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THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT AND THE
POLITICAL ACTIVIST
(Speech by Jose Maria Sison delivered
before the Third Annual Conference of the National Students' League, at
Iloilo City Colleges, Iloilo City on December 26, 1966.)
NATIONAL DEMOCRACY is a political cause. It is a vigorous movement of
human and material forces challenging the old Establishment. It is born of
the historical struggle of our people against Spanish colonialism and U.S.
imperialism. One can become a patriot only by being imbued with the spirit
of national democracy and by acting according to the interests of the
driving forces behind it. Since the forces on our side and those on the
opposite side are larger and more powerful than any individual, the true
patriot is necessarily a partisan-he is a partisan for national freedom
and democracy.
National democracy is the set of political ideas gained from concrete
historical experience and from the profound analysis of the real problems
that an entire people, such as the Filipino people, suffers at this
historical stage. The term national democracy sums up the people's view of
their interests and aspirations, particularly at this stage of our history
when as a people we suffer from the dictates of U.S. imperialism and the
persistence of feudalism.
The true patriot is a militant. His militance goes by the interests of his
entire people. Within the national territory and among his own people, he
can never be validly described as an extremist so long as he is fighting
the local tyranny of the compradors, landlords and corrupt bureaucrats. He
who accuses the militant advocate of national democracy as an "extremist"
is an illogical fool who wishes to obscure the real extremists, the
callous exploiters of the broad masses of the people. He who makes the
accusation under the guise of moderation, that the patriot of today is an
extremist, is a traitor and partisan, at the least of foolish compromiser
on the side of those who have extremely oppressed and exploited the
people.
What is bound to prevail in the long-run is the national democratic
movement participated in actively by tens of millions of Filipinos. As a
political activist, I call upon the youth and the masses of our people to
join the national democratic movement so that we can effectively overcome
those who wish to keep us suffering in silence. So long as we are still
short of organized men and women conscious of the necessity of national
democratic struggle and so long as we run short of the necessary organized
strength to overcome imperialism and feudalism, we the militant activists
of national democracy cannot be accused of extremism, rudeness,
intolerance or any other insult the philistine can think of to discredit
our movement and preserve imperialist power and the concomitant feudal
conditions in this hapless country. The patriotism and reasonableness of
our movement can be measured only by our ability to assert our national
sovereign will and democratic rights. So long as U.S.
imperialist power and its domestic allies, the compradors, landlords and
corrupt bureaucrats can maintain their present predominance, our present
efforts and achievements is still modest-we must intensify the
ideological, political and organizational work of our crusade so that we
can draw the strong forces of national democracy from the vast reserves of
our oppressed people and march forward to destroy the ramparts of
imperialist and feudal power in our country.
The Development of National Democracy
The struggle for national democracy is progressive and creative because it
is critical of and antagonistic to the exploitative over-extension of the
ultra-national power of the United States and the vicious puppetry of the
local reactionaries.
The national democratic movement arouses the people to mobilize them in
order not only to remove the root causes of national exploitation but also
to develop the mass strength to engage in nation-building. National
democracy must be understood as a historical phenomenon, the commitment
and practice of an entire people, which attacks the foreign and feudal
exploiter but which necessarily builds up the forces of national progress.
The Filipino nation as a political entity is a recent historical
development. It was born out of struggle. It rapidly took form only during
the last decade of the 19th century when the Propaganda Movement agitated
for reforms and for national sentiments and when, after this was
repressed, the Katipunan was organized in secrecy and ultimately the Cry
of Pugad Lawin had to be made as a resolute revolutionary step calling for
separation from colonial Spain.
The Philippine revolution became the ultimate process by which the
Filipino nation took shape. It developed as a climax of all the sporadic
struggles made by our people in scattered places and at separated times
through the more than 350 years that Spanish colonial power succeeded in
dividing and ruling our people while at the same time developing an
administrative system and a system of feudal mentality for the essential
purpose of colonial exploitation.
Spanish colonialism could easily dominate us because of the lack of
national consciousness according to Dr. Jose Rizal. First, there was the
selfishness of the old native ruling class, the rajahs and datus, and
their compromising attitude towards the foreign rulers. From the old
ruling native elite evolved the principalia in every pueblo. Such a body
of property owners shared with the white colonial elite some limited
amount of class freedom. Second, the people themselves had yet to raise
their collective consciousness from the level and pattern of thinking
developed in the barangay. Colonialism took advantage of this given state
of mind and geared it towards acceptance of feudal exploitation as a
religious virtue. Third, all the indios, including the old indigenous
nobility were brutally suppressed by the sword of the conquistadores, and
by the suasive approach of the ostensibly humble and kind missionaries.
In due time, as a result of the consistent system of exploitation, the
sporadic armed struggles against armed oppression grew in scope easily.
Ultimately, the revolutionary imagination of an entire people was inflamed
against a common enemy and against the entire system. It was the role of
first national democratic activists to lead and clarify the situation for
the people. They were the ones who led the people to fight- and the people
easily joined the Philippine revolution because of its patriotic and
democratic content.
When U.S. imperialism came to snatch away our freedom at the time that
Filipino revolutionary forces were already closing in on Manila for the
final blow, our new-born nation found itself in greater stress, in
conflict with another nation whose military- industrial capacity made it
an enemy superior to the decrepit Spanish colonial regime, as had been
proven in Latin America.
Using superior military means and using liberal language to deceive the
ilustrado who had gained the class leadership of the revolution, the
United States subdued the Philippine revolutionary government and army,
and, in pursuance of its imperialists interests couched in such bombast as
"manifest destiny" and "benevolent assimilation" murdered more than
250,000 Filipinos, using $600 million and 126,468 U.S. troops in a war
waged in he fashion of the present Vietnam war.
There has as yet been no effective national democratic redemption of the
Filipino blood that the American aggressors made to flow. But history in
its zigzag and spiralling fashion always brings justice to the oppressed.
The Spaniards were able to quell every localized resistance through a
period of more than three centuries. But when the national revolution of
1896 developed, combining the correct forces, demands and ideas, Spanish
colonialism was doomed. The masses rallied to the Philippine revolution
because of the common need to free themselves from the feudal oppression
and forced labor imposed by the colonialists.
The so-called political stability of the Philippines is largely an
illusion today. There is a top-level stability but there is unrest among
the masses. This is because the United States is employing more effective
techniques and tools to effect control of our country than Spanish
colonialism, which had lower technology and which represented a lower form
of political development. But if imperialism has better technology
(including the public school system and the mass media and other tools of
the present day) it does not necessarily mean that the ruling class can
perpetuate its power for a long period of time. The more effective and
rapid technology actually accelerates and sharpens exploitation. It can
very well be the same means by which U.S. imperialism could be weakened.
The national democratic movement has really never been totally quelled by
U.S. imperialism. Any honest student of history will see that since the
imposition of imperialist power in the Philippines there has been no
decade in which the imperialist regime did not face serious opposition
from this movement. What U.S. imperialism does in reaction is to resort to
the suppression of democratic liberties, even as it deceptively calls
itself the defender or even the source of freedom and democracy.
Recall the continued resistance of Macario Sakay which lasted up to the
end of the first decade of this century. Recall the armed struggle of the
masses in the south which lasted up to 1916. Recall the continued direct
and brutal suppression of democratic liberties, particularly the
expression of patriotism that followed the outright military conquest of
the Filipino people in the Filipino-American War of 1899. Even after the
pacification of the towns and cities, U.S. imperialism in this area
swiftly suppressed any sign of the Philippine Revolution. For a full
decade, it was considered subversive and seditious to have and to show in
public the Filipino flag. The first Filipino labor federation, Union
Obrera Democratica, led by Isabelo de los Reyes, was crushed by the
imperialist regime because of its militant nationalism and its ideological
line that only the workers can emancipate themselves. Isabelo de los Reyes
was imprisoned and so was his successor, Dr. Dominador Gomez; the
democratic rights were grossly violated. Remember the suppression of
Filipino press freedom in the suppression of El Renacimiento and other
publications and the onslaught of the Hearst type of American newspapers
in the Philippines. In cultural presentations, particularly in the drama,
American censors were quicker, like the sharp-eyed eagles, to see the
seditious. They were, therefore, more smart and alert then the Spanish
censors or the board of judges who gave the gold medal to Francisco
Balagtas for writing Florante at Laura, which was actually a critical
presentation of Spanish tyranny over the Filipino people in the form of
poetic allegory.
It was only after the forces of the Philippine revolution were completely
militarily suppressed towards the end of the first decade that Filipino
renegades such as the weak-hearted and weak- minded ilustrados grouping
themselves into the Federalista Party, that the U.S. imperialists
succeeded in putting up a stable top- level Filipino-American
collaboration.
Throughout the subsequent period of the Jones Law, U.S. imperialists
studiedly cultivated the bourgeois type of Filipino politician who was
brainwashed into thinking that he was being taught for "self-government"
while forgetting that the Filipino people in the course of the Philippine
revolution, a moment of national self-assertion, had already proven to
themselves that they were capable of self-government and that our national
heroes had learned and propagated the principles of national democracy.
Even as the bourgeois type of Filipino politician had already been
developed by the U.S. imperialists during the twenties, the popular demand
for independence continued to surge. The peasant masses in many areas were
again agitated by their poverty and many of them realized fully that they
had been cheated of the democratic content of the revolution upon its
betrayal by a few pro-U.S. collaborators. But the Filipino leaders who had
been placed in their high government positions and who were being
backstopped by a bureaucracy already acculturized to a neo- colonial
mentality disarmed the people to a great extent by taking up the popular
cry of "immediate, complete and full independence" but carefully and
compromisingly accepting the imperialist-imposed proposition of begging
for independence in Washington instead of asserting and fighting for it.
At any rate, the peasant and labor unrest in the twenties developed into
the turbulence and violence of the thirties with the brutal
suppression of militant peasant and labor organizations, including the
Communist Party of the Philippines and the desperate anarchistic localized
revolts of the Sakdalistas.
U.S. imperialism developed a state machinery which could withstand and
outlast a piece of agreement like the Tydings- McDuffie Act. While this
act formally scheduled the "granting" of independence to the Philippines,
the U.S. government was careful in maintaining its influence and control
over the local reactionary armed forces and in requiring that it should
maintain naval stations and military bases even after the formal grant of
independence.
After the shameful evacuation of U.S. forces and the leaders of the
Commonwealth government from the Philippines, the shameless defeat of U.S.
forces in Bataan and the surrender of Wainright at Corregidor, the
Japanese imperialists took their cue from the U.S. imperialists and
"granted" independence on October 14, 1943 ahead of the promised
independence in the Tydings-McDuffie Act. While the U.S. imperialist
government ensconced their own Philippine government leaders in
Washington, the Japanese imperialist set up their own set of puppet
leaders in Manila. One could see that the Japanese and U.S. imperialists
have similar tactics in meeting the popular demand for independence.
When McArthur succeeded in hopping back to the Philippines with his own
bag of Filipino leaders, the Japanese imperialist brought back their own
to Tokyo. Do you see the similarity in tactics?
Although it was the Filipino guerrilla fighters themselves who broke the
backbone of the Japanese occupation, U.S. imperialism returned in the
guise of the liberator and was clever enough to propagandize and made many
Filipinos believe that were it not for MacArthur the entire Philippines
would have all been gone. U.S. propaganda deliberately attempted to make
the people forget that throughout the Japanese occupation they learned to
fight alone and be self-reliant without the U.S. imperialists. The fact
that the U.S. forces in their advance deliberately bombed Filipino homes
and property, in the same manner that the Japanese committed pillage in
their retreat, was forgotten.
The systematic destruction of Philippine property by the U.S. air force
was obviously a part of the imperialist plan to make the Philippines weak
and subject to blackmail-such as the withholding of war damage payments if
the Bell Trade Agreement would not be approved.
U.S. Military Power in the Philippines
But even before the question of the Bell Trade Act and Parity Amendments
was raised, the U.S. government was clever to exempt from the cession of
territory to Philippine government its military bases and have its
property rights in the Philippines retained under the U.S.-R.P. Treaty of
General Relations.
The return of U.S. military forces and the re-establishment of military
bases meant the return and the re-establishment of U.S. military power in
the Philippines. The Military Bases Agreement of 1947 would later extend
the scope of the mere exemption of U.S. military bases in the cession of
territory. The agreement grants not only the extra-territorial rights to
U.S. military forces at more than 20 strategic points in the Philippines,
but more dangerously, extraterritorial rights, the purported right of U.S.
troops to go to any point in the country without coming under Philippine
jurisdiction so long as they are on military duty. This legal presumption
exacted by the U.S. on us actually means total U.S. occupation of the
Philippines even today. Moreover, U.S. military bases in reality are
militarily superior to our armed forces. But through the Military
Assistance Pact, the Pentagon has actually developed a built-in U.S.
control of the Philippine armed forces by controlling its staff
planning, intelligence, higher personnel training and logistics under the
guise of "advice".
The Mutual Defense Pact extends further the imperialist prerogatives in
the Military Bases Agreement and Military Assistance Pact by formal
agreement to U.S. military intervention in the Philippines and at any time
under the guise of mutual defense. This right of foreign intervention in
Philippine affairs is further extended to other governments under the
Manila Pact.
But what is the main purpose of the U.S. in supposedly "protecting" the
Philippines or making the Philippines, therefore, a protectorate? The main
purpose is economic. Why should U.S. imperialism make heavy military
expenditures and investments, it is easily seen that the military shield
is used to protect investments of U.S. monopolists against the
protectorates' own people who, if they should raise their national
democratic demands, can be described as "internal aggressors",
"subversives" or "agent of another foreign power", and therefore subject
to punitive measures.
As it pursues its imperialist objectives of economic exploitation, the
United States has always encountered strong opposition from the Filipino
people. When it rammed through the Bell Trade Act and the Parity
Amendment, it had to subvert and destroy democratic processes and cause
the malicious expulsion from Congress of duly-elected representatives of
the people belonging to the Democratic Alliance, who opposed these
imperialist impositions. In order to advance their economic interests, the
imperialists and their local agents deliberately provoked and started
civil strife, and an anti-feudal and anti- imperialist rebellion which has
lasted for so long and whose magnitude certainly makes it a shattering
preparation for a greater upheaval. It has become necessary on all
occasions to cite the "Huk problem" as the source of instability for
landlord and imperialist power.
The imposition of the Parity Amendment and the Bell Trade Act, now in its
revised version as the Laurel-Langley Agreement, has meant the
re-established internal control of our economy and the perpetuation of a
colonial form of economy which provides raw materials to the United States
and other capitalist countries and which serves as the dumping ground of
finished products from abroad.
This kind of economy means the exploitation of cheap labor in our country,
perpetuation of land monopolization by the few and the accumulation of
political power in the hands of the landlords and compradors who are the
reliable agents of U.S. imperialism in the export-import business. This
requires mainly the deepening exploitation of our peasantry and workers -
our entire nation in fact.
Since the continuity of the exploitation of the Filipino masses depends
upon the forces of U.S. imperialism, because of its present military power
in the Philippines, and because of its leading role in the exploitation of
the masses, the main blow of the national democratic revolution should be
thrown in its direction. As evident from the reality and the
pronouncements of the local reactionaries, U.S. military power is their
strongest weapon for the protection of their class interests.
The Meaning of National Democracy
National Democracy is necessary in the struggle of our people for social
justice, whereby the freedom of the entire nation is first secured so that
the nation-state that has been secured would allow within its framework
the masses of the Filipino people to enjoy the democratic rights to
achieve their social emancipation.
The constructive development of a national democracy necessarily entails
the elimination of imperialist and feudal control over our people. U.S.
imperialism has reduced our nation to a protectorate. We need to break
this foreign domination for so long as U.S. imperialism decides our basic
economic, political, cultural and security policies, the masses of our
people, particularly the peasantry, will remain reduced to their agrarian
poverty - the result of land monopolization in the hands of the few.
If we are geared to fighting for national democracy, what are our main
tasks in the simplest terms? One, to assert our national sovereignty
against imperialist power in all fields, and two, to effect basic agrarian
reform as the main content of our democratic struggle at the present
stage.
A close study of our present semi-colonial and semi-feudal conditions will
show that it is the masses of the people, the workers and peasants, who
are suffering most.
Knowledge of the Objective Forces
It is easy to say that for the national democratic movement to succeed
there should be the support of the people. But, there is the need to
clarify what we meant by the term people. The term people has been much
abused through populist sloganeering employed seasonally and
professionally by bourgeois politicians and bourgeois publicists in the
same manner that the term democracy is abused to make rhetoric instead of
the clarification of the forces at work in our society. Oftentimes, the
term people is deliberately used to include certain classes in our society
which mercilessly exploit the masses of our people.
Let us, therefore, clarify what are the popular forces of national
democracy.
We have the workers and peasants in our society comprising more than 90
per cent of our people.
By workers, we mean the Filipino working people who receive wages to make
their living. They include the industrial and farm workers. Their social
character is determined by whatever extent the capitalist mode of
production has affected Philippine society.
By peasants, we mean those who work on land as tenants and those who till
their own land. They can be divided into three strata: the poor peasants
who have no land or too little land so that they have to work as tenants
on the land of others, usually the landlords, pay land rent ranging from
50 to 80 per cent of their crops and are in a state of perennial
indebtedness; the middle peasants or self-sufficient farmers who as a rule
till their own land producing enough or a little more than enough for
their household needs; and the rich peasants who have more than enough
land for their household needs, to enable them to market their
extra-produce, who themselves work their land but who hire extra hands or
have a few tenants and who may have extra farm animals and implements to
rent out to other peasants. The majority are the poor peasants who are the
most exploited and who are the closest ally of the workers from within the
ranks of the peasantry. The entire peasantry comprises at least 70 per
cent of the people.
The workers and the peasants by virtue of the fact that they compose the
vast majority of our people and, more essentially, by virtue of the fact
that they suffer most from the status quo provide the strongest and widest
bases for a militant national democratic movement. National democracy
cannot be asserted effectively without the mass mobilization of the
workers and peasants and without the heightening of their level of anti-
imperialist and anti-feudal consciousness. The working class, being the
historically advanced class, is the leading force and the peasantry is the
main force of the national democratic movement against imperialism and
feudalism.
However, Filipino businessmen even if they are only a few - could also be
an important force in the national democratic movement so long as they
fight for national industrialization and nationalization of the present
economy. The nationalist businessmen and their workers could actually
welcome each other in a movement which opposes the impositions of foreign
monopolies because these foreign monopolies depress local industries, cut
employment opportunities, misdirect financing, remit super-profit and
cause the rise of the cost of living as well as the cost of local
production. In the case of peasants, it should be normal for nationalist
businessmen to agree with them on a basic land reform that eventually
raises the purchasing power of the benefitted peasants; this would mean
the expansion of the local market for locally produced commodities.
If businessmen could join the national democratic movement, even if their
interests are selfish, there should certainly be more willingness on the
part of the intelligentsia to participate in the national democratic
movement.
There is the common notion that as businessmen are selfish, the
intellectuals are relatively selfless because they are chiefly interested
in the search for truth and its realization. But, indeed, to be honest
about the intelligentsia, we say that they are also susceptible to selfish
considerations like the businessmen. In this present situation, the
intellectual inclination of the general run of students, professionals and
intellectuals are conditioned by their varied class origins and the kind
of schooling and press put up and tolerated by the ruling class. Because
of lesser material interests, though the intelligentsia as a social group
is more ready to participate in the national democratic movement than the
businessmen who worry about their credit and market tie-ups with a
pro-imperialist government and partially or indirectly with American
financiers one way or the other.
The intelligentsia, combined with self-reliant small property owners,
comprise the petty bourgeoisie. The petty bourgeoisie is the most
progressive stratum of the local bourgeoisie.
The workers, peasants, the petty bourgeoisie and patriotic businessmen can
be united in a broad national democratic movement. But such united
movement should always be based on the basic alliance of the working class
and the peasantry for the obvious reason that they are the most steadfast
anti-imperialist and anti-feudal fighters as could be seen from our
history and as it is made necessary by their most exploited conditions.
A broad unity of national democratic forces, under the leadership of the
working class, is urgently needed against the imperialist front based
domestically on the exploitative collaboration between the compradors, the
landlords and the bureaucrat- capitalists.
Let us now look into the principal forces opposed to national democracy.
These forces can be divided into four basic categories.
The chief enemy force consists of the U.S. governmental agencies and the
branches or subsidiaries of U.S. monopolies in the Philippines. The
presence of all these is obvious if one goes to the port areas, the
industrial complex of Makati, Forbes Park, mines, modern plantations and
the military bases.
The second enemy force is composed of Filipino-American and some notable
mestizo businessmen (chiefly of Spanish and Chinese extraction) who
perform the role of local agents and maintainers of the colonial pattern
of trade, between raw materials from the Philippines and finished products
from abroad. They are collectively called the comprador class. They are
financially dependent on the foreign monopolies. Among the Filipinos they
are the most wealthy and they come next only to the U.S. imperialists
themselves in directing and subsidizing reactionary pro- imperialist and
pro-landlord politics. They comprise the local big bourgeoisie. They are
responsible for making the government a mere counter for their
transactions and for its lack of will in pursuing a policy of national
industrialization.
In fact, government officials who follow the dictates of the U.S.
imperialists and their compradors are themselves performing the role of
compradors. Higher government officials oftentimes make use of their
offices to perform the role of compradors for their personal gain. In this
role they comprise the third enemy force which may be called the
bureaucrat comprador.
The landlords, particularly those producing export crops like sugar,
coconut, abaca and others, comprise the fourth force antagonistic to the
national democratic movement. Like the compradors, whose function they may
be performing concurrently, they are interested in the perpetuation of the
colonial economy, parity rights and preferential trade. At the present
moment, they are the staunchest defenders of the Parity Amendment and the
Laurel-Langley Agreement.
The old type of landlords, the rice and corn landlords is not as directly
as economic agent of imperialism as the agricultural exporters previously
mentioned. But it is the traditional political ultra-conservatism of the
old type of landlords that the imperialists are directly manipulating. In
a wider objective sense, the old type of landlords is a part of the scheme
of things by which extremely cheap Filipino labor is made available to the
imperialists in transportation and communication, in mining camps, in
commerce and other areas and to the mechanized plantation owners because
of the depressed condition of the peasant masses. Landlordism acts or
serves as the main prop of imperialist domination from one end of the
archipelago to the other.
By defining clearly and objectively the forces of national democracy and
its adversary forces, the activist is in a position to adopt policies, and
to conduct activities correctly. He knows the alignment of his forces and
those of the enemy. Furthermore, he can determine the balance of forces
obtaining at a particular period. In any political struggle, the activist,
must know the balance of forces in order to know how much and what to do
in order to tip the balance further in favor of his movement.
Grasp the Balance of Forces
Let us draw a scale of the present reality from left through the center to
the right. We use the terms left and right in their standard European
sense- that the left wing is change, progressive and radical; and that the
right wing is for the status quo and, therefore, conservative and
reactionary. What is center or middle wing should not be understood as
impartiality or superiority or always going forward, never moving
sideways. It denotes the dual character and vacillations of members of the
middle social strata who, by their relatively limited material interests
(in comparison to the big bourgeoisie and big landlords) are historically
opportunistic.
In terms of class tendencies, material interests and ideology, the left
wing should be occupied by the working class and the peasantry. The middle
wing embraces three strata of the so-called middle class and these strata
can themselves be described as left, middle, and right. Within the middle
wing, the left middle wing is occupied by the intelligentsia and
self-reliant small property owners whom we may call petty bourgeoisie; the
middle middle, the nationalist entrepreneurs, whom we may call the
national or middle bourgeoisie; and the right middle, the merchants who
are partially investors in local industry and who are also partially
compradors. The right wing is composed of the most reactionary forces in
our society such as the compradors, the landlords, and their rabid
intellectual and political agents. The middle forces, however, may be
pushed to the left or to the right according to the political situation
decided by the struggle between the left wing and the right wing.
In explaining the basic balance of political force in the country, it has
become convenient to make use of such terms as left, middle and right.
It is a matter of strategy for the activist of national democracy to know
the basic forces to be aligned and concentrated against the rightist
forces. It is a matter of tactics for him to put into concrete application
the strategy, for him to know the concrete conditions and the concrete
forms of organizations and methods of struggle to be used, for him to
determine through analysis the internal divisions within the right wing
and middle wing so that by a knowledge of such weaknesses of other forces,
he can adopt the correct forms of organization and short-run political
lines and thereby consolidate his main forces and derive supplementary
allies directly or indirectly and so that occasions can arise or be made
by which the strength of the main forces of the left could be
supplemented.
In order for the left wing to triumph politically, it is necessary for it
to win over most of the middle forces. The same rule applies to the right
wing. If the left wing wins over the middle wing, it results into the
isolation of the right wing.
To tilt the balance for the purpose of isolating the right wing composed
of the enemies of progress and democracy, it is necessary therefore for
the main and massive forces of the workers and peasants to unite with the
intelligentsia, small property owners and independent handicrafts men, win
over the nationalist entrepreneurs and at least, neutralize the right
middle forces. The resulting unity is what we call the national democratic
or anti-imperialist and anti-feudal unity.
At present, what is politically the balance of forces in our country? The
right wing, defensive of U.S. imperialist interests and domestic feudal
interests, is under heavy fire from the middle and left wings uniting on
the basis of national democracy. The questions which have aroused the
peasants, workers, intelligentsia, particularly students and Filipino
entrepreneurs during these sixties are the Parity Amendment,
Laurel-Langley Agreement, the question of land reform, AID, foreign
military bases and military assistance, the Vietnam Bill and the like.
Although there has been a unity of policy in many cases between the left
wing and middle wing, there is much of a need to organize their internal
forces and achieve an inter-class unity.
Without organizational consolidation and expansion, the national
democratic movement cannot effectively challenge the overwhelming
political, economic, cultural and military authority of the United States
within the Philippines. With or without any formal united front
organization, a united front of patriotic classes can exist even as they
fight independently for the same common objective of achieving national
freedom and democracy. With the increase of organized political strength
of the national democratic movement, the NP or LP or other conservative
party is bound to weaken unless it adjusts to the newly developing
political situation; the adjustments, however, are no permanent guarantee
for the ruling class to perpetuate its political power. Nevertheless,
while we see now a rosy picture of things to come for the national
democratic movement, we are assuming that the right wing will always
respect our civil liberties. While we seem to face happy prospects, let us
always be alert to
the desperation of the right wing and the imperialist and landlord
ringleaders who have never failed, if one were to study our history
closely, to attack the national democratic movement at critical junctures.
In other words, we must be alert to the threats and acts of fascism from
the right. The October 24th Movement and the Kabataang Makabayan have
experienced and are aware of these.
The balance of forces in this country will be determined primarily by
internal developments. The exploited masses and the various elements of
the middle class are beginning to be politically conscious of their
exploited condition in a fundamental or radical way. They are more ready
now to be organized and to act than during the last decade which was
attended by the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and the successful
suppression of mass movements, aggravated by the political errors of those
who were supposed to be at the helm of the anti-imperialist and
anti-feudal movement.
Because our economy, politics, culture and security are controlled by a
foreign power, it is to be expected that international developments can
help in the development of internal national democratic forces. The United
States, after overextending itself to so many parts of the world for the
last seven decades, is now facing the resistance of so many peoples. Since
after World War II, the U.S. has had to contend with socialist states and
a series of irrepressible national independence movements in Asia, Africa
and Latin America. The growth of movements for national liberation has
been much favored with the political consolidation, rapid economic growth
and the scientific and technological advances made by socialist countries.
The oppressed peoples have increasingly waged peoples' war to liberate
themselves from foreign domination. They have also found in the broadening
of their international relations, especially with genuine socialist
countries, as effective means of breaking the
monopoly hold of a single foreign power on their national life.
The Correct Approach
It is important for the activist to comprehend the full range of left,
middle, and right forces in order to be able to always take a clear and
effective policy at every step of the national democratic struggle. It has
been stated that the activist should foster the national democratic unity
of the left wing and the middle wing in order to isolate the right. The
activist must be aware of some pitfalls he may encounter along the way.
These pitfalls are adventurism and opportunism against which he must
always struggle and be alert to.
Adventurism is the political disease of overestimating one's own forces
and resorting to actions which take the form of infantile radicalism.
While it is true that the main force of the national democratic movement
is the alliance of the working class and the peasantry on the left, it is
still necessary to consider the broad political influence that the middle
forces have and to adopt the policies that would bring them to the
movement. In this regard, the activist must know both the minimum and the
maximum demands of all patriotic classes at every stage of the struggle in
order to arouse and mobilize the masses and to achieve cooperation with
the middle wing without losing or compromising principles. He must always
stick correctly to the general line of national democracy under the
leadership of the proletariat.
For an activist to rely too much on cooperation with the middle forces as
the only road to the victory of this movement would lead him to
opportunism. His activities would not advance the cause of the oppressed
masses. His unprincipled tactics or tactics without the strategy in favor
of the left will only result in his personal aggrandizement as has
happened to so many so-called progressives absorbed by pro-imperialist
administrations in the Philippines.
These opportunists become what we might call "revolutionaries by
limousine". Their opportunism results from a failure or a lack of desire
to organize and politicize the masses as the main force of the national
democratic movement. Such opportunism is usually the political disease of
unremoulded petty bourgeois elements and intellectuals who think that they
can achieve the victory of the national democratic movement by virtue of
their personal brilliance and wit alone. They bear the political disease
of the ilustrados who betrayed the Philippine revolution at the beginning
of the century when they collaborated with their American rulers.
In order to maintain one's correct bearing one should always think and act
to foster the alliance of the working class and the peasantry as the mass
base of the national democratic movement and this alliance must be
supplemented by the support of the middle forces, especially the
intelligentsia and the petty property-owners. After adopting this basic
policy, one can correctly estimate the real strength of the national
democratic movement in the short and the long run.
In the long run, the national democratic movement will be strong if the
masses are conscious of the anti-imperialist and anti- feudal struggle,
pursue their democratic ends militantly both in urban and rural areas, and
are highly organized. The activist must be able to observe carefully the
vacillations and zig-zags of the middle forces. He must ensure that the
adoption and implementation of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal policy
by the middle forces are converted into advantage for the main force of
the movement. If the middle middle wing or the right middle wing should
betray the Philippine revolution, it is not surprising, and the activist
must never be caught by surprise because, after all, he has prepared the
masses well for a protracted struggle, with its tactical ups and downs.
The activist must never be carried away by emotion when he views the
political situation. Scientific analysis of the situation by full
comprehension of the objective forces and elements is always demanded. Of
course, commitment to a cause involves compassion for one's countrymen but
it must be thoroughly guided by the correct ideology, the correct
political decisions and must be concretely expressed through organized
actions.
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Veterans of the First Quarter Storm |
