The Brazilian Left’s Response to Crisis and Thoughts for the Philippines

Brazil is in crisis. This crisis, and agreeing upon a unified course of action in response, was the topic of a plenary of broad left forces that included over 320 people coming from over 60 leftist formations last Friday evening.

João Pedro Stedile, the renown progressive economist and a founder of the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, characterized the current period as a three-pronged crisis never seen in Brazil since redemocratization: economic crisis, political crisis, and social crisis.

Economic Crisis

The declining economy has been the immediate major source of tension in recent years. Following a decade-long economic boom, Brazil’s economy has been shrinking since 2012, unemployment reached 6.9% in June on this year, the highest since July 2010, while inflation reached 9.56% in July, the highest since November 2003. The bleak economic situation has caused a wave of rich Brazilians to leave the country in favor of relocating their homes and businesses in the United States, and there has been a chilling effect on middle class consumption. As always, though, the most grave effect has been on the basic sectors. Workers from various industries – from school teachers to civil servants to bank employees – have conducted protracted strikes, budgets for public services that low-income earners rely on, like education and health, have been frozen, workers’ benefits are stricter, and the price of public transportation has increased. As in most economic recessions, while the capitalists claim that they are losing vast amounts of money, it is the families that were once barely making it that have slipped back into poverty, and the poor who have found their much relied-on public services diminishing.

Political Crisis

This economic crisis is a, if not the, major driver of the unfolding political crisis. Many analysts agree that President Dilma Rousseauf’s first electoral victory could largely be credited to her robust endorsement by the still widely popular outgoing president, Luis “Lula” Da Silva, and a strong ruling party in the PT. Dilma, however, has had the extreme misfortune of 1: governing at a time of recession, as opposed to Lula who was elected at the end of a steep economic decline and governed during an economic boom, and 2: lacking the personal charisma and political skill that Lula so famously possessed. (It is worth noting that, as in most proportional representation systems, the PT has never controlled a majority of seats in the Congress. It has always ruled in coalition and these coalitions have always included progressive to centrist and traditional elements. Lula’s ability to manage the coalition – some would say through too much compromise – was a key factor that contributed to his governments’ stabilities. Dilma is less charismatic and less skilled at coalition management.) Add to this mix some hardy corruption scandals (though in my opinion, nothing more outrageous than scandals from past administrations), and you have a government very much more vulnerable to opposition and especially attacks from the right.

This vulnerability was acutely illustrated during the 2014 elections. The election began as a three-way race between Dilma, Acéio Neves Cunha, a traditional politician from the center-right Partido Socialista do Brasil (PSDB), and Eduardo Campos of the Partido Socialista Brasileria (PSB).

While it was expected that the PT’s main challenge would come from the PSDB, Brazil’s second largest party, Campos of the PSB was an interesting development. Since the PT was founded, and particularly since it assumed the presidency in 2002, various small tendencies from within the party have split. Some groups split for personal reasons and some for ideological reasons. Several of the groups that split, like the Partido da Causa Operária (PCO), Partido Socialista dos Trabalhadores Unificado (PSTU), and Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL), had fielded their own presidential candidates in past elections but received nearly negligible vote percentages. In the 2010 presidential elections, these parties received a combined vote of about 1%.

In 2014, however, the PSB, which was never part of the PT but was part of its electoral coalition in 2010, split from the coalition and fielded its own candidate in Eduardo Campos. Formerly a Science and Technology Minister under Lula, Campos portrayed himself as a leftist who was simultaneously business-friendly – he campaigned for increased spending on education, health and universal public services (including the Bolsa Familia) while reducing the size of government, reducing government intervention in Brazil’s various semi-state-owned companies (a version of GOCCs), reducing red tape for business and aggressively investing in alternative energy. His running mate, Marina Silva, was a well-known environmental advocate who had an impressive run under the Green Party in the 2010 presidential elections, coming in third place with 19% of the vote (in the first round). Silva had also previously been a cabinet minister (of environment) during a Lula government and she remained a PT member until 2009.

Not insignificantly, much of Campos’ campaign messaging focused on a “third way,” or attempting to convince voters that they had an option that was not the PT or the PSDB. Every Brazilian presidential election since 1994 has essentially been a contest between the PT and the PSDB, with these parties gaining over 80% of first round votes. Additionally, much of Brazilian political life has been painted, especially by the Globo media monopoly, as a polarizing dichotomy between the PT and the PSDB. There are two meaningful insights to note about Campos’s campaign: First, his strategy involved painting the PT as the “establishment”, and no longer as a party of economic and social transformation. Second, his candidacy provided a focus for those who still considered themselves left – or at least those that supported the PT’s social welfare programs – but were frustrated with Dilma’s performance.

Campos tragically died in a plane crash less than two months before the elections and Marina Silva took on the mantle of being the PSB’s presidential candidate. Silva was doing well, consistently outpolling Cunha and even tying Dilma around five weeks before the elections. At the end, however, her ranked position and the overall hype surrounding her campaign (along, of course, with a plethora of other factors) made her the logical main target of both the PT and the PSDB’s offensives. Silva ended up coming in third falling only two points behind Cunha with 22% to Cunha’s 24%. Accordingly, she was not included in the 2nd round.

In the 2^nd round of the elections, where Dilma faced Cunha head-on was the tightest presidential race in recent history. Despite rampant and outspoken criticisms of Dilma’s government, the left unified and mobilized to support Dilma, with the position that a Dilma/PT-led government, for all its faults, would be better than a rightist Cunha-led government. Dilma’s campaign, in turn, moved to the left, including promising to use Petrobras revenues to dramatically augment health and education budgets, in response to and acknowledgement of who the party’s core constituency was and who would deliver the PT to victory.

Following the election, Dilma’s policies nearly immediately moved back towards the right. Despite this, rightist political forces have maintained their attacks. Rightist groups have organized three national protests so far this year, including a national day of action on August 16 that gathered almost 200,000 people in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasilia, and other cities to call for Dilma and the PT’s ouster. Dilma has weathered a seemingly constant threat of impeachment. These are expected to continue until the end of her term.

 

Social Crisis

The economic crisis has also bred a general tension and discomfort that is palpable in daily life. Economic and political insecurity are common topics of conversation even in social functions with non-political people. Economic tension tends to accentuate other social tensions such as racial, class, and regional divisions, and rightist attacks on the PT’s social welfare programs often also come with characterizations of traditionally marginalized populations (especially people from the north, poor people, Blacks, and immigrants) as lazy, ill-intentioned and parasitic.

Social movements, for their part, are far from their apex. The height of social movement activity was in the latter part of the military dictatorship until the 1990s. Despite a reinvigoration of large public manifestations in recent years, which arguably peaked in 2013, social movements are having difficulty inspiring and recruiting this new population of outraged citizens into an organized force. As Stedile characterized in Friday’s event:

“Most working people come home and watch the political crisis from their sofas like they watch a tennis match. Dilma says something and then Cunha [the right-wing lower house speaker who Dilma narrowly defeated for the presidency in 2014] says something and then the PT responds…”

When the audience laughed at this characterization, Stedile quickly retorted, “I don’t know why you are laughing. This is our problem. The people are watching politics like a game instead of going to the streets.” Like the Philippines, NGOs are also in crisis as donors are pulling out of Brazil in favor of less “democratically developed” countries.

The Plenary

The Plenary meeting had three stated objectives. The first was to forge unity (the perennial left problem). Second was to approve a joint manifesto to oppose any impeachment attempts, which they referred to as coups, and oppose the government’s fiscal adjustment policies, which include cutting social investments and increasing taxes on basic services such as electricity and water. Third was to agree to mobilize their bases for a large manifestation on August 20 wherein these demands will be voiced.

While the left forces in attendance were overwhelmingly unsatisfied and angry with the current government, their stand is to prevent Dilma’s ouster. This stand is based on the analysis that an ouster would result in a Cunha-led government, which would be infinitely worse than Dilma’s government. The second, and I think more important stand, is to show Dilma and the PT that the left is the only force saving them from a right-wing coup. Essentially, the intention is to consolidate and raise to public consciousness a political force that carries the message: “We are the ones who got you elected, we are the ones protecting you from a coup, you must move your policies to the left because if we leave you will be left with nothing.”

Points to Ponder

 

Watching these events unfold has made me ponder some issues I think are relative to our own struggle:

What happens when party supporters are not happy with the party’s performance in government?

Many of us have been observers of the PT for many years, seeking to extrapolate lessons that could inform a leftist, social movements-based party rise to power in the Philippines. We have witnessed changes within the PT, and heard many of our long-time and respected friends and comrades from Brazil criticize the PT for various versions of “going neoliberal”, “acquiescing too much to elites and the Washington Consensus”, and even “becoming the new elite.” Since Akbayan entered into coalition with the LP, it has faced many of the same important questions, from both within and without. “Will Akbayan be tainted by elites?” “Will Akbayan compromise its values as a leftist party?” and even “Will Akbayan be corrupted by its proximity to power?” and “What will be the role of social movements in and with Akbayan?” There are also similarities with how internal dynamics within the two parties have developed. There are, broadly speaking, those who want to split and create a new party, those who struggle from the inside to pull the PT to the left, and those more willing to compromise with traditional politics. The struggle to answer these questions is an ongoing process that will continue to determine Akbayan’s nature as a party. After 12 years as the ruling party, the PT and allied social movements are still struggling with the question, which are a reflection of the different tendencies and internal democracy that comprise the PT. I consider this tolerance for different left tendencies and internal debate, and especially the presence of those who actively criticize the party within left circles but defend it outwardly because of their investment in the PT project, to be the main source of the party’s strength.

Parallel, yet independent force

In this (like the Philippines) highly personalistic political culture, there is a tendency among the many disappointed leftists to attribute the policies that have unfolded over the past few years, at least in part, to Dilma’s personal characteristics: “Dilma no longer cares for the working class.” “Dilma has forgotten her ideals as an activist.” I do not know Dilma Rousseauf. These accusations may very well be true. However, I choose to take a more structural viewpoint. Dilma heads a minority government. The right is strong and the left is weak. The right, naturally, is using its position of strength to negotiate for rightist policies, and they are getting them. Even if Dilma was personally the most radical leftist conceivable, she would have to compromise in order to hold onto the presidency and prevent someone from the extreme right from taking over. Thus, I tend to think the adoption of rightist policies reflects the weakness of the left more than they reflect Dilma’s political will (or lack thereof).

Ideally, social movements allied with the PT intended to pursue a strategy of organizing independently from the PT in order to maintain pressure the party and other political forces at large. At times, however, this has proven difficult in practice. Many observers have criticized PT-aligned social movements, and the MST in particular, for being less militant and vocally critical of the government since the PT came into power. (It is worth noting that evidence suggests that the Lula government settled more families than the preceding Cardoso administration, though, some agrarian reform advocates have argued that his administration merely regularized/formalized existing occupations.) Observers I have spoken to characterized left social movements as being in a somewhat sluggish phase since the PT took power. Movements slowed down organizing, recruitment, education, and research, relying on the PT instead to simply deliver demands. While PT governments delivered significant victories on social welfare and economic development fronts, they have certainly not approximated achieving the socialist revolution or fundamental change of the established predatory social and economic system.

Nevertheless, the call on Friday was clear. The left is no longer to rely on just having a supposed ally in the presidential office, nor is it to call for blanket support or ouster. It must grow and consolidate its own independent force of militants while drawing unorganized public opinion to its side in order to negotiate specific policy concessions with the government.

To quote an interview Stedile gave in 2007:

“Deep down the government is like a mirror that reflects society. And if in society the working class is weak, if it’s in reflux, a leftist government can’t advance its agenda…

“I’m not absolving him of his responsibility, but Lula’s administration hasn’t been able to make changes because of the reflux in the proletariat that hasn’t yet reversed. We didn’t count on this. We thought that a simple electoral victory would give a shock to the masses…We thought this was it, the time had come! And it hadn’t. It was really frustrating…This is the greatest challenge that we face today: we’re waiting around, seeing if the government will do this or that instead of just acting on our own. And of course it’s better that Lula will be reelected than to have Alckmin [of the PSDB] win. Obviously we’ll vote for Lula, but real change will only come with the process of organization among the people and the rising of the proletariat. That is the only chance we have.”

It’s not about the individual, it’s about the system / Elections are but one of many fronts

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard “we need to go back to organizing the base.” Nearly every meeting on left strategy that I have attended in the past near-decade has inevitably come down to this point. However, watching the unfolding events in Brazil makes the need to organize, maintain, and grow a base that much more evident.

The Partido dos Trabalhadores and Akbayan are political parties and one of the purposes of a political party is to gain elected office. However, gaining office is not akin to winning the revolution. Revolution is about a fundamental change in society and economy, and the electoral front is but one means of accessing power that would later enable this fundamental change.

Furthermore, it is important to remember that although both Brazil and the Philippines are strong presidentialist systems, the president is not as powerful as we often think. The vast majority of politicians come from established landed or capitalist interests and so have their own personal power bases independent of party politics, especially national politics. As a result, national figures depend on the local elites for vote delivery and often even program administration. Furthermore, our fight is no longer contained to the proletariat versus the domestic elite. As a comrade from the MST reminded me, the left in the developing world must also deal with the pressure predatory transnational capital places on government and the alliances they forge with domestic capital.

We would be foolish to think that “getting a good president elected” would be enough to effectively fight off capitalism. Even if, by some particularly plucky electoral strategy, we were able to elect “true leftists” (whatever that means) to the highest positions, this would still be insufficient to take on traditional elites, the various industrial syndicates, and transnational capital without a strong popular backing.

Any government the left would participate in, even lead, in our systems within the foreseeable future would necessarily include elements from the center and right in order to maintain some kind of stability. In the face of immeasurable money and institutions biased towards the status quo, the organized masses are the political power necessary to both support the progressives in government, especially when they take the radical steps we so desire, as well as to shame and isolate the reactionaries.

Thus, the fronts we must engage in are as numerous as there are sources of power. Legal-electoral, yes, but also educational, identity-cultural (including pop culture), media, developmental, resource accumulation, and of course, membership and militancy. We are not merely fighting against reactionary politicians. We are fighting against a political-economic-social system. An empowered society with socialist values that is ready to take various forms of action when necessary is the only assurance of victory.

This is not to say that we should give up pursuing electoral and even governmental coalitions with non-progressive forces for fear of getting our hands dirty. Something the left is an expert at, much more expert than the right, is splitting our forces and trading judgmental accusations about who “more left” and is a “true, pure socialist.” For a group that claims to value diversity and open thought we sure do seem to have dogmatic tendencies. Many of the groups who attended last Friday’s plenary were groups that attacked the PT for this exact reason. They even included parties and organizations that count themselves among the left-wing opposition to the PT. Yet, they saw the need to support, while engaging the government at this conjuncture, even if it hurt their ideological sensibilities.

The struggle that we engage in is not merely about being correct. We are not conducting an academic exercise where being correct is enough to feel proud of ourselves and say we did our job. The stakes are simply too high to treat it as such. The struggle we engage in, no, that we live, is about gaining real political power in a system where compromise is inevitable. It is about being honest about our own strengths and especially our weaknesses, taking responsibility for such, and realizing that sometimes choosing the lesser evil is the best we can do today, while we lay the conditions for tomorrow.

Resources:

http://en.mercopress.com/2015/05/22/brazil-heading-for-full-recession-economic-activity-down-unemployment-up

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-04-04/pro-market-campos-offers-brazil-3rd-way-in-bid-to-oust-rousseff

http://www.mstbrazil.org/news/lula-meaning-agrarian-reform

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/inflation-cpi

http://www.wsj.com/articles/rich-brazilians-wary-of-government-look-abroad-1423182280

http://www.as-coa.org/blogs/s%C3%A3o-paulo-2015-blog-breakdown-brazils-latest-budget-cuts

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Binay and so-called “Bobotantes”

The May-June Pulse Asia Survey results report, for the first time since he declared his intention to run, Vice President Jejomar Binay not in first place among presidential contenders for the upcoming elections. This result is not entirely a surprise. Since the middle of 2014, Binay has been experiencing a steady decrease in his presidential preference rating as well as his overall approval as the public has been inundated with evidence detailing his and his family’s corruption in government and accumulation of wealth, while Binay and his plethora of spokespeople have not been able to credibly respond.

What, perhaps, is surprising is the class breakdown of Binay’s support.

Binay Presidential Preference (Pulse Asia)

Socioeconomic Class	March 2015	June 2015
ABC	22	29
D	30	20
E	33	26

Between March and June, ABC classes were the only socioeconomic section where preference for Binay rose. Preference for Binay markedly dropped among D and E classes. In June, the ABC classes expressed the highest level of support for Binay while the D class expressed the lowest level of support for Binay. With a margin of error of ±3, all of these shift are statistically significant.

In recent years, “bobotantes” has been gaining traction as a pejorative term that essentially blames voters for the ills of Philippine politics. The term refers to voters who elect, and especially re-elect corrupt or poorly performing public officials, and often goes with the assumption that those who do so are poor and uneducated. Some of those who assail so-called “bobotantes” even go so far as to suggest that the Philippines would be better off if elections were determined exclusively by the middle class and that there should be formal education requirements in order to qualify to vote – something that harks to the days when property requirements and literacy tests were used to keep democracy exclusionary.

Many of the self-styled intelligista have blamed the career and popularity of VP Binay on these “bobotantes.” It seems an obvious connection. The public image Binay seeks to project is designed to pander to the poorer classes. Emphasizing his humble upbringing and his dark skin (which unfortunately and quite disgustingly continues to be associated with economic class in the Philippines) has been a central part of the Binay narrative. Meanwhile, the Binay machinery is a quintessential exemplar of clientelism. Both in Makati as well as nation-wide through the sister-cities and other programs, the Binay machine provides much-needed services and benefits. While providing services is no doubt part and parcel of what a government official should do, what makes the Binay version clientelistic is that it is predicated on a patron-client relationship or a quid-pro-quo between him and voters. If the voter does not adhere to Binay’s or his area leaders’ demands, the voter can be excluded from these services. For example: Binay touts that hospital care and senior citizen benefits are free in Makati (which is also not completely true). However, openly criticizing Binay or refusing to attend a pro-Binay rally can result in the revocation of these benefits. Those known to be critical of the Vice President may be the only ones among their neighbors to not receive calamity assistance during the constant flooding that happens during the rainy season. While healthcare and calamity assistance are certainly forms of services, these Makati programs are designed to allow the Mayor to control the population by selectively excluding people from what should be public benefits. Instead of truly universal healthcare that would allow any number of forms of proof that one is a Makati resident, residents must apply for yellow cards with the Binay logo that require, among other documents, barangay clearance. The overwhelming majority of barangay captains are, of course, part of the Binay machinery. Instead of fixing drainage and floodways, the city reserves money for household-level calamity assistance bags, complete with the Binay logo. In this way, Binay uses what should be public funds and programs as a method of instilling personal loyalty and control. Residents always live under the threat that their benefits may be taken away.

Those who have blamed Binay’s heretofore survey performance on “bobotantes” presumably believe that Binay’s image as a “poor dark-skinned orphan” resonantes with poorer and less educated voters and that poorer households, because of their greater need for services, are more vulnerable to clientelistic control. They believe that poorer voters do not care about Binay’s corruption as long as they receive clientelistic benefits. On the other hand, middle and upper class voters are value-voters better able to judge politicians without being tainted by clientelism. This latest Pulse Asia survey, however, suggests that these assumptions are wrong.

Binay’s support among the ABC classes has been statistically consistent since September of 2014 until this most recent survey when it shot up by 7 points. The prior consistency could perhaps be explained by the theory that most middle and upper class voters had already firmly made up their minds about Binay or were already aware of his corruption, and so were not swayed by revelations over the last ten months. However, I am at a loss when trying to think of explanations for this latest spurt among upper and middle class support. I am not aware of any of Binay’s efforts to appeal to the middle and upper classes (besides promises of positions and public works contracts, but which I would imagine are limited to a population too small to have an impact on this survey) and there has been no change in his narrative to make him more appealing to upper and middle classes.

On the other hand, Binay’s main response to the flood of evidence linking him to corruption has been to ramp up local organizing and campaigning, which include media events that pander to his “I came from poverty and am down to earth” image (i.e. boodle fights), the increased distribution of goods, and loyalty checks among local organizers. These all indicate intensified appeals to the D and E classes, including intensified clientelism. By blatantly skirting the ever-growing issues of corruption and believing that entertainment and dole-outs would be adequate distractions to the issues, Binay, like those who use “bobotantes,” assumes that poorer voters are stupid, value-less, and easily bought. However, Binay’s steady decline among both the D and E classes illustrates how erroneous it is to assume that poorer voters are so easily manipulated.

There is no single panacea to the ills of Philippine politics. Meaningful reform and transformation will require the combination of many efforts and solutions. Excluding those assumed to be “bobotantes” from the democratic process is not one of these solutions. Exposing and opposing boboliticos is.

 

Why the MRT/LRT fare hike is unjust and unjustifiable

The economic and social blood of any city relies on the ability of its residents to be mobile, and to have easy access to work, education, and amusement. The sprawling nature of Metro Manila, combined with an extremely chaotic and inadequate public transportation system renders this easy access non-existent, as travelling, and especially commuting, is time-consuming, uncomfortable, and expensive.

The MRT and LRT rail systems, what should be the most modern and efficient components of travel in Metro Manila, are severely lacking. We are all too familiar with their problems: massive overcrowding (to the point where you are literally spooning the person next to you from line-up to exit), unsafe cars, stampede-like conditions. When an MRT car fell from the rails last year it seemed to be the inevitable catastrophe waiting to happen. Yet, the next day, myself included, millions again lined up to take the train. Perhaps we view having an extra four hours a day to spend with one’s friends and family instead of stuck in traffic as worth risking one’s life.

Thus, it is no surprise when the DOTC first floated an over 60% increase in MRT/LRT fared in 2013, it was met with severe opposition. It was seen as an attack on the citizens of Metro Manila, especially the working poor. The government backed down, only to make the announcement that it would implement the fare hike over Christmas break, when Congress was not in session and people wanted to think about enjoying the holidays with their families and optimism for 2015, not additional burdens. The fare hike is unjust and unjustified, for the following reasons:

1. No improvements in service

In a statement, DOTC Sec. Abaya said that commuters could expect service improvements in 2015. These improvements have already been scheduled and budgeted for. However, this fare hike has nothing to do with service improvements. It will go entirely to pay debt to MRTC, the concessionaire that (mis)manages the MRT/LRT system.

I, and I venture to say, most riders would willingly comply with a fare increase if it meant better service, and especially safety. I would even happily comply with a fare hike if it meant MRT/LRT employees could have regular (non-contractual) work with benefits. However, not a single centavo of the fare hike will go to either of those. Rather, it will go to government payments to a corporate entity. A concessionaire, by the way, that has completely failed to maintain and modernize the train lines.

2. Benefits from mass transit do not come from farebox recovery. Benefits come in the form of positive externalities.

Public transportation, especially in dense cities, is a public utility, not a for-profit business. Contrary to government statements, it is not just those who ride that get the benefits, ergo, user-pay is not the correct framework. With few exemptions, no public transport system in the world makes money from ridership. Governments subsidize mass transit because those governments understand that the value of the positive externalities that result from accessible mass transit – a more efficient workforce, less pollution, less traffic, less congested cities, more economic activity – far outweigh the direct subsidies. More accessible mass transit, an important part of which is affordability, results in more commercial activity, which results in the generation of wealth. Put this in the context of Manila, the economic powerhouse for the entire country, and it is impossible to say the benefits of the MRT/LRT extend only to those who ride.

3. The fare hike disproportionally hurts the poor.

Any flat-rate increase in the cost of a basic service is by its nature regressive because those with smaller incomes pay a larger percentage of their incomes for the increase. Combine this with the profile of MRT/LRT ridership. According to the Mega Manila Public Transport Study (2007), 72.4% of MRT/LRT riders make less than P15,000 per month, 52.8% make less than P10,000 per month, and 29.7% make less than P8,000 per month. It is clear that low-wage earners are those most affected by the fare increase.

To further illustrate, let us consider a minimum-wage earner in NCR making P429 per day (though we all know there is an abundance of people paid below minimum wage). An extra P10 per ride, or P20 per day, means almost 5% of their income would go to the increase alone, and so a total of approximately 10% of the worker’s income would go to MRT/LRT rides. The worker now loses an additional one day’s wage every month to the fare hike.

Contrast the additional amount the government is asking commuters to pay compared to what motorists and franchise owners pay. Financing for cars is at an historic low, hence the great influx of private vehicles on the road leading to more traffic. Unsafe, unmaintained, and environmentally-unfriendly taxis and busses abound as the LTFRB works in complicity with franchise owners to eschew regulations and consumer protections for the right price. In other countries and cities, a larger VAT is levied on new motor vehicles, with larger VATs on multiple vehicles per household, and street parking fees are high and regularly collected. These are means of limiting the number of private motor vehicles and introducing a form of progressive taxation that could subsidize public transport and other services (motor vehicles, especially new and multiple new vehicles per household, are considered a luxury good likely to be purchased by households with higher incomes). While I understand that given the shoddy nature of mass transportation in Manila, making it prohibitively costly to own a car would hurt the middle class much more than the rich, the truth remains that there is a de facto policy of incentivizing car ownership versus the use and development of mass transit.

This does not even begin to compare how much the national and local governments spend on the development and maintenance of roads instead of making public transportation more efficient and comfortable.

4. There are plenty of other potential revenue sources that could pay for the government’s debt to MRTC.

As articulated by numerous progressive groups and even not-so-progressive personalities, there are plenty of other revenue sources that the government could tap to pay for its debt to the MRTC. According to Partido Manggagawa, Travel subsidies for high-ranking government officials have increased in recent years – in the 2012 budget they were worth P8.7 billion, over four times more than the P2 billion a year this fare hike proposes to raise. The electricity industry, one of the most lucrative industries in the country (Meralco is a constant top-performer in the stock exchange) received over P5 billion in subsidies last year. It is worth noting that far from a multitude of small energy producers that the spot market envisioned, the electricity industry in the Philippines in run by a few large conglomerates. Local branches of multinational corporations are given tax holidays and preferential import schemes. Hundreds of government officials get reimbursed for meetings and meals in restaurants that they themselves own. These are all examples of when the government used our tax dollars (or potential tax dollars) to give preferential treatment to the already rich.

Ayala, SM and Robinson’s make billions of pesos from the MRT/LRT because train stations run directly to their malls. Hong Kong’s and Singapore’s MTR and MRT systems are the most profitable in the world because they both own commercial establishments connected to train stations, as well as receive a cut of the commercial profits from malls into which the systems feed. Here in the Philippines, retailers get the same benefits from our mass transit system – just consider what a boost to foot traffic the MRT provides to Trinoma, SM North, Centris, Gateway, Megamall, Glorietta, and others – but these retailers do not pay concessions to the system.

This does not even begin to touch on all the government waste and frivolous expenditures that occur. How much did those televisions in the MRT that have not worked since they were acquired almost half a year ago cost? (And even if they did work, what would be the point? It’s not like you can change lines if your train is late.) How much for the metal detectors that are never turned on? Expanding to other agencies, how much for Metro Manila “beautification,” i.e. those potted plants along EDSA that have to be changed every month because they die of smog? Let us not even venture into corruption and inefficiencies in tax collection.

There is no doubt that the Aquino government has had more redistributive programs and been more sincere in its fight against corruption than administrations past. However, the very nature of tolerating subsidies for the rich while removing subsidies for the poor is a form of regressive taxation – socialism for the rich while maintaining predatory rent-seeking capitalism for the poor.

5. This is not about Manila vs. the provinces.

I find it an act of, at the best naïve misunderstanding, at the worst a bad-faith attempt to foment intra-class animosity through taking advantage of Filipino regionalism, that the government is trying to say that it is unfair for provincial taxpayers to subsidize the MRT/LRT and that reducing the subsidy would lead to better services in the provinces. This is not a zero-sum game where the choices are limited to raising commuter fares in Metro Manila or foregoing development projects in the regions. As already mentioned, there are plenty of underutilized (in terms of actual benefits to people in need) funds that could be used to prevent the fare hike without sacrificing provincial development.

Furthermore, Metro Manila is the economic powerhouse of the country. Peso for peso, Metro Manila subsidizes development in the rest of the country much more than taxes collected outside of Manila subsidize the Metro’s transit. In other words, net of the MRT/LRT subsidy, Filipinos in the provinces still get more in redistributed taxes. When the economy in Metro Manila is not efficient and effective and workers have decreased purchasing power to participate in the domestic economy, the entire country suffers. We all know that the Philippine economy loses P2 billion per day due to Metro Manila traffic. That is, the entire economy, not just the Metro’s economy, loses out due to traffic patterns in the Metro. The same principle applies to the MRT/LRT.

6. The sneaky way the fare hike was implemented shows bad faith

The fare hike was first proposed in the middle of last year and was met with outrage. The government postponed, opposition momentum relaxed, and then suddenly it is rushed through decision, announcement, and implementation during the Christmas holidays. This is a time when Congress is not in session, many Metro Manileños have gone home to the province, and people would rather generally be enjoying time with their family and friends than considering injurious government policies and how to combat them. It is simply too wild to believe that the government did not choose this timetable for the announcement and implementation for this exact reason: they wanted to sneak it past us.

7. Don’t victimize the people for government’s past wrongs

There is no question that the Aquino government inherited a contract that was extremely disadvantageous to the Filipino people. According to the contract for MRT/LRT operation, the government guaranteed at least 15% return on investment to the MRTC for operations from 2000-2025. With such a guaranteed return, again, one unheard of in the world of public transportation, why would the MRTC bother to invest in better services? An economics 101 student could tell you this is a textbook moral hazard. Now the DOTC is trying to make up for long-needed upgrades and maintenance. Whoever negotiated that contract over a decade ago should be held responsible.

But that does not justify passing the sins of foregoing administrations onto ordinary citizens. The government must take responsibility and find a solution that protects low-wage earners. However, shame does not just belong to the government, it also belongs to the MRTC. I would like to know who sits on their board, who is calling their shots, and who exactly is so unamenable to throwing working people a damn bone for the daily safety gamble that is the MRT/LRT.

 

Of beers, cannolis, and crudite

Random memory:

When I was in college I was an intern at an NGO/think tank/public interest law firm. While I was there we got a new executive director who had previously been high ranking in the Clinton administration, so he was kind of a big deal. He wanted to have a barbecue at his house as a welcome/staff bonding event.

My boss asked if I could help the E.D. set up for the party – shopping, food prep, etc. When she asked me to do this, I got really pissed off. What immediately went through my mind was “I got hired to work in an office! I in’t get hired to cook and clean in no white man’s house!”

After a couple days of stewing about it I decided I was going to tell my boss that I refused doing the assignment on principle. If they would fire me because of my decision, so be it, but as an organization that had fair labor practices as one of its core advocacies, it would be really bad form if they fired me.

Before I could talk to my boss though, the E.D. personally sought me out to thank me. He basically said “I know this is way beyond your job description. But, I really personally appreciate that you’re willing to help out and I’ll try to make it a fun day for you.” That changed my mind and I decided to do it.

It did turn out to be fun day. I ended up bonding with the E.D. over shopping for cannolis and slicing up crudite. I appreciated that we did the work together – he didn’t just sit around while I worked – and he made the effort to actually talk to me about my life, political opinions, professional ambitions, etc. In the following months he ended up becoming one of my early mentors.

Lessons learned: Matagal na pala akong pasaway, angry at the system, and all that, but at the end of the day I’m also kind of a softie. Being a gracious manager will make even your most asshole employee go beyond the call of duty. No matter how supposedly “high up” one is, the willingness and how one performs manual labor is still a telling measure of a man or woman. Besides going through war, cooking and having beers together are probably the best methods of bonding.

 

Open Data Philippines: A Valiant but Sophomoric Baby Step

I was really nerd happy when I woke up this morning thinking I would spend the day poking around the newly-launched data.gov.ph. In fairness, I appreciate the effort to put all government data in one place (which should be the mandate of NSCB, but anyway), and to have it available in CSV, XML, or ASCII – basically anything that’s not PDF – is an upgrade.

However, upon further perusal I remain frustrated and disappointed. It’s clear that beyond the two points I mentioned above there has been no attempt to make the data usable. In order to avoid being called one of those “cottage industries” who makes a living off of criticizing the administration no matter how good its intentions are, I offer some obvious problems and some simple solutions:

1) The search function is not functioning.

Say that I want to know the maternal mortality over time. I go to data, search for “maternal mortality.” No results. I search for “maternal,” no results. “Mortality,” “death” and “deaths,” still no dice. (At this point I’m wondering “Shouldn’t there be regular data on how many people die every month, the cause of death, and disaggregated to at least the provincial level?” But I don’t want to get side-tracked). Finally I search for women, and lo-and-behold, there is one lonely result: Health and Nutrition: % of Women who Died Due to Pregnancy-Related Causes. Jackpot

However, this discovery begs other questions. Why is there only one result when you search for women? Does this mean there is no data on women in the workforce, women married and at what age, average income of women-headed households, women who hold public office, or the percentage of LGUs that use their Gender and Development Budgets? (A search, by the way of “female” or “gender” doesn’t yield these results either.)

I know government data on these topics exists. I’ve seen it. But it is buried in spreadsheets that cover multiple topics and are named something so general so as to obscure like “Updates 2012.” This problem of “the data is publicly available but no one knows where” is the the exact problem this whole Open Data initiative is trying to address.

Solution: Tagging. The whole point of having a search function is so that you type an intuitive, not technical, description of what you’re looking for and then you find it. However, this only works if the name of the file or its tags have intuitive descriptors. Let’s look at the tags for Health and Nutrition: % of Women who Died Due to Pregnancy-Related Causes.

“Health” and “Nutrition” are already part of the title, so they are unnecessary but don’t hurt. “Philippines,” well yes, we are in the Philippines, all of this is assumed to be data about the Philippines, so again, totally unnecessary but doesn’t take away anything. “NAMRIA” stands for the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority. I had to Google that because I had no idea what it was and I have no idea why anyone who wanted to know about maternal mortality would search for NAMRIA.

Common sense should be used when making tags. What is this dataset? Luckily, its title is clear and specific. What are some other terms people would use to describe this and related topics? Well, “maternal mortality,” “mothers,” “death,” “female,” and “reproductive health” for starters. Tags and search terms must be assigned from the point of view of potential users.

2) Non-uniformity in data. Data is a wonderful thing. Having lots of data means that you can not only know about a single phenomenon, but you can know how it relates to other phenomena and come up with an idea about what causes it.

Say that I want to know the relationship between maternal mortality and public expenditures in health. This seems like a reasonable thing to want to know and something that we probably should know if we are going to make good policy. Maternal mortality data looks like this:

The data is obviously incomplete, which is a whole other issue. I will say, though, that having data that is accurate to the local level, even if you only have it in a few areas, is more useful for designing government interventions than having macro data that reflects the average in the country overall but does not tell you about the situation of any particular community. But I digress.

With this data it should be possible to look at the relationship between public health expenditure at the local level and maternal mortality. However, all the budget tables are just that, tables. This map must have been generated from a table, so that table already exists, but where is that table?? I need it to make simple comparison with health expenditure, not to mention more complicated statistical techniques that could reveal the effect of health expenditure on maternal mortality holding constant things like average income, average children per household, rural or urban character, etc.

Solution: The numbers exist. Show us the numbers.

(By the way, searches for “health expenditures” only resulted in national budgets. Searches for “local government units” and “IRA” turned up null.)

3) Labeling. In order to demonstrate that math has practical implications in life, 3rd grade math was full of word problems. My 3rd grade teacher insisted that we label all our answers. “The answer is not 5, it’s 5 apples. Why can’t you just say 5? Because I’m a mathematician, not a psychic, and you can’t assume I know what you’re talking about.”

Again, let’s go back to Health and Nutrition: % of Women who Died Due to Pregnancy-Related Causes. It seems pretty straight-forward: the percentage of women who died due to pregnancy-related causes in the colored local government units. However, Died when? In the past month? In 2013? Ever?? You can’t accurately find out important relationships (like those mentioned in #2) if you don’t specify a time period. Also, are these all women or women of child-bearing age? Also another potential source of skewed data.

Another example, here is a section of a file called “31 October 2012 NEDA Updates” available at  http://data.gov.ph/catalogue/dataset/31-october-2012-updates

This data sheet begets more questions than answers. What does “% g.r.” mean? There is no key that explains this in the file. If the purpose of making data open is so that any citizen, whether they are a technical expert or not, can access it and understand it, then things that are not immediately understandable to the layman should have an explanatory note in the key.

Beyond that however, there are items that are simply impossible to understand even if you do have prior knowledge. For example: row 25, the number of building permits for quarter 2 of 2012 = 4.4. It would seem that this represents the absolute number of building permits. (I can’t see how building permits could be a percentage of anything, unless you meant the value of building permits, but that’s not what it says.) So the question is 4.4 what? 4.4 thousand? 4.4 million? Similarly, the value of construction for quarter 2 of 2012 = 15.4. Again, 15.4 million pesos? 15.4 billion pesos? Or 15.4% of total GDP? Of total GNI? Or of whatever % g.r. is?

Now please look at rows 18-24, electrical consumption. Residential consumption in August 2012 (row 20) is -3.3. I find it hard to believe that residential households generated 3.3% more electricity than they consumed (thus yielding a negative value), so this makes me think -3.3 represents a change of some sort. But a change of what? Is that the change in October 2012 compared to August 2012? Of residential consumers’ share of all electricity consumed?

Again, maybe these are industry conventions that are simply going above my head, but there is no point to providing open access to data if the meaning of the data is not transparent. Accessible necessarily means understandable. Any provider of information has the duty to clearly explain what that information means, not berate the population for not understanding bureaucratic conventions.

Solution: All of these datasets already have a codebook that clearly explains the meaning of each data point and how it is derived. I am confident these codebooks must already exist because at some point NEDA, DBM, DOF, etc. have to train new staff. Just upload the codebooks and link them to the datasets.

In conclusion, Open Data could be the start of something immensely useful, but let’s not pat ourselves on the back just yet. For the Open Data project to cause real changes in its intended areas of transparency and governance, for accessibility to be real and not just a technical concept, it is not enough to just upload all the data to a central location and hope someone will have the time, energy, and expertise to do something with it. You must think of the user, the possible practical implications, and format your data accordingly. (As well as in the future, collect your data accordingly.) There are lots of other problems that make this data unusable or prohibitively difficult to use in its current form: in many files the data is laid out like text tables instead of rectangular data sets; instead of having all the data on a particular topic in one sheet (say, amount spent on public education), every year has its own file thus requiring a whole lot of manipulation before you can do any time-series analysis; the timing of the way data is displayed is inconsistent, making cross-source comparisons very difficult (e.g. some data is displayed by year, some by quarter, some by month, some by calendar year and some by fiscal year – all in the same table).

I understand that the project just started and there is a lot more that has to, and, presumably, will be done. But I do not buy the inevitable excuse of “we’re short on manpower.” The very professional and beautiful PR material that populates the site is evidence that there are very capable people working on this project. But, it seems a lot more energy and resources were put into the PR aspect than the actual data. For example, it’s clear that formatting pretty javascript price monitoring tables (you can’t call it an infographic if you cannot right-click, save, and share it) out of, say, already existing but less pretty price monitoring tables, was higher priority than conceptualizing and executing how to make basic data user-friendly. At this point the site is all shebang and no substance.

While a lot more has to be done to format the raw data, I tried to identify three quick and easy ways in which the usability of this site and its data can be greatly improved: better tagging, revealing the numbers, and labeling data (basically uploading codebooks). These are all steps that don’t need technical experts or statisticians, they just need a little common sense.

P.S. It’s possible that everything I just said is in the Action Plan for Open Data Philippines, but I have no idea because the link is broken.

Womp womp.

 

Thoughts on scrapping PDAF

This is going to be controversial, but I’m really happy Pnoy is abolishing the PDAF. I think it was a step in the right direction. I think there is a fundamental difference between completely discretionary, pre-budgeted projects with only after-the-fact and much later oversight, and projects that have to go through the budgetary process up front. Of course earmarks are still pork. Of course, the process of allocating those earmarks will still be a game among thieves who won’t take long to figure out how to work the system – in fact it seems to me that the reform proposal is basically an expanded CIA system. Nevertheless, I still think it’s better than PDAF. But it is definitely not the endgame.

Another more important (especially if we are talking about endgame) reason why I am happy that Pnoy announced he’s abolishing the PDAF is because it shows this administration is susceptible to popular outrage. I say the following without judgement on whether Pnoy made this move out of a good faith change of heart or not: Friday’s announcement was obviously an attempt at accommodation in light of the acute pressure the administration has been receiving from its allies and enemies alike, respected leaders and public intellectuals, as well as multitudes of the unorganized and apolitical getting ready for the much-hyped Aug. 26 anti-pork rally. Generally the goal of accommodation is to diffuse challengers. If the challengers are smart, however, they will see attempts at accommodation/diffusion as a sign of the government’s vulnerability. It should, therefore, serve as inspiration to challengers that the people can force concessions. We made the government cave on PDAF. We can make them cave on more meaningful reforms. See you Monday morning.

 

Thoughts on moves to disqualify Akbayan

I’m late on commenting on this, and much more has been said by comrades like Emman Hizon and Walden Bello, but nevertheless for good measure:

Sure, it was expected that the extreme left would go after Akbayan, but there are jut so many logical inconsistencies:
1. Akbayan is overrepresented in government

• It is correct that former Akbayan leaders hold positions in the executive, and they are there working for the dignity, rights, and well-being of the marginalized. Is the extreme left saying that the sectors that comprise Akbayan (labor, peasants, fisherfolk, urban poor, women, youth, LGBT, OFs) are now overrepresented in government?
• By this logic, women were also overrepresented in government during the GMA admin. After all, a woman held the post powerful political office in the land and appointed many other women. Do Anakbayan, KMU and LFS think that women were not a marginalized sector from 2001-2010? Hm, I wonder what Gabriela would have to say about that…
• They point exclusively to executive positions held by former Akbayan leadership, but the party-list law is about the legislature. Is Akbayan overrepresented in the legislature? Akbayan has 2 seats out of 289 members. Is Akbayan overrepresented? More importantly, are the marginalized sectors that comprise Akbayan overrepresented? If labor, peasants, fisherfolk, urban poor, women, youth, LGBT and OFs are indeed overrepresented in the House then the Makabayan coalition doesn’t have a job either.
• Confounding executive positions with overrepresentation in the legislature elucidates the simple fact that the extreme left doesn’t understand the distinct function of separate branches of government in a democratic system. Representation in the legislature is a different animal with a different purpose than executive positions.

2. Akbayan running when it is allied with PNoy is the same as GMA’s front party lists

• Unlike GMA creating various party-lists and running her own relatives as candidates, Akbayan existed, developed its own identity, and won victories for marginalized sectors long before a PNoy presidency was even fathomable.
• Akbayan does not receive money from the administration – not for operations, not for campaigning, not for anything.

3. Akbayan is a sipsip or puppet to the PNoy administration

• Akbayan engages the administration as a critical coalition member and often differs with the administration stance and/or tries to push the administration towards more progressive action. This is what it means to be the progressive voice within a coalition, making change from both within and without. It is not a tuta or sipsip. Just look at Akbayan’s statements on critical issues:
  • Cybercrime:
    • “Akbayan partylist today expressed its opposition to the position taken by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III that effectively stands by the cyber-libel provision“
    • Hontiveros: Cybercrime law a threat to all freedoms. “She added that her group had informed the President of their opposition to the law when the provision on libel was inserted.”
    • Bello: “A flawed law.” Libel should be decriminalized, not extended to the internet.
    • Akbayan youth: “Defend Internet Freedom”
  • Hacienda Luisita:
    • Akbayan: SC Reversal on Hacienda Luisita, A Triumph of Agrarian Justice. “The immediate distribution of the land should be the next crucial step that the Aquino government must take…We also call on President Aquino to support House Resolution 253 filed by Akbayan Representatives Kaka Bag-ao and Walden Bello calling for an investigation of all the other Stock Distribution Options (SDOs) aside from Hacienda Luisita.”
    • Hontiveros calls on President to enact swift redistribution of lands “President Aquino must use exceptional political will to distribute the remaining lands without any fear or favor. We believe that his administration must act swiftly and boldly while the momentum is on the side of agrarian reform.”
    • Farmworkers Agrarian Reform Movement (FARM): “For the record, AKBAYAN has always supported our call for the immediate redistribution of Hacienda Luisita and the need for the delivery of a full package of support services to ensure that the beneficiaries will be able to make the land productive. During the deliberation for the extension of CARP, AKBAYAN through its representatives in Congress successfully pushed for the removal of the stock distribution as an option of landowners. We therefore find KMPs accusation against Akbayan totally incredible.”
  • Freedom of Information:
    • Hontiveros: “The people’s right to information is an indispensable element of a functioning representative democracy”
    • Bello: Urges Malacañang to support FOI bill, FOI among pillars of democracy
    • Akbayan pushes for the passage of FoI bill deemed as “mother-of-all waivers”
• These abounding statements are in addition to Akbayan’s activities in the legislature, executive, and parliament of the streets on these issues and dozens of others that affect the masses. I don’t understand why detractors say Akbayan is silent on these issues. They are either purposely trying to mislead the public or they have failed to do their own research before issuing attacks.

4. Akbayan doesn’t do anything

• Once again, let’s do our research. Akbayan’s successful advocacies:
  • CARPER
  • Cheaper Medicines Act
  • Right to Labor Organization Law
  • National Land Use and Management
  • Support for FASAP strike against PAL and campaign for age and gender equality
• Akbayan’s continuing advocacies:
  • RH
  • FOI
  • Amendments to Cybercrime law to decriminalize libel
  • Mandatory teaching of Martial Law atrocities
  • Overseas voting and Protection of overseas workers, including repatriation of OFWs in conflict zones
  • Accountability of corrupt government officials (the recent plunder charges against GMA were based on a complaint filed by Risa Hontiveros)
  • Philippine sovereignty over Kalayaan Islands and West Philippine Sea
  • at maraming iba pa…

 

Ideological differences between left groups are inevitable. However, such differences should result in meaningful debate and action towards our common goal: uplifting and empowering the marginalized to take the reigns of power from the predatory elite. When differences become reduced to insults, mudslinging, and procedural gymnastics to gain the upper hand, the elite have effectively split us and the poor are the losers.

 

Flashbacks of Sec. Jesse Robredo

Since the news about Secretary Jesse Robredo’s plane crash happened, memories and reflections have been dancing around in my head. I hoped I would not have had to write this. I hoped I would save these memories for another day, with many more added to them. But on this sad day when a country mourns for one of its quiet heroes – a hero who did his work without fireworks or fanfare – I’ve got to let this out.

When I first started at IPD, then Mayor Jesse was an icon. He had transformed Naga City from a sad face of misgovernance into a first class, economically booming city. He successfully implemented participatory budgeting, he had drastically reduced the urban poor population and provided security of tenure to thousands of families, and he was not tied to a political dynasty – all core components of our vision of a participatory democracy that prioritizes the dignity of the poor. He was the symbol that we could do it. He was the living archetype we wanted to emulate and reproduce. If only we could develop and install Mayor Jesses all over the Philippines.

When I quit my job in DC to join the Noy-Mar campaign, I had no idea Mayor Jesse was head of the political unit until my first day at the office. I’m not one to get starstruck, but I was really excited to finally meet in person the man that I had looked up to for so long. When I finally did see him, my reaction was “ganyan lang pala?” Hindi naman dahil wala siyang dating, pero hindi siya katulad ng mga iba na they would expect everyone to stop what they were doing and greet him as soon as he entered a room. He acted as though, despite all his accomplishments, he didn’t consider himself “mahalagang tao.” Humble at simpleng tao lang talaga. Mayor Jesse could slip in and out of the various rooms at Parc House and, unless he wanted to talk to you or you were looking for him, barely be noticed – except that he was taller than 95% of the staff. He was not about getting attention. He was about getting work done.

I had only fleeting interaction with Mayor Jess until late in the campaign when groundwork became the more important focus. I remember my first ops with him in Mindanao – at first he didn’t want me to go. He didn’t really know me and so was reluctant to spend campaign money when he wasn’t sure what my value-added would be. I secured outside funding and went along anyway. Once we got on the ground I too was a bit nervous that I didn’t actually bring any value-added, and that despite really wanting to impress him, I wouldn’t be able to. Halfway into breakfast, however, we were both surprised to realize that I was a repository of some information he needed, but had not had a chance to collect. That was all it took. He was at once genuinely receptive of my input and the information I had to bring. As a young woman in a very masculine and classist political world, I am used to being (and seeing other women be) patronized, politely waved away, or resented because of seeming to come out of nowhere and then talking out of place – like a kid sitting at the adult table. Mayor Jess was not like that. He was open to hearing ideas and advice from new sources, no matter how old you were or what you looked like. He was never too proud to turn down help offered by earnest and able people. In this way he was the opposite of so many mga mayabang na pulitiko.

I remember my first visit to his office less than a month after he became Secretary Jesse Robredo of DILG. His office’s somber yet overwhelming blue color seemed to reflect his mood. Sec. Jesse was in charge of a massive portfolio that would put him in the line of fire of some of the most powerful and dangerous figures in the Philippines. The department at that time still had plenty of holdovers from the previous administration, and so he did not yet know who he could trust and who would be out to get him – a point emphasized by how he carefully and purposefully closed the door after we entered his office. Jueteng and ARMM were the two most important points on the agenda that day, and perhaps two of the most complicated, most intimidating areas any government official could take on, let alone a new Secretary taking the reigns after almost ten years of an administration that had used the DILG to coddle criminal syndicates. He was nervous, and he had every right to be. But, he was determined, and somehow seemed to be creating energy against the dictates of reason. My friend (who incidentally is also currently dying of a sudden unforeseen cause) and I agreed that we would supplement his efforts in any way we could. If anyone had the world thrown against him, it was Sec. Jesse. If anyone could make a major change in how a crucial government line agency runs, it was Sec. Jesse. If anyone deserved our utmost support, it was Sec. Jesse.

And so when I think of Sec. Jesse, I think of someone who served tirelessly and asked for nothing in return. I think of someone who, while we pat ourselves on the back as we wrestle with ideological and theoretical debates, was accomplishing tangible outcomes. Someone who remained righteous, smart, and grounded, despite 15 years in a political game that ruined many others. Someone who achieved the dream of simultaneously pursuing progressive policies, delivering real economic growth and social services, and being successful in a world of realpolitik.

I also think of the great irony that someone who was such a fighter, who survived so many battles, was killed in a freak plane accident. I think how ironic it is that so many snakes well into their 70s and 80s still continue to rape the Philippines, while Sec. Jesse, who still had so much more to give, was lost at age 54.

Right now a lot of people are talking about destiny. When it’s your time, it’s your time, they say. Well, I have always said that we make our own destiny. I’m amending that now. Sometimes we also have to make the destiny of others. Sa ang dameng beses na tinanong ko “bakit siya, ano ba ang meaning nito?” I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s up to us to decide what this means. We choose to give this meaning. We have to use this event to work harder, think better, love stronger, and fight until victory. It’s now up to us to fulfill the destiny of Sec. Jesse.

 

Marcos Was a Dictator. NOT a Hero.

I’ve just come from a series of lectures on transitional justice and collective memory and healing – it’s kind of shocking to realize not only has the Philippines not gone through this, but is swinging in the complete opposite direction! Instead of a museum about the dictatorship and its abuses to make sure we never forget and repeat, Marcos goes in a hall of heroes museum??

Galit na galit ako na hanggang ngayon buhay pa mga kasinungalingan niya. Lest we forget:

 

The New York Times
January 23, 1986, Thursday, Late City Final Edition
MARCOS’S WARTIME ROLE DISCREDITED IN U.S. FILES

BYLINE: By The following article is based on reporting by Jeff Gerth and Joel Brinkley and was written by Mr. Gerth.Special to the New York Times

SECTION: Section A; Page 1, Column 1; Foreign Desk

LENGTH: 3213 words

DATELINE: WASHINGTON, Jan. 22

The Army concluded after World War II that claims by Ferdinand E. Marcos that he had led a guerrilla resistance unit during the Japanese occupation of his country were ”fraudulent” and ”absurd.”

Throughout his political career, Mr. Marcos, now President of the Philippines, has portrayed himself as a heroic guerrilla leader, and the image has been central to his political appeal.

In almost every speech throughout his current re-election campaign, including at least one this week, Mr. Marcos has referred to his war record and guerrilla experiences in part to show that he is better able than his opponent, Corazon C. Aquino, to handle the present Communist insurgency.

Questions Go Unanswered

But documents that had rested out of public view in United States Government archives for 35 years show that repeated Army investigations found no foundation for Mr. Marcos’s claims that he led a guerrilla force called Ang Mga Maharlika in military operations against Japanese forces from 1942 to 1944.

Mr. Marcos declined today to respond to six written questions about the United States Government records, which came to light only recently. The questions were submitted to Mr. Marcos’s office this morning in Manila.

After repeated telephone calls to the Presidential Palace this afternoon, an aide explained that Mr. Marcos was busy with meetings and a campaign appearance and ”didn’t have the opportunity to look into the question.” The aide said the President might have a response later.

In the Army records, Mr. Marcos wrote that he strongly protested the Army’s findings, adding that ”a grave injustice has been committed against many officers and men” of the unit.

Since Mr. Marcos became President in 1965, the Government-owned broadcasting network, the main north-south highway on the island of Luzon and a hall in the Presidential Palace all have been named Maharlika – the name means Noble Men – in honor of the unit. In 1978, the Philippine National Assembly considered renaming the nation Maharlika.

Recognition Is Denied

Between 1945 and 1948 various Army officers rejected Mr. Marcos’s two requests for official recognition of the unit, calling his claims distorted, exaggerated, fraudulent, contradictory and absurd. Army investigators finally concluded that Maharlika was a fictitious creation and that ”no such unit ever existed” as a guerrilla organization during the war.

In addition, the United States Veterans’ Administration, helped by the Philippine Army, found in 1950 that some people who had claimed membership in Maharlika – pronounced mah-HAHR-lick-kuh – had actually been committing ”atrocities” against Filipino civilians rather than fighting the Japanese and had engaged in what the V.A. called ”nefarious activity,” including selling contraband to the enemy. The records include no direct evidence linking Mr. Marcos to those activities.

The records, many of which were classified secret until 1958, were on file at the Army records center in St. Louis until they were donated to the National Archives in Washington in November 1984. In 1983, a Filipino opposition figure asked for access to them a few weeks after the assassination in Manila that August of the opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino Jr., but the Army refused to let him see them.

Alfred W. McCoy, a historian, discovered the documents among hundreds of thousands of others several months ago while at the National Archives researching a book on World War II in the Philippines. Dr. McCoy was granted the access normally accorded to scholars, and when he came upon the the Maharlika files he was allowed to review and copy them along with others. Archives officials did not learn what the documents contained until after they were copied Richard J. Kessler, a scholar on the Philippines at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington, said, ”Marcos’s military record was one of the central factors in his developing a political power base.”

A War Hero at Home

In the Philippines, the 68-year-old Mr. Marcos is widely described as the nation’s most decorated war hero. The Philippine Government says he won 32 medals for heroism during World War II, including two from the United States Army. Two of the medals were for his activities as a guerrilla leader, but the rest were for exploits before the United States surrender in 1942 or after the return of United States forces to Luzon, the main Philippine island, in 1945.

The validity of those medals has been challenged by Philippine and American journalists as well as others. In response, the Philippine Government has vigorously contended that they were properly earned and said the records validating them were destroyed in a fire. When the Philippine newspaper We Forum published an article in 1982 questioning Mr. Marcos’s war record, Government authorities shut the paper down.

The issue of Mr. Marcos’s medals is not addressed in the Army records.

Like thousands of other Filipinos, immediately after the war Mr. Marcos asked the Army to recognize his unit so that he and others could receive back pay and benefits. In his petitions, Mr. Marcoscertified that his unit had engaged in numerous armed clashes with the Japanese, sabotage and intelligence gathering throughout a vast region of Luzon and had been the pre-eminent guerrilla force on the island.

In his submissions, he offered widely varying accounts of Maharlika’s membership, from 300 men at one point to 8,300 at another. In the years since, Mr. Marcos has said Maharlika was a force of 8,200 men.

Some Claims Recognized

Shortly after the war, the Army did recognize the claims of 111 men who were listed on the Maharlika roster submitted by Mr. Marcos, but their recognition was only for their services with American forces after the invasion of Luzon in January 1945. One document says the service that Mr. Marcos and 23 other men listed as Maharlika members gave to the First Cavalry Division in the spring of 1945 was ”of limited military value.”

The Army records include conflicting statements on whether the United States intended to recognize the 111 men as individuals or as a Maharlika unit attached to American forces after the invasion. It is clear throughout the records that at no time did the Army recognize that any unit designating itself as Maharlika ever existed as a guerrilla force in the years of the Japanese occupation, 1942 to 1945.

The records are a small part of a voluminous file containing more than one million documents on military activities in the Philippines during and after World War II. Approximately 400 pages deal with matters relating to the Government’s investigations of Mr. Marcos and his claims.

Dr. McCoy, an American professor of history at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, said he was ”stunned” when he found the records last summer. He said he worked with the records by himself until this month. He brought them to the attention of The New York Times last week.

The records were reviewed at the Archives, where officials confirmed their authenticity. In addition, several former American military officers who played important roles in the events described in the records were interviewed.

These officers served in the Philippines during the war, supervising Filipino guerrillas in the areas where Mr. Marcos said his unit had operated. Even though most of them say they are strong supporters of Mr. Marcos today – one, Robert B. Lapham of Sun City, Ariz., said he spent 90 minutes with Mr. Marcos while in Manila last week -the officers also confirmed the basic findings in the records and said they had not been aware of Maharlika’s activities during the war. They also said they had not known of Mr. Marcos as a guerrilla leader until they read his claims later.

‘This Is Not True’

Ray C. Hunt Jr., a 66-year-old former Army captain who directed guerrilla activites in Pangasinan Province north of Manila during the war, said: ”Marcos was never the leader of a large guerrilla organization, no way. Nothing like that could have happened without my knowledge.”

Mr. Hunt, interviewed at his home in Orlando, Fla., said he took no position in the current Phillipine election campaign, although he believed Mr. Marcos ”may be the lesser of two evils.”

Still, as he read through the records for the first time, including Mr. Marcos’s own description of Maharlika’s wartime activities, he said: ”This is not true, no. Holy cow. All of this is a complete fabrication. It’s a cock-and-bull story.”

The documents, the latest of which are dated in the early 1950’s, include no indication that Mr. Marcos appealed the Army’s final ruling against him in 1948. The last entry in the Maharlika file was an affirmation of the rejection.

Today Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard L. Armitage, the senior Pentagon official in charge of military relations with the Philippines, said his aides had been unable to find any record that the original Army decision denying benefits to Maharlika had been challenged or investigated after the 1948 ruling. ”Subsequent to ’48 I am unaware of any further appeals,” he said.

Donna St. John, a spokesman for the Veterans’ Administration, said, ”We’re not paying any benefits to Ferdinand Marcos.”

As commanding officer of the unit, Mr. Marcos applied for United States Government recognition of his guerrilla force in the summer of 1945. To support the application, he included a 29-page typed document entitled ”Ang Mga Maharlika – Its History in Brief.”

It says that the unit was ”spawned from the dragging pain and ignominy” of the Bataan death march and that its members ”grew such a hatred of the enemy as could be quenched with his blood alone.”

Exploits Are Described

Most of the document is written in the third person and describes a variety of exploits by Maharlika and Mr. Marcos, who was in his twenties at the time. ”It seemed as if the Japanese were after him alone and not after anyone else,” it says at one point, referring to Mr. Marcos. The author is never identified, but in two places he lapses into the first person in discussing Mr. Marcos’s exploits, indicating the writer was Mr. Marcos.

The history and other submissions from Mr. Marcos say Maharlika was officially organized in December 1942 but had been operating for several months before that. It carried out guerrilla operations throughout Luzon and even published an underground guerrilla newspaper three times a day, Mr. Marcos wrote.

Membership rosters submitted with the filings listed the names of more than 300 Maharlika members. But Mr. Marcos included no documents or copies of the Maharlika newspaper to support the claim because, he wrote, all documentary evidence was ”lost due to continuous searches by the Japanese.” Elsewhere, Mr. Marcos wrote that some of the unit’s records were burned and others were buried.

The official records indicate that the Army grew suspicious of Mr. Marcos’s claims right away. Mr. Marcos contended that he had been in a northern province ”in the first days of December 1944 on an intelligence mission” and was not able to get back to Maharlika headquarters at that time because the American invasion force on Luzon cut him off from Manila.

But in the first recorded response to Mr. Marcos’s recognition request, in September 1945, Maj. Harry McKenzie of the Army noted that the American invasion of Luzon had not actually begun until a month later and ”could not have influenced his abandoning his outfit.”

As a result, Major McKenzie suggested an ”inquiry into the veracity” of Mr. Marcos’s claims. And almost two years later, the Army wrote Mr. Marcos to notify him of the official finding that his application for recognition ”is not favorably considered.”

Why the U.S. Said No

The official notice cited these reasons, among others:

* Maharlika had not actually been in the field fighting the Japanese and had not ”contributed materially to the eventual defeat of the enemy.”

* Maharlika had no ”definite organization” and ”adequate records were not maintained.”

* Maharlika was not controlled adequately ”because of the desertion of its commanding officer,” Mr. Marcos, who eventually joined an American military unit while in northern Luzon at the time of the American invasion.

* Maharlika could not possibly have operated over the wide area it claimed because of problems of terrain, communications and Japanese ”antiresistance activities.”

* ”Many members apparently lived at home, supporting their families by means of farming or other civilian pursuits and assisted the guerrilla unit on a part-time basis only.”

Although the Army did recognize 111 people listed on Mr. Marcos’s Maharlika roster for their service to American forces after January 1945, the nature of that service is not fully described. But one document, dated May 31, 1945, says 6 officers and 18 men led by Mr. Marcos and indentifying themselves as Maharlika had ”been employed by this unit,” the Army’s First Cavalry Division, ”guarding the regimental supply dump and performing warehousing details.” Their work, the document added, was ”of limited military value.”

In his brief history, Mr. Marcos describes his service to the First Cavalry this way: Members of Maharlika ”furnished intelligence and were used for patrolling by this unit until the operations in Manila ended. They participated in the crossing of the Pasig River.”

Mr. Marcos was just one of thousands of Filipinos who asked the United States Army for recognition as a guerrilla. After the Japanese occupation of the Phillipines in 1942, the United States had promised that any Filipinos who continued fighting the Japanese would get back pay and benefits after the war as if they had been members of the American military.

Served at Bataan

Japan mounted a surprise attack on the islands in December 1941 and quickly conquered them. It was not until 1944 and 1945, that United States and Filipino forces won them back. Not long afterward, on July 4, 1946, the islands gained their final independence from the United States as the Republic of the Philippines.

At the time of the Japanese invasion, Mr. Marcos was a lieutenant in the Philippine armed forces and part of the contingent driven back into the Bataan Peninsula. Mr. Marcos has said his fighting delayed the surrender at Bataan for several weeks.

After the American surrender, he was imprisoned by the Japanese, but escaped. For his efforts during the Bataan campaign of January 1942, Mr. Marcos was awarded numerous medals, apparently including two from the United States, but not until many years later.

It was after the Bataan campaign, Mr. Marcos wrote, that Maharlika was formed.

In 1982 and 1983 journalists in the Philippines and the United States, as well as Representative Lane Evans, Democrat of Illinois, tried to determine the validity of the American awards to Mr. Marcos,including the two Bataan-related medals. The Pentagon, in replying in 1984 to Mr. Evans, noted that no official ”citations for these awards” could be found, but ”they were both attested to in affidavits by the Assistant Chief of Staff” of the Philippine Army.

Whether or not the American medals are valid, they had nothing to do with Mr. Marcos’s activities during the Japanese occupation.

After the war, roughly 500,000 Filipinos were recognized and paid as guerrilla fighters. But uncounted others were turned down.

Mr. Marcos’s claim was investigated in the same manner as the others. Affidavits were taken from dozens of American and Filipino military officers, enlisted men and civilians. In addition, investigators studied documentary evidence, including wartime intelligence reports, looking for references to Maharlika’s work.

After he was turned down, Mr. Marcos asked for reconsideration. An Army captain, Elbert R. Curtis, inquired further but concluded that ”the immensity” of Mr. Marcos’s claim that Maharlika served over the entire island of Luzon was ”absurd.”

After checking intelligence records, Captain Curtis wrote that there was no mention of Maharlika being a source of intelligence information. He wrote that the unit roster was a fabrication, that ”no such unit ever existed” and that Mr. Marcos’s claims about Maharlika were ”fraudulent,” ”preposterous” and ”a malicious criminal act.”

Another Army document said Maharlika ”possessed no arms prior to the arrival of the Americans” despite Mr. Marcos’ claim that the unit had 474 assorted weapons and 3,825 rounds of ammunition. The second investigation concluded that ”it is quite obvious that Marcos did not exercise any control over a guerrilla organization prior to liberation” in January 1945.

Although there is no record that Mr. Marcos filed any further objections to those 1948 findings, another Filipino, Cipriano S. Allas, who was listed as a senior Maharlika officer, wrote the Army in 1947 asking for reconsideration of the unit. That request was denied, too.

Mr. Allas said he had commanded Maharlika’s intelligence section. But numerous American officers and Filipinos who were interviewed by Army, Veterans’ Administration and Philippine investigators said Mr. Allas and some of his men had in fact been selling commodities to the Japanese during the war.

In a 1947 Army document titled ”Report on Ang Mga Maharlika,” Lieut. William D. MacMillan wrote that two American officers, including Mr. Lapham, and one Filipino officer had told investigators that ”they had heard” Mr. Marcos’s name ”in connection with the buy and sell activities of certain people,” referring to the black-market sales to the Japanese, but that the three had added that they had no firm information about Mr. Marcos.

In a file titled ”Guerrilla Bandits and Black Marketeers,” a Philippine Army document concluded that Mr. Allas and several other men listed on the Maharlika roster ”engaged themselves in the purchases and sale of steel cables,” an important wartime commodity, to the Japanese.

‘What a Farce!’

A United States Veterans’ Administration investigation concluded that some men who claimed membership in Maharlika and another organization were ”hoodlums” who had committed ”atrocities” and were ”tied together only for nefarious reasons.”

One man who said he was a member of Maharlika told investigators that the unit ”had committed themselves to trafficking in the sale of critical war materials to the brutal enemy,” the report said, ”but only to provide means of watching that enemy.”

”What a farce!” the V.A. investigator concluded.

None of the former officers interviewed this week said they remembered any involvement by Mr. Marcos in the black-market activities or abuses of civilians.

Mr. Hunt said he met Mr. Marcos only once during the war, sometime in 1944. A Filipino military officer ”brought him into my guerrilla headquarters,” Mr. Hunt recalled. ”He was barefoot, unarmed. We talked for 15 or 20 minutes about this or that. He was never identified to me as a guerrilla, and we didn’t talk about guerrilla activities.”

”I had no further contact with him,” Mr. Hunt added, ”and I didn’t hear anything more about him.”

 

The Washington Post
March 14, 1986, Friday, Final Edition
Marcos Funds Reported in Swiss Account

BYLINE: Washington Post Foreign Service

SECTION: First Section; A33

LENGTH: 233 words

DATELINE: MANILA, March 13, 1986

A member of the government commission investigating the “ill-gotten wealth” of deposed president Ferdinand Marcos said today that Marcos controlled an $800 million Swiss bank account, the state-run television reported.

The commission member, Ramon Diaz, declined to disclose details.

The commission also ordered the Philippine Central Bank to halt all financial transactions today in the names of 33 Marcos family members and close associates. Commission member Raul Daza declined to estimate the amount of money involved.

[A local newspaper, the Manila Times, quoted an unidentified source on the commission as saying that among documents found in the palace was correspondence between Marcos and unidentified Swiss banks, including code names and account records of deposits totaling between $2.5 billion and $3 billion, The Associated Press reported.]

Among the 33 whose accounts were frozen by the Central Bank today were: Marcos and his wife, Imelda; Marcos’ son, Ferdinand Jr.; Marcos’ daughter, Imee Marcos, and husband, Tommy Manotoc; and Imee Marcos’ daughter, Irene Marcos, and son-in-law, Gregorio Araneta. Also included were Gen. Fabian Ver, armed forces chief of staff under Marcos, and Ver’s wife and three sons.

Marcos associates included coconut magnate Eduardo Cojuangco, Antonio Floirendo, who is known as the “banana king,” and sugar baron Roberto Benedicto.

 

The Times (London)
January 23, 1986, Thursday
Spotlight on Marcos clan in congressional TV drama / Shady property deals alleged against Philippines President (592) /SCT

BYLINE: From MICHAEL BINYON, WASHINGTON

LENGTH: 644 words

An important congressional hearing has all the ingredients of a prime-time television court-room drama; and a foreign affairs subcommittee’s ruthless exposure of the alleged shady New York property dealings by the family of President Marcos must rate as one of the best.

‘I believe we will be able to show at this hearing that the Marcoses have transported crony capitalism on a colossal scale from Manila to Manhattan,’ the chairman told the crowded committee room and the battery of television cameras. ‘At a time when over half the Filipino people live in poverty .. Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos have secretly led a headlong, multi-billion dollar flight of capital out of their country. ‘

The scene was set, the charges laid. The half-panelled room with its august portraits of distinguished Congressmen, the podium for the inquisitors and their aides, the flag, the police on the door, the press, the table for the witnesses with their bulging document files – all lent traditional dignity.

Congress was doing what it does best: examining, with stylized formality, the ramifications of the Administration’s foreign policy. Should Washington continue to back a regime that owes the world dollars 27 billion, receives dollars 1.25 billion in US aid and yet whose leadership was apparently investing dollars 200 million in American real estate? Was not a President with a salary of dollars 5,700 a year corruply impoverishing millions of his countrymen to pay for his wife’s long Island palace?

The evidence was certainly damning: a US lawyer explained how his Filipino client, a Dr Figueroa, had tried to sue Mrs Marcos and her front men for defrauding him of his share in the building, but had inexplicably withdrawn the million dollar suit fearing for his family’s safety in the Philippines. Another lawyer traced the well-concealed links between various offshore companies, New York property dealers and Imelda Marcos. An official from the General Accounting Office produced tax records linking payment of property taxes to a Philippines United Nations diplomat who looked after MrsMarcos’s personal affairs in the US. Subpoenaed private letters to her palace in Manila, unanswered of course, were read out, urging her to pay her dues on the Lindenmere estate or face embarrassing publicity.

Representative Stephen Solarz, the ambitious and incisive committee chairman with that Perry Mason air of crusading righteousness, led the witnesses through their lines with devastating courtroom coolness. ‘Who told you that?’ ‘Why did he withdraw his suit?’ ‘What did you infer?’ and just as on television, political passions flared up between the examining counsels. ‘One day America will be held accountable: whether we stood silent while the Philippine people went further into debt and Mr Marcos and his family feathered their American nests ..’ declared Mason’s assistant, a liberal representative from New Jersey.

But Hamilton Burger, in reality a passionate right-winger from Wisconsin called Roth, was having none of it. The hearing was a monstrous interference in the Philippines elections; witnesses were opponents of President Marcos misusing a congressional committee to make politics; there was no shred of documentary evidence.

They traded insults and then exchanged elaborate parliamentary courtesies: Would my honourable friend yield .. If my honourable friend would wait he will have the documents .. My honourable friend is entitled to remain unconvinced .. and so on. Mason won on points, with audience gasps and laughter spurring him on. Burger withdrew sulking: ‘I have no questions for this witness. ‘

Mr Solarz, himself from New York, has sunk his teeth into the Marcos family and is drawing blood. Evidence may be circumstantial, but every circumstance is eroding public support here for the Marcosregime.

 

 

COURIER-MAIL
January 23, 1986 Thursday
MARCOS INVESTED $500M IN US PROPERTY: INQUIRY

SOURCE: QNP

BYLINE: MEADTH T

LENGTH: 413 words

Marcos invested $500m in US property: inquiry WASHINGTON._ A congressional sub-committee yesterday released “”irrefutable evidence” that the Philippines President, Mr Marcos, and his wife had invested at least $500 million in United States real estate. The information showed that a close associate of Mrs Imelda Marcos paid taxes on a $27 million Long Island estate which two lawyers claimed was principally owned by Mrs Marcos. New York Democrat Mr Stephen Solarz, who heads the sub-committee, said the evidence of the Marcos’ property investments in the US was based on tax records and testimony and was “”irrefutable”. The panel released records showing that since 1982 taxes of $86,094 had been paid on a Long Island estate by Vilma Bautista, first secretary at the Philippines mission to the United Nations. Mr Solarz described Bautista as Mrs Marcos’ personal secretary when President Marcos was in the United States. The panel also released letters from New York architect Augusto Camacho to Mrs Marcos seeking payment for services performed at the Long Island estate. President Marcos has repeatedly denied reports of overseas real estate holdings. The inquiry by the House Foreign Affairs sub-committee on Asian and Pacific Affairs is an issue in the Philippines, where Opposition politicians have made corruption a theme in their campaign to win the February 7 election. In Manila, the Opposition presidential candidate, Mrs Corazon Aquino, said she would order a full inquiry in to President Marcos’ foreign investments if she was elected. Mrs Aquino said Mr Marcos “”was still buying and buying” property in the US and elsewhere. In election campaigning yesterday, a presidential spokesman said Mr Marcos would visit the southern island of Mindanao for the first time in more than 10 years today. Mrs Aquino had earlier taunted President Marcos for not having been to Mindanao because it was a rebel stronghold. Yesterday Mrs Aquino campaigned in the north of Mindanao, where Communist and Moslem rebels have been fighting Marcos for more than 15 of the 20 years he has been in power. Meanwhile, the Philippine Government warned foreign embassies yesterday that “”intervention” in the presidential election was illegal and carried jail sentences of one to six years, or deportation. A spokesman said the notices were sent out to the embassies for “”guidance and information” in view of heightened foreign interest in the election. (Reuter)

 

Para sa mga Nalimutang Bayani

On the anniversary of a revolution that changed not only a country but how the world wages war for human dignity…

 

Grad school has given me a chance to see what non-Filipino academics have to say about the EDSA 1 People Power Revolution. Most consider it a case where relatively spontaneous, nonviolent urban demonstrations caused the revolution. As much as I am proud that we basically coined “people power,” I can’t help but feel hurt that the comrades that struggled in the long protracted movement, who suffered in the countryside, and whose sacrifices and deaths helped pave the way for a weakened and delegitimized dictatorship, as well as a better trained and organized inclusive opposition movement are being pushed out of the global EDSA 1 narrative. Para sa mga Nalimutang Bayani: tagay comrade, at manalig kayo na tuloy pa rin tayo.