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Office of the Chairperson
LONG LIVE THE GREAT LEGACY
OF SENATOR LORENZO M.TAÑADA
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
August 10, 2008
I am deeply pleased and highly honored to join the Tañada clan, friends,
the various organizations and institutions and the broad masses of the
people in celebrating the 110th birth anniversary of the great Filipino
patriot Senator Lorenzo M. Tañada, champion of national independence and
democracy, principled statesman, brilliant legislator, civil libertarian
and fearless militant against oppression, be it the Japanese fascist
invaders or the homegrown fascist dictator Marcos.
I am proud to have personally known Senator Tañada since he delivered the
keynote speech at the founding of Kabataang Makabayan on November 30,
1964. He exhorted us to emulate Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan and to
continue the unfinished Philippine revolution. I worked closely with him
under his chairmanship of the committee that prepared the founding of the
Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN) in 1966 and even more
closely after the founding congress elected him as MAN chairman and myself
as general secretary on February 8, 1967.
I am thankful for the inspiration, knowledge and experience that I gained
from working with Senator Tañada in MAN under his leadership. He was a man
of high intellect and deep conviction. He was always serious and
meticulous in examining drafts and possible courses of action. I remember
fondly the council meetings and the informal meetings where we would
exchange views and he would often arrive ahead of everyone else at the
effectively exact phrase in meaning and nuance to persuade people within
the nationalist or anti-imperialist context. He was always supportive of
the mass actions to express protest and make demands against US
imperialism and the servile government.
Senator Tañada's resolute and militant struggle against the Marcos fascist
dictatorship encouraged and strengthened me when I was underground and
then when I was under military detention. Despite his advanced age, he
engaged in street activism and braved the bullying and assaults of the
armed personnel of the state.
Like everyone else in the national democratic movement, I admired his
leadership in a series of alliances (especially BAYAN of which he was the
founding chairman) and his active participation in indoor and outdoor
rallies and other forms of activities for the purpose of seeking the end
of the Marcos dictatorship. He delivered powerful messages to denounce the
criminal acts of the regime and to inspire the people to resist.
It is of high and urgent importance to celebrate and seek guidance from
the great legacy that Senator Tañada has bequeathed to us all. We need to
refresh and revitalize ourselves with the principles that he enunciated so
lucidly and so vigorously and with the actions that he undertook and made
him an exemplary fighter for the national and democratic rights and
interests of the people.
To this day the Tañada legacy is of vital significance and relevance to
the struggle of the Filipino people for complete national independence,
democracy, good governance, social justice, development and durable peace.
We are confronted by a government that is shamelessly servile to US
imperialism, extremely corrupt and exploitative and unrestrained in
repressing the people and committing human rights violations.
Senator Tañada had a high standard of morality for both private life and
public service. He espoused and practised the clean and honest service to
the people which he required of all government officials. As senator, he
first became well known as a crusader against graft and corruption. We are
obliged by his teachings and example to fight uncompromisingly against a
regime that has prolonged itself through electoral fraud and whose
corruption knows no limits. The Arroyo regime has no moral and legitimate
basis whatsoever.
Senator Tañada stood for the
economic sovereignty of the people, the conservation of our national
patrimony and the development of the country through national
industrialization and land reform. We are required by his teachings and
example to fight relentlessly against the US-imposed policy of “free
market” globalization. This is a tricky phrase for obscuring the reality
of monopoly capitalism and favoring the US and other multinational firms
and banks through the denationalization of our economy, liberalization,
privatisation and deregulation.
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We must denounce the policy of
keeping the Philippine economy, agrarian, semi-feudal and preindustrial,
producing only raw materials and semi-manufactures for export and always
borrowing heavily from abroad to cover trade deficits, to finance outward
capital and profit remittances and to conjure the false illusion of
economic growth. The dumping of surplus manufactures and agricultural
products from abroad has ruined local production and has made the country
a victim of manipulated shortages and price gouging by foreign monopolies.
The people are suffering terribly from the rising debt and tax burden, the
rapid increase of unemployment, the plunging level of income, the soaring
prices of fuel, food and other basic commodities and the rising fees for
deteriorating basic social services. The Arroyo regime does not offer any
kind of solution or even mere alleviation to the suffering people. It is
now floundering due to the international credit crunch and lower orders
for the kind of exports that the Philippine makes. It is obsessed with
raising the tax burden in an economy that is already bankrupt and
depressed.
Senator Tañada consistently and vigorously upheld, defended and promoted
the national sovereignty of the Filipino people and the territorial
integrity of the Philippines. He devoted himself to the struggle for the
dismantling the US military bases in the Philippines. He was pleased when
the 1987 constitution prohibited the basing of foreign military forces and
the introduction of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass
destruction. He was elated when in September 1991 the Philippine Senate
passed the resolution terminating the US-RP Military Bases Agreement.
But the regimes succeeding the Aquino regime have sought to circumvent and
reverse these victories of the people and patriotic leaders like Senator
Tañada with a series of agreements allowing US military forces to enter
and occupy any or all parts of the Philippines under various pretexts and
to operate as they please even in violation of Philippine sovereignty and
territorial integrity. The Arroyo regime has been the worst in
treasonously increasing the pretexts for US military intervention and for
actually allowing the continuous and increasing presence of US military
forces in the Philippines.
Under the guise of combating terrorism, the US policy of “global war on
terror” has whipped up war hysteria and war production in the US, wars of
aggression against Iraq and Afghanistan, repressive laws and state
terrorism on a global scale. The Arroyo regime has followed the policy not
only in abject subservience to its imperialist master but also in pursuit
of its selfish interest in getting US blessings and some amount of
military assistance and in using the military and police forces to keep it
in power, to suppress the patriotic and progressive forces and intimidate
the broad array of opposition forces and the broad masses of the people.
The gross and systematic violations of human rights have outraged the
Filipino people and the people of the world and have fanned up the flames
of the armed revolution for national liberation and democracy. All the
vicious attempts of the US and Arroyo regime to destroy the revolutionary
movement with the so-called military solution, Oplan Bantay Laya I and II,
have failed but have only succeeded in rousing revolutionary resistance
and paralyzing the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.
We must overcome the impediments to the resumption of the peace
negotiations. If we cannot resume the negotiations during the Arroyo
regime, we must prepare for doing so after this regime.
We must strive to achieve a just and lasting peace by addressing the roots
of the armed conflict and agreeing on the social, economic and political
reforms that must be undertaken.
It is possible to make comprehensive agreements on such reforms if both
the GRP and the NDFP avail of and draw from the rich legacy of Senator
Tañada those general principles that he enunciated and those concrete
basic reforms that he proposed for making the Philippines truly
independent, democratic, socially just, prosperous and peaceful.
May the wisdom of Senator Tañada continue to enlighten and inspire us. His
teachings and his deeds are relevant to the understanding of our problems
and to the solutions that we can undertake as a nation. Let us summon the
memory of the great patriot Senator Tañada clenching his fist to defy the
reign of greed and terror and signal the people to rise up and exercise
their power against their adversary. Long live the great legacy of Senator
Lorenzo M. Tañada! ###
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