USSR and Eastern Europe's ruling parties
as revisionist regimes, Liwanag himself admitted
in "Reaffirm" the serious setbacks
suffered by the local revolutionary movement
with the onslaught of Gorbachev's perestroika
and glasnost ideas espousing "liberalism,
populism and socal democracy."
Ideological responses to the crisis of existing
socialism and its repercussions on its constituencies
worldwide have been varied. Liwanag's own
antidote is the so-called "Second Great
Rectification Movemet," which the mainstream
ND bloc he leads continues to undergo to
firm up adherence to the principles laid
down in 1968. Basically, that means upholding
the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism-Mao
Zedong Thought. That is to say:
* maintaining the view that Philippine society
is "semifeudal" and "semicolonial"
as it has not become industrialized and urbanized;
* pursuing the general line of new democratic
revolution by relying on the alliance of
workers and peasants and winning over the
urban petty bourgeoisie or the middle classes;
* recognizing the CPP as the vanguard force
of the proletariat or the working class;
* waging the protracted people's war (PPW)
strategy of "encircling the cities from
the countryside," among others.
In so doing, Liwanag has drawn a sharp dividing
line between those who agree with these views
(the "revolutionaries") and those
who don't ("counterrevolutionaries").
In more popular Left parlance, those who
abide by the Liwanag document are the "reaffirmists"
(RAs), while those who aren't into its "sweeping"
conclusions are "rejectionists"
(RJs).
Declaring themselves the "democratic
opposition," the RJs - among them regional
party committees of Metro Manila-Rizal, Central
Mindanao, Western Mindanao, the Visayas Commission
(VisCom), National United Front Commission
(NUFC), Home Bureau of the International
Liaison Department and the National Peasant
Secretariat (NPS) - initially rejected only
the "bogus" 10th Plenum that approved
"Reaffirm" since it did not have
the required quorum. But they soon realized
that the Party leadership had not the slightest
intention to be conciliatory.
The petition calling either for the reconvening
of the 10th Plenum or holding a new one to
discuss "Reaffirm" signed by 15
CPP Central Committee members was rejected,
as were calls to hold the long-overdue Party
Congress. Insisting the plenum was legitimate,
the leadership instead began expelling members
and dissolving units identified with the
RJ bloc, ushering in the Left's own days
of disquiet and nights of rage.
MORE OFTEN than not, personal antagonisms
have helped shape the contours of the splits
and dictated the ever-shifting alliances
as much as the interplay of ideological,
political and organizational differences.
At times, personal differences were garbed
in ideological clothing. At other time, the
rifts were reduced to sheer clashes of personalities.
Former Ang Bayan editor Ricardo Reyes laments
the way the "Reaffirm" document
glossed over the ideological and political
debate with character attacks and past mistakes.
Himself tagged by Liwanag as "counterrevolutionary,"
Reyes thinks internal matters such as "mistakes,
errors in the past for which we should be
held responsible one way or another"
should have been addressed in a different
forum.
''In the first place, the Party's leadership
is collective," he says. "It's
very rare that an error, especially a big
one, was committed by one person. Second,
these errors have long been committed. There
have already been judgments on those either
in the form of censure discipline or punishment."
No sooner had different opposition groups
joined ranks, though, the RJ camp itself
fell into personality-driven feuds. An initial
falling out on how to handle the "Reaffirm"
debate served to polarize the RJ groups as
a majority did not take to the brand of polemics
of Felimon 'Popoy'Lagman, ex-secretary of
the CPP's Komiteng Rehiyon ng Metro Manila-Rizal
(KRMR) and now working aboveground as Bukluran
ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) chair.
Argues Reyes: "Perhaps he (Lagman) has
his own justifications but I don't think
we should reply in kind to the RAs. His attacks
are just like Joma's. He'd hit Joma, saying,
here are your mistakes. And he'd employ character
attacks, too."
Lagman himself finds it laughable that the
reason hehind the splits were not about principles.
"It's always Popoy is just like Joma.
Any discussion is always about the 'five
little pigs and the big bad wolf,'"
Lagman says, he being the wolf, of course.
He says it politically immature of Left leaders
to dwell more on his character or style.
The truth is, Lagman is not exactly the opposite
of his nemesis Sison, burdened as he is by
accusations of being "ruthless,"
"dictatorial" and "utilitarian."
In 1993, his "arrogance" abetted
the crumbling of the loose foundation on
which RJ groups stood. Before an ideological
summit to discuss theoretical and political
positions could be held, and a national coordinating
body to discuss the building up of a party
formed, a split had ensued between the groups
that collectively called themselves the "Third
Force" on one side and Lagman's KRMR
on the other. Using the KRMR Counter-Thesis,
Lagman was adamant about meeting Liwanag's
theoretical and tactical positions head-on,
even if the group had not been through with
the collective reviw of Marxism-Leninism.
There is also the precarious KRMR-VisCom
formation, which materalized in January 1994
when VisCom chief Arturo Tabara made a surprise
shift to KRMR's side, splitting the VisCom
in the process. Three years later, it was
KRMR's (now Komiteng Rebolusyonaryo ng Metro
Manila-Rizal) turn to fragment. Lagman was
expelled for acts violating the basic principles
of collective leadership and democratic centralism.
His character was also said to be unbecoming
of a "proletarian revolutionary."
The rift, Lagman says, arose from his perceived
"liquidationist" attitude - for
his refusal to help in the Party congress
preparations.
In the wake of Lagman's expulsion, KRMR split
into two bitter factions. Lagman claims to
have the support of majority of the party
branches. The rest of KRMR, now under the
name of Metro Manila Rizal Regional Party
Coommittee (MRRPC) and occasionally referred
to as 'Bloke,' consisted of the bulk of the
region's undeground cadres, including the
Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB). The 'Bloke'
later decided to disengage from the pre-party
formation of the Rebolusyonaryong Partido
ng Manggagawa (RPM), which was established
in May 1998, citing that its party building
efforts ended in "an organizational
project without resolving ideological unity
or coming up with any party program."
Only the former ABB chief and a few followers
remained with the RPM.
The Lagman faction suffered yet another split
when one of Lagman's closest lieutenants,
Sonny Melencio and forces from the "Progresibo"
(Progressive) tendency within the pre-split
KRMR, bolted out to form the Liga Sosyalista
in 1998. An open socialist organization,
the Liga deplored the continuing drift of
the Lagman group's politics to the right.
Eventually, it merged with the Rebolusyonaryong
Partido ng Proletaryo (RPP), the revitalized
left-wing faction of the 1930 PKP, to give
rise to the pre-party formation of Sosyalistang
Partido ng Paggawa (SPP).
Melencio's "Left Unity" project,
which anticipates the formation of a legal
socialist party in the tradition of Australia's
Democratic Socialist Party, has drawn varied
reactions from other Left groups. Joel Rocamora
of Akbayan finds the recruits to the "Left
Unity" a very strange ideological mix
- PKP, a small group from the Partido Demokratiko
Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (PDSP), social democrats,
the left-wing group of the discredited Cordillera
Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA). Others are
open to such a unity project as part of tactical
considerations, which thus implies a propitious
element to it. Only that now is just not
the right time.
PERSONAL RIFTS aside, differeces that later
gave substance to demarcations on theoretical
and tactical questions among RJ groups were
apparent from the very beginning. Such differences,
recalls Reyes, revolved around how the RJs
looked at the past and how they saw the future.
One side took to the KRMR Counter-Thesis,
developed by Lagman, that views the crisis
in the revolutionary movement as a crisis
of the "Maoist tendency in the Philippines."
In general, this says the CPP's theoretical
line was erroneous from the very start, when
the CPP was founded in 1968. It claims that
"the CPP is Stalinist-Maoist in orientation,
an aberration of real Marxism-Leninism. The
Party's understanding of class realities
in the Philippines is similarly erroneous
in that it overplayed the role of the peasantry
and underplayed the role of the working class.
Instead of a protracted people's war (PPW),
it should have been a working class-based
and -led insurrection strategy."
The other was Reyes's formulation. Reyes
did not find fault in the nationl-democratic
framework of th revolution, its class analysis,
the armed struggle and the working class-peasant
alliance. But he took exception to the protracted
people's war strategy. In a recent interview
with PCIJ, he argued, "My only point
is, sometime in the 1980s after the period
of experience, and after study, the PPW was
no longer appropriate. We might as well shift
to a policical-military combination strategy.
It's combination of an insurrectional approach
in the urban areas and armed struggle for
the countryside."
The KRMR counter-thesis held sway over those
who do not see the presence of a "revolutionary
situation" to merit the primacy of armed
struggle at all times as waged by the CPP-NPA-NDF.
This, and some other basic positions served
as basis for the establishment of Marxist-Leninist
parties both clandestine - RPM, Partido ng
Manggagawang Pilipino (PMP) - and legal -
SPP. Even the 'Bloke,' the mainstream KRMR
that ousted Lagman, is said to have consolidated
its ranks under the politico-military framework,
which combines armed and mass struggles.
Set up just this year, the PMP embraces Marxist-Leninist
orthodox teachings on the socialist revolution,
the working class party and movement. While
it acknowledges that the revolution is still
in the national democratic stage, the party
adheres to a Marxist concept of a continuing
revolution that is not dependent on the ND
revolution's victory.
To the PMP, a revolutionary movement in a
Third World country sans an armed force is
unimaginable. But while it doesn't discount
the inevitability of the revolution leading
to war, it believes this must happen in the
context of the developments of the class
struggle. Thus, it views the protracted people's
war strategy as a vulgarization of the concept
of armed revolution. Says a PMP leader: "They're
like the alchemists concocting artificial
conditions to create a revolution. The artificial
condition is the armed struggle. It's like
a script, because since 1968 Joma had mapped
out how the revolution was going to advance
- strategic defensive, strategic stalemate,
strategic offensive. Just like a three-act
play."
The RPM, for its part, espouses a similar
return to orthodox Marxism-Leninism. It views
Philippine society as basically capitalist
though in a backward or "maldeveloped"
stage. The main vehicle of the revolution
is the open mass movement and is working
class-led. Unlike the PMP, though, RPM retains
an army in the countryside, the merged Revolutionary
Proletarian Army-ABB Negros (RPA-ABB), mainly
for defense, considering that democratic
institutions are still very weak.
Reyes eventually abandoned the Pary concept
and broached the formula for a united front
type of organization within the Third Force
bloc. "If you look at the RJ, the whole
array of forces and individuals who criticized
the RA position, they were already developing
different frameworks. Setting up a single
organization, a more solid one, could wait.
If it's going to be a Party, then let it
be a Party."
Such a contentious issue spelled the further
break-up of the fragile union as majority
still favored establishing a clandestine
party, whose expression today is the Partido
Proletaryo Demokratiko (PPD). Formed in July
1995 during a Third Force bloc assembly initiated
by the NUFC, the PPD upholds Marxism-Leninism,
criticizes the CPP's "closed door-ism"
to Mao and its curtailment of studies on
other Marxist trends and schools of thought.
Particular emphasis is given to Marxist humanism
in its conduct of revolutionary work that
holds human beings as the center of development,
whose ultimate end is the liberation of human
beings from exploitation by their own kind.
Finding no travelling companions in his united
front path, Reyes went his own way and helped
form the open mass movement Padayon (Visayan
for "continue"). "It is,"
says Reyes, "a commitment to continue
what is good, what is worthwhile, that there
is something to be proud about the national
democratic struggles." It endeavors
to wage democratic struggles like land reform
and expanding these to empower the people.
JUST WHEN IT all seemed that disunity and
dissolution plagued only the RJ forces, the
mainstream RA endured another shakeup in
its ranks in August 1997. Majority of the
Central Luzon regional party organizations
bolted out of the CPP following the expulsion
of three Party leaders tagged with having
sown "revisionism" and "factionalism"
in the region by openly defending the militarist
and insurrectionist line of the strategic
counteroffensive (SCO). The SCO, an '80s
tactical program aimed at a decisive victory
against the U.S.-Marcos dictatorship, had
been criticized as wrong in "Reaffirm."
Cadres of the pre-party formation of the
Marxist-Leninist Party of the Philippines
(MLPP) claim to also repudiate the SCO. But
they say they only raised the validity of
regular, mobile warfare - now no longer part
of the strategic defensive stage - in its
present conduct of the protracted war. What
proved most unacceptable, the cadres say,
was that political and organizational questions
relating to the PPW strategy merited them
charges of an ideological nature - that of
carrying a two-line struggle - when they
were not enemies in the first place.
It is also an open secret that two centers
exist in the mainstream RA bloc - one foreign,
in Utrecht (Sison), and another local, (the
Tiamsons). Both are said to be at loggerheads.
In the aftermath of the CL split, an open
mass movement, the Kilusan para sa Pambansang
Demokrasya (KPD), emerged. Although it abides
by the "Reaffirm" document, the
KPD departs from the mainstream RAs on certain
organizational and tactical questions. Much
of the reason for the disaffiliation revolves
around the attitude toward open mass struggles.
The KPD, for instance, recognizes these to
be crucial and should go hand-in-hand with
the armed struggle.
If the mainstream RAs are "deteriorating,"
Primo Amparo of the KPD labor arm Manggagawa
para sa Kalayaan (Makabayan) says, they have
only themselves to blame, because they treated
sectoral struggles as a matter of propaganda,
waged only "pana-panahon" (occasionally),
"pili" (selectively) and are "lokalisado"
(localized), and their legal organizations
as mere mouthpieces. But RA sources dispute
this, saying the ND movement remains responsible
for the strong legal mass movement in the
country. Internal documents also continue
to stress the role of legal mass organizations.
"THE OLD IS not yet dead, the new is
not yet born," says Ronald Llamas of
the socialist Bukluran para sa Ikauunlad
ng Sosyalistang Isip at Gawa (BISIG), describing
the current state of the Philippine Left.
"That's this moment. There are intimations
of the new, there is consolidation among
the old. In between, there is a transition.
Here, a lot will be formed. But many of those
formed will be morbid."
Whether what has so far emerged of the fractured
ND movement are morbid expressions, or mutations,
only history will determine. But for all
the viciousness that has attended the splintering
of the Left, there is an incredible optimism
among Left groups themselves.
Francisco Nemenzo, also of BISIG, believes
the fragmentation is borne out of an expressed
desire to come to grips with present realities
in the Philippines. "Let's study first,
search for a new paradigm, try out different
methods," he advises, trustful that
there is always the potential for the right
situation that they can get their acts together.
One distinct aspect many in the Left would
like to emphasize in the major upheavals
in their ranks is that intense as they are,
the ideological fights have not reached the
level of physical violence that characterized
the splits in the PKP. At this, it helps
that no group presently has an ascendant
of dominant status over the others.
Despite the vanguradist and totalistic claims
of some parties, Reyes says the makeup of
the Left has become pluralistic. By his reckoning,
the broad Left formation should also include
socialist groups of the non-ND mold like
BISIG, Akbayan, and Pandayan (see sidebar).
And the sooner all other forces in the Left
accept this, he says, the better.
Even Lagman has had a change of heart, finding
it irrelevant to claim correctness of one's
social praxis. His present concern is where
hopes are high for the revolutionary movement's
revival. And he sees it in the working class.
His positive attitude toward the other Left
groups has likewise defined for all a division
of labor in organizing their respective sectors
- for them, the urban workers and rural farm
workers; the RAs, the peasantry in the countryside;
and the others, the petty-bourgeoisie.
At this stage, only the mainstream RAs claim
ideological certainty. By affirming that
waging revolution is not the monopoly of
any one group, its estranged theoretical
sibling, the KPD, has become more open to
tactical alliances with the other political
blocs. But the RAs act as if the 1986 People
Power Revolution never happened, and maintain
such rigid framework for political work that
has only isolated them from the rest.
The reason for this attitude towards other
groups in the Left is best understood in
the way one RA leader put it. "The 'Contras'
(the RJs)," he says, "are no more
than mere obstructions in the revolutionary
course of the masses. Having lost faith in
the revolutionary principles, with their
wrong analyses, they only confuse the masses
instead of arming them to wage revolution."