Regarding Armed Struggle

The reports of indiscriminate bombing in the countryside only show that the AFP will stop at nothing- even spending billions of Pesos of tax money in the middle of a pandemic- to further their goal of being the sole armed power in the Philippines. And what will they do then? Continue to terrorize the countryside with their landlord allies, grow rich off oppressing the workers and farmers, and of course, degenerate into squabbling factions (like they did during the Martial Law era), all at the expense of the people, who face an encroaching Chinese fleet in their seas and imperialist American military bases on their own land. 

The reactionary soliders also claim that the NPA is finished, and that "disciplined soldiers and policemen and good governance" will cause the armed struggle to collapse on its own without the need for military spending on guns, bombs, and planes. 

 The NPA themselves have been saying this exact same thing for years. Except that they know good governance is not achievable through servile hope for reform in a broken system. 

The problem is, decent soliders, policemen, and politicans are practically non-existent. That entire argument is a pipe dream, a world where the fascist AFP and PNP go around not killing and torturing people indiscriminately. Unfortunately, this has not happened yet. 

There is no doubt that the NPA has been weakened through the billions of pesos of taxpayer money wasted to brutalize the masses into silence instead of achieving real reform. But they have survived despite all of this. 

On the other hand, Juan Ponce Enrile claims that we have a "present imperfect, but sufferable, system." and points to the failure of governments in Russia and China, who backslid towards capitalism. 

First of all, when there are thousands and thousands of Filipinos willing to wage a 50+ year war and risk being killed by the mercenaries of the State in some forest instead of living under this so-called "sufferable" system as you call it, this argument" crumbles. 

Again, the "China, Russia" arguments are now over-used and dishonest. China and Russia might be capitalist countries right now, but they completed land reform and ended the system of land tenancy, whereas in the Philippines, the landlord-filled Legislative branch still pushed the outdated and reactionary CARP(ER) where the State STILL has to pay these very same landlords in Congress. And what was the result? Until now, the Philippines is still landlord-dominated and in a semi-feudal state, no thanks to the chief architect of martial law, by the way, Enrile.

Another inutile contention is that "instead of engaging with the leadership of the revolutionaries on a nationwide level, localized peace talks will help end the armed struggle faster." However, the democratic centralism of the armed struggle is a strength, not a weakness. People like Victor Corpus have consistently pushed for this, and yet the NPA remains. 

"Localized peace talks are (...) a stop-gap remedy that does nothing to solve the persistent rural poverty and other deeply embedded problems that lie at the root of the armed revolutionary movement. This is the reason why it is laid down in the Hague Joint Declaration (the foundational agreement signed in 1992), that peace negotiations shall be conducted at the national and level (...) as the latter approach is tantamount to a divide-and-rule tactic." 

As one peasant expressed: "The rich and the government have their army [the Armed Forces of the Phillipines]. We, too, have our army, the π—‘π—²π˜„ 𝗣𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲'π˜€ π—”π—Ώπ—Ίπ˜†." 

Sources: 
https://www.bulatlat.com/2019/03/24/duterte-yields-grp-ndfp-peace-talks-to-the-military/?fbclid=IwAR1ndn2rOz8KZyqDHcAnhtrGzgSjMKoBbsKJU4Bb2g1QliureM-IkpJDdvM 
Davis, Leonard. Revolutionary Struggle in the Philippines. Springer, 1989. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Primer Regarding BP 880

1 - Background of BP 880  Batas Pambansa 880, known as the Public Assembly Act of 1985, was passed by the rubber-stamp Batasang Pambansa (National Assembly) during the Marcos era in order to regulate the rising tide of protests against the US-Marcos regime. Although its legality has been challenged for being against the Constitutionally-guaranteed right of freedom of speech, the Supreme Court, in the case of Bayan et al. v. Ermita (2006), upheld BP 880’s validity.  2 - Types of Rallies or Public Assemblies  The law sets forth two types of rallies or assemblies: (1) those with permits or those which do not require permits, and (2) those without a permit where a permit is required. The former category is composed of (1) rallies with permits and (2) rallies in freedom parks, where no permit is needed. An enumeration can thus be constructed as follows:  Permitted:  With permit  No permit needed (Freedom park)  No permit where a permit is needed  2.1 -...
Read more

Wage, Price, and Profit in the Philippines

  “Higher wages for the workers slow the growth of the economy,” according to many employers. These words are not new- in fact, these words have been spoken by both anti-union bosses and even Socialists alike. In this essay, Marx responds to a member of the latter, John Weston, and exposes this false notion.  According to this argument, called the “wage fund theory,” an increase in the worker’s wages results in an increase in necessary commodities, like meat, soap, gas, and others, thus increasing the cost for everyone. Thus, wages determine prices - a change in the amount of wages results in a change in the market value of commodities.  In a limited sense, Weston is right. When the demand for necessities goes up, it is only natural that the price goes up as well, since there are more buyers and the quantity of necessities being produced remains the same, supposing that no change has happened in a factory’s machinery, or the number of workers employed, or in inflation or ...
Read more

Simple and Expanded Reproduction (Ben Fine Diagram)

Image
An example:  Department 1 produces the means of production. In this case, spatulas. It is owned by Capitalist 1, who owns a kitchenware factory.  Department 2 produces the means of consumption. In this case, burgers. It is owned by Capitalist 2, the proprietor of a restaurant.  In case of simple reproduction, let's assume that these two businesses exclusively buy and sell each other's products and no surplus is left over. This is for the sake of simplicity.  First, we'll talk about Department 1.  F is Capitalist 1's money-capital (let's assume that he borrowed money from the bank). Using this money, he buys constant capital 1.  A (constant capital 1) is Capitalist 1's commodity-capital. This refers to the means of production (MP) and labor-power (LP) which the capitalist owns. In the former, the metal, rubber (for handles), machines used to make the spatulas, and in the latter, the labor-power of his employee, who assembles these.  B isthe process by w...
Read more