Evil cloaked in Greek letters

by Theodore Te

(For those who would read this post, do keep those injured by yesterday's bombing in your prayers, especially Ms. Raissa Laurel and another whose name I am unaware of, who are reported to be the most seriously injured and stand to lose their legs.)

Many, I included, thought at first that it was an extremely loud firecracker; in the nanosecond that it took me to realize that it was louder than most firecrackers, had an echo and that it shook the ground hard, a hush had descended over Taft Avenue.  Where, just seconds ago, there was loud cheering, drums pounding and people shouting, there was now an incredulous, unbelieving, surreal silence while people, I and the UP Law contingent included, started to slowly push backwards.

It was 5:00 in the afternoon, 26 September 2010.  The Bar Examinations of 2010 had officially ended, and the traditional Salubong [greeting and receiving of Bar examinees after last day of exam] was in full swing.
That was when the screaming started: from those on the pavement--mostly women, some half-seated, some lying prone--almost all bloodied--and from those who were scrambling to move out of the way.

That was when it dawned on many, me included, that the Bar Examinations 2010 Salubonghad been bombed.

My first concern was the UP Law contingent which included our guests, the drummers from the UP Pep Squad, and many students--not all of whom were known personally to me by name or by face.  I pushed back some physically to secure places and ordered others to retreat to the nearby McDonald's and stay there; grabbing hold of students I knew were leaders and/or part of  the UP LSG [Law Student Government] as well as my team members from the 2010 Bar Operations, I asked them to make an immediate head count--ask where their companions were, and if they were not physically at McDonald's, to account for where they were; some, like Tim, who was at Starbucks, called in helpful information as to who was there with them.

My second concern was for the parents, alumni, guests and friends whom we did not know personally but whom we knew would be there at the Salubong.  Those parents I knew (or had gotten to know through the four weekends of the Bar), I asked to just stay put at McDonald's.

My third concern was our bar candidates and our contact, Dan Sebollena, who had gone ahead to be closer to the exit gate so that the bar candidates could march out at the same time. We needed to also make a head count before they left, so we would be able to trace where people were because some had left ahead of the agreed upon 5:00 p.m. march out.

All throughout, while this was happening, there was a mad rush of people and muted whimpers, crying, and a general disbelief at what had just happened (though some, tastelessly, continued to cheer and even spray beer and other liquid) even as the police secured the area and carried off those who were wounded.

Looking at the crime scene (while the head counts were being taken) and the bomb blast site, I realized that if the bomb had gone off a few meters to the right, it would have hit UP Law people.  It was that close, and we were that blessed.  As I looked at the bloodied Taft Avenue, with UP Law pennants, fans and tarpaulins and with undistributed flowers strewn all over, I silently thanked God for protecting us even as I prayed for those who were injured.  Even now, as I write this, frantic appeals for blood donations are going out for Raissa Laurel, who faces the prospect of losing her legs as she undergoes surgery at the PGH. (Editor's note: As of posting time, both of Laurel's legs had already been amputated. Click here for story.)

It took us about an hour to account for all our people.  By that time, night was falling and my concern now was to get people home before night fell because the darkness could provide yet another venue for opportunistic criminals to strike.  We moved out in delegations--classmates, sororities, fraternities, the bar candidates and their families, other supporters.  Many stayed for a while at the nearby Starbucks to catch their breath or to simply shake off the disbelief.

That night, as we processed the raw information coming our way through various sources, it became clear that it was related to fraternity rumbles between rival fraternities of a Manila-based law school. Some had seen men in black running away a few seconds after the sound of the explosion. Others fed raw information about the rumbles that were on-going among several fraternities of some of the schools in the university belt.  All of us in that room, didn't find the news surprising as much as shocking.  Many of us knew just how stupid and senseless fraternities can get when it comes  to proving their manhood and their brotherhood to each other. But that night, a new realization came to me--probably also to the others in the room--the savagery of these "Greek-lettered men," who beat each other and others to a pulp, had transcended known civilized boundaries.

There is no justification for lobbing an explosive into a densely packed crowd of people who are oblivious to nothing but cheering for their friends, schoolmates, family and loved ones. Absolutely none.

There is nothing anyone can say to me that will convince me that one who would throw an explosive into a crowd did not deliberately plan to kill other people. Absolutely none.

It was an act done with malice, with premeditation, intentionally with the purpose of inflicting mortal harm.

That Ms. Laurel and the others did not die is a testament to Divine Intervention; that Ms. Laurel will probably end up a cripple is directly attributable to the cowards who hide behind the cloak of Greek letters and the skirts of their "brods."

As one of our students, a frat man himself, has pointed out in his blog posts, it is time to go beyond words and condemnation, and it is a time for more concrete action. I agree.

The fraternities at war yesterday must make the first move: surrender those responsible so that they may be prosecuted.  Otherwise, they reduce ALL Greek-lettered societies, many of them legitimate,  to nothing better than street gangs and organized criminal syndicates.

Other Greek-lettered societies must also do the right thing: more than just condemning the act and saying that "we don't do things like that", they must ensure that in admitting people into their ranks, they are absolutely certain that those with issues, those with homicidal streaks, those with anger management problems, those who are in fraternities for the absolutely "wrong reasons" should not be admitted; and if, somehow, some of these have made it into their number, that they are courageous enough to ensure that they are not let out into decent company, unless on an extremely short leash.

The culture of "my brother, wrong or right" must stop. There is such a thing as fraternal correction and, if necessary, discipline. The Supreme Court, which is in charge of legal education, and the universities and colleges must also take steps to ensure stricter regulation (I do not believe in prohibition as the fraternities will simply go underground and be totally unchecked), on pain of stringent sanctions, including expulsion and criminal prosecution, if warranted. The solution is not  a reflexive reaction of banning the Salubong, but perhaps ensuring that school fraternities' activities during the Salubong are regulated and monitored.  For some fraternities, adult supervision might be required; perhaps, for those fraternities, the dean of the law school needs to be required to be personally present at the Salubong.

September 26, 2010 will enter the history books as the day when the Bar Examinations were bombed and blood was spilled. For a country with notoriously short memories, this day should not be forgotten because it was the day that evil visited the Bar.

Lobbing an explosive at a crowd filled with innocents goes beyond the limits of stupidity, transcends the parameters of senselessness and breaches the borders of barbarism.  Plainly and simply, it was evil.

I recall what our dean said during the last Saturday evening Mass at the Hotel, as we sent off our candidates with the Lord's blessings.  Not known for his religious bent, the dean nonetheless, very presciently, warned  that  "Evil is disguised."  Informing our Bar candidates to be vigilant, the dean mentioned one simple truth--evil will not be revealed in the ways we expect, it will come in forms, hues, shapes and guises that we do not expect.

Prophetic and eerily accurate, the dean's words came true a few hours later.

On September 26, 2010, evil came to Taft Avenue, bearing a bomb and garbed in Greek letters.


(Reposted with permission by Mr. Theodore Te)

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Source:

Te, Ted. Evil Cloaked in Greek Letters. 27 Sept. 2010. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=443328838971


Photo credit: 

ABS.CBN.


Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.

Hope for Review of Smartmatic Source Code

The petition of CenPEG (Center for People Empowerment in Governance) filed last October 5, 2009 for Mandamus with the Supreme Court to compel COMELEC to release the source code for the Automated Electoral System has been recently GRANTED through a resolution dated September 21, 2010. In line with the development MIGHT e2010 has reposted the following March 17, 2010 press release by CenPEG:

 

PRESS RELEASE

Center for People Empowerment in Governance

March 17, 2010

Comelec washes hands off source code review issue

Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal should be transparent enough to admit that there is no real source code review for the coming automated elections.

The Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG) thus said today as it took exception with a recent statement by Larrazabal lamenting that political parties and othergroups cannot review the election source code for lack of “competent” IT specialists.

“Comelec should not use as scapegoat claims that parties had no qualified specialists,”CenPEG political analyst Prof. Bobby Tuazon said.

Representatives of the major political parties along with CenPEG and AES Watch in a Feb. 19 joint statement declined participation in Comelec’s “source code review” not only for the restrictions but also because it was a farce, Tuazon said.

Comelec was planning a “walkthrough” which is a mere presentation of the “read-only”findings of a review done by U.S.-based SysTest Lab so CenPEG and other groups refused to participate, Tuazon said.

In a recent statement, Larrazabal said that “it is not the poll body's fault that the parties had no qualified specialists who would be able to review the software”.

In fact, Tuazon said, as early as June last year CenPEG had pooled 20 IT specialists and academics from UP, Ateneo, and DLSU in preparation for the source code review. Institutions such as the UP College of Law and other computer facilities of the three leading universities had been offered for CenPEG’s review, he said.

“They were going to do it pro bono,” Tuazon added.

Comelec and Smartmatic last October had the source code and systems of the automated election system reviewed by SysTest for PhP70 million. The review lasted four months.

SysTest’s license to certify election systems had been revoked by a U.S. government agency in 2008, reports said. It was returned in 2009 on condition that the company did something about its lack of competent reviewers, among others.

Comelec should be answerable for any incidence of fraud and other election irregularities that are directly attributable to the absence of a real source code review, Tuazon said.

Source code is the human-readable software that will run Smartmatic’s 82,000 PCOS machines and thousands more canvassing equipment on May 10. An effective source code review can be done for at least four months. The review is needed to identify malicious codes, check whether the system complies with Philippine election laws, and do modifications.

Section 12 of the election law, RS 9369, requires that the source code review by independent parties and groups be done as soon as the election technology is available.This should have been at least when the contract between Comelec and Smartmatic was signed in June 2009.

In a formal request in May last year, CenPEG asked the Comelec to make the source code available. Although the request was approved by the Comelec en banc in late June,the source code has not been released to CenPEG, Tuazon said.

CenPEG filed a petition for mandamus with the Supreme Court on Oct. 5 to compel the Comelec to release the election software .Finding the Comelec guidelines for the “source code review” too restrictive, representatives of the citizens watchdog AES Watch, CenPEG and IT representatives of the Nacionalista Party, PDP-Laban, Ang Kapatiran, Makabayan coalition, and the office of Sen. Jamby Madrigal signed a joint statement last February calling on the Comelec for a real source code review.

Comelec officials had admitted a number of times that the poll body does not have the source code. Dominion Systems, a U.S.-based Canadian company, owns the source code and has a licensing agreement with Smartmatic for its use.

For details, please contact:Ms. Ayi dela CruzMedia Relations and ResearchMobile Phone 0939 4683368CenPEG TelFax +9299526info@cenpeg.org; cenpeg.info@gmail.com

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Source:

 MIGHT e2010 @ Facebook. 25 Sept. 2010.  http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=157463700949413


Photo credits:

http://www.cenpeg.org/
 
http://pmana.multiply.com/journal?&page_start=100


Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.

Mensahe ng Pakikiisa sa Ikatatlong Pambansang Kongreso ng NNARA-Youth

ni Prop. Jose Maria Sison

Tagapangulo
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
Setyembre 25, 2010

SA NGALAN ng International League of Peoples’ Struggle, malugod kong ipinapaabot ang pakikiisa sa pamuuan at kasapian ng National Network of Agrarian Reform Advocates-Youth Sector (NNARA-Youth) sa okasyon ng ika-15 anibersaryo at Ikatlong Pambansang Kongreso nito.

Wasto ang inyong tema at panawagan: Panghawakan ang 15 Taong Tagumpay, Kilusang Kabataan-Estudyante, Harapin ang Hamon ng Panahon; Isulong ang Antipyudal na Pakikibaka ng Uring Magsasaka!

Kapuri-puri na patuloy ang NNARA-Youth sa pagpapatupad sa kanyang mga tungkulin itaguyod ang pakikibaka ng masang magsasaka para sa tunay na reporma sa lupa, mahigpit na pag-ugnay, pakikiisa, at pakikipamuhay sa masang magsasaka  at paglahok sa mga kampanya  para patampukin ang mga isyu ng mga magbubukid at maging ng sambayanan.


Mas malaki ngayon ang hamon sa kilusang magbubukid at mga tagatangkilik katulad ng NNARA-Youth.  Mas malawak at mas matindi ang pangangamkam ng lupa sa kanayunan, gayundin ang pagpapalit-gamit ng lupang sakahan. Mas mahirap ang kabuhayan ng masang magsasaka.  Napapaloob sila sa mas matinding pagsasamantala at pang-aapi.

Sa nakaraang tatlong dekada ng neoliberal na globalisasyon, tinanggihan ng papet na rehimen ang pagnanasa ng sambayanang Pilipino na magkaroon ng pambansang industrialisasyon at reporma sa lupa. Malalawak na lupa ang sinamsam ng mga korporasyon sa real estate, plantasyon at minahan.  Bunga ng  krisis at pagbagsak ang maraming negosyo ngayon, lalong ginagamit ng mga mapagsamantala ang kanilang pera para mangamkan ng lupa.

Batay sa inyong nakaraaang matatag at militanteng pagkilos, lubos ang tiwala naming matutugunan ninyo ang hamon na ipaglaban ang mga karapatan at interes ng mga magbubukid. Napanday kayo sa pakikitunggali sa mga lantarang kaaway ng uring magsasaka, sa pagwawasto ng mga kamalian at kahinaan at pangingibabaw sa mga pusakal na oportunista at taksil.

May matibay kayong pundasyon sa organisasyon sa ilang unibersidad at komuninad. Gamitin ninyo ito upang magparami ng mga balangay at kasapian sa pambansang saklaw. Mapapadali ang paglawak ng inyong organisasyon kung makuha ninyo ang kooperasyon ng mga organisasyon ng kabataan at estudyante na may pambansang saklaw.  Mauunawaan nila na kailangang magpalawak ang NNARA-Youth para abutin at tulungan ang kilusang magsasaka sa buong bansa.

Dapat iugnay agad ang tungkuling magrekluta ng mas marami pang kasapi at magbuo ng mas marami pang balangay sa pagpapalaganap ng pangkalahatang linya ng pambansang kalayaan at demokrasya  at sa pagtataguyod sa kilusang magsasaka at tunay na reporma sa lupa.  Lagi nating pinatataas ang antas ng kamalayan ng mga kasapi at inaakit na maging kasapi ang iba sa pamamagitan ng pagtalakay ng linya at anumang isyu at sa paggamit ng anumang anyo o pamamaraan ng impormasyon at edukasyon.

Dapat gamitin ang mga kampanyang masa hindi lamang para ipahayag ang mga hinahaing at kahilingan ng masa kundi para sanayin din,ang dating kasapian ng NNARA-Youth sa pagpapakilos ng masa at alamin din kung sinu-sino ang maaring irekluta bilang mga bagong kasapi.  Kapag malaki ang bilang ng kasapi at balangay, malaki rin ang magagawang panghihimok, pag-oorganisa at pagpapakilos sa masa.  Sa gayon, higit na lalaki rin ang magagawa ng NNARA-Youth para tulungan ang uring magsasaka sa pagkakamit ng tunay at puspusang reporma sa lupa bilang pangunahing laman ng demokratikong rebolusyon.

Kapuri-puri ang programa ninyong Basic Masses Integration. Sa pamamagitan ng pakikipamuhay sa kanayunan, malalaman ninyo ang kalagayan at pangangailangan ng mga magsasaka, mangingisda at katutubo.  Puedeng isagawa ang integrasyon kaugnay ng akademikong pagsiyasat at practicum o kaugnay ng pagtulong sa Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, Pamalakaya at iba pang organisasyon o institusyon na may kinalaman sa anakpawis, karapatang tao, gawain komunidad, kalusugan o kapaligiran. Dapat magbuo kayo ng mga balangay ng NNARA-Youth sa lahat ng prubinsiya para malawakang maisagawa ang programa.

Tiyak na lalong lulubha  ang krisis ng pandaigdigang sistemang kapitalista at ng lokal na malakolonyal at malapyudal na naghaharing sistema. Higit pang titindi ang pagsasamantala at pang-aapi sa sambayanang Pilipino ng mga imperyalista, mga malalaking komprador at asendero.  Lumilitaw na ang mga palatandaan na ang bagong rehimen ni Aquino ay magiging mas masahol pa kaysa sa rehimeng Arroyo, mas masunurin sa mga imperyalista, mas korap at mas mapagsamantala, mas malupit at mas sinungaling.

Patuloy ang  pagsunod ng rehimen sa patakarang neoliberal na globalisasyon na diktang Estados Unidos.  Tungkol sa usapin ng reporma sa lupa, pananatilihin ni Aquino ang CARPER at haharangin niya ang panukalang GARB ng kilusang magsasaka.  Hindi magtatagal makikita natin ang karumal-dumal na bunga ng kunwaring mediation na sabwatan ng Supreme Court at pamilyang Cojuangco-Aquino.  Pakana nilang manatili ang Hacienda Luisita sa kamay ng pamilyang asendero at ituloy ang panggagantsong SDO.


Maaga pa lamang ay ipinapamalas na ni Aquino na gagamit siya ng puspusang karahasan laban sa mga anakpawis at mga rebolusyonaryong pwersa.  Tulad ni Arroyo, susundin niya ang US Counterinsurgency Guide.  Mayroon siyang panibagong operational plan na mas masahol pa sa Oplan Bantay Laya.  Para  ipatupad ang kanyang layuning terorismo ng estado, pinalaki ni Aquino nang 81 porsyento ang badyet ng militar at ng DSWD nang 123 porsyento,  samantalang kanyang  binawasan  ang badyet para sa edukasyon, kalusugan at iba pang serbisyo sosyal.  Pinalaki ang badyet ng  DSWD para gamitin ito sa mga kampanya ng pagpapalikas sa mga magsasaka at katutubo mula sa kanilang tahanan at lupa.

Mahalaga ang tungkulin ng NNARA-Youth na magparami ng mga balangay at kasapian  sa pambansang saklaw at magpakahusay sa integrasyon sa uring magsasaka.  Namiminto ang malalaking aksyong pangmasa para salungatin at pigilin and mga makahayop na anti-nasyonal at anti-demokratikong patakaran ng rehimeng US-Aquino.

Kasabay ng mga mapanlansing salita, maliwanag na ipinapahiwatig na ng rehimen na  gagamit ito ng dahas para supilin ang mamamayan. Kung gayon, nararapat na maghanda ang  sambayanang Pilipino para sa mas maigting na pakikibaka laban sa pang-aapi at pagsasamantala.##


(Binigyang permiso sa muling paglathala ni G. Joma Sison)


_______


Pinagmulan:

Sison, Jose Maria. Mensahe Ng Pakikiisa Sa Ikatlong Pambansang Kongreso Ng NNARA-Youth. Setiembre 2010. http://www.josemariasison.org/?p=5031


Kredito sa mga larawan:

Daily Tribune. http://www.tribuneonline.org/

NNARA-Youth blog. http://www.blogger.com/profile/04404535515094184493




Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.

Overview of the National-Liberationist People's War in the Philippines

by Jose Maria Sison

Founding Chairperson

Communist Party of the Philippines

THE old merger party of the Communist and Socialist Parties founded the People’s Army against Japan (Hukbalahap) in 1942. This army became the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (People’s Liberation Army) in 1948 in order to resist the continued US domination of the Philippines under the US-RP Treaty of General Relations and the Parity Amendment of the Philippine Constitution and the return of the landlords to Central Luzon where the people’s army was based.

The backbone of the HMB was broken in the early 1950s. The semicolonial and semifeudal character of Philippine society seemed to be perpetual and invincible. The exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords blocked every attempt to uphold national sovereignty and carry out genuine and thoroughgoing land reform. In 1957 the reactionary government enacted the Anti-Subversion Law to punish by death officers of the Communist Party or any organization acting as its successor or front.


I. Revival of the National Democratic Revolution

I was among those who revived in the 1960s the mass movements of the workers, peasants and the youth under the leadership of the old merger party of the Socialist and Communist Parties. The ruling system was extremely oppressive and exploitative. We conceived of the national democratic revolution to oppose the system. We were not afraid of the Anti-Subversion Law.

We engaged in mass work to arouse, organize and mobilize the masses. We came under surveillance. We were blacklisted, subjected to propaganda attacks and removed from our jobs. Our mass actions were often disrupted and attacked.

Within the merger party of the Communist and Socialist Parties, the question arose whether to prepare for revolutionary armed struggle or not. The old merger party took the position of carrying out the legal mass movement indefinitely until such time that conditions were supposed to ripen and allow a general uprising.

Young Joma Sison

I was among those who took the position that people’s war must be started on the basis of the already existing mass base in the rural and urban areas. We left the old merger party to re-establish the Communist Party of the Philippines under the theoretical guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism on December 26, 1968. Three months later on March 29, 1969, we founded the New People’s Army to wage people’s war..


II. Fascist Dictatorship of Marcos

In 1969, Marcos spoke of the Philippine society as a social volcano about to explode. In speaking thus, he presented himself as the strong leader to head off the eruption of the volcano. He had plans of using military force to perpetuate himself in power. He expanded the armed forces and was quick to use military force to suppress any manifestation of armed resistance in the countryside. He was responsible for the massacres in Barrios Culatingan, Sta. Lucia and Paraiso.

He launched Oplan Prophylaxis in an attempt to nip in the bud the New People’s Army in 1969. But he failed. The NPA grew from only 65 members with 9 automatic rifles and 26 handguns and single shot rifles to more than 200 automatic rifles from 1969 to early 1970 in Tarlac province. Marcos put together Task Force Lawin, consisting of 5000 troops and policemen, further augmented by so-called barrio self-defense units.

Having anticipated the concentration of enemy forces where we started to build the NPA, we sent expansion cadres to various regions in order to build armed propaganda teams from the mass organizations and deploy them in the villages. When Marcos boasted of having “decimated” the NPA in Central Luzon, the NPA had developed bigger mass bases in Isabela province in another region of the country.

At any rate, Marcos proceeded with his scheme to impose a fascist dictatorship on the people. On August 21, 1971, he suspended the writ of habeas corpus and suppressed all patriotic and progressive legal mass organizations. On September 21, 1972, he declared martial law and concentrated executive, legislative and judicial powers in his hands. In his martial law proclamation he claimed that the NPA had 10,000 rifles. In fact, it had only 300 rifles at the time.

But the 14 years of fascist dictatorship generated conditions favorable to people’s war. The New People’s Army was able to grow to the level of nearly 6000 high powered weapons by the time that Marcos fell in February 1986.


III.Low Intensity Doctrine Under Aquino Regime

Cory Aquino came to power as a consequence of the convergence of contradictory forces against the Marcos fascist regime. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) representing the Communist Party of the Philippines, the NPA and other revolutionary forces agreed to hold ceasefire talks with the Aquino regime. A ceasefire agreement was forged on November 25, 1986 to prepare for peace negotiations on substantive issues.


But the peace negotiations came to an end when peasants were massacred while rallying in front of the presidential palace on January 23, 1987. Instead of holding responsible her security guards for the carnage, Aquino blamed the peasants and the entire revolutionary movement and proclaimed the unsheathing of the sword of the state.

With General Fidel Ramos as her defense secretary, she launched a series of national campaign plans Lambat Bitag I, II and III designed to destroy the armed revolutionary movement. The campaign plans were described as the application of the low intensity conflict doctrine. Human rights violations became rampant in both urban and rural areas. Base-denial operations and massacres were often undertaken in the countryside.

For a while, Lambat Bitag appeared to be successful as the armed movement was being weakened by an ultra-Left current which started in the early 1980s and then by a Rightist current which started to pick up strength in 1988. The ultra-Left current damaged the mass base and subsequently the Rightist current called for the liquidation of the Party and the armed revolutionary movement.


IV. Rectification Movement and Peace Negotiations

The ultra-Left current consisted of the premature formation of companies and of unnecessary levels of command and staff which took away Party and NPA personnel from mass work. Due to this erroneous current, the mass base of the revolutionary movement decreased by 15 percent in 1988 and by 60 percent in 1991. This reduced the ability of the NPA to wage tactical offensives although in the main the NPA retained its weapons.

The rectification movement was carried out to criticize and repudiate major errors. It reoriented, reorganized and redeployed the Party and NPA for mass work and for recovering and rebuilding the mass base. It also went against the attempt of the Rightists to liquidate the armed struggle and follow the reformist example of the Soviet leader Gorbachov.

At the same time, the NDFP engaged the Ramos regime in peace negotiations. The Hague Joint Declaration was agreed upon in 1992 to lay the framework for peace negotiations. And several more agreements were forged in order to advance the peace negotiations, which formally opened in 1995.

Some observers think that there was an ebb in the fighting between the NPA and the reactionary forces because of the peace negotiations. But the real cause was the decrease of the mass base and the weakening of the offensive capability of the NPA from 1988 to 1991 and the need for rectification and recovery from 1992 to 1998.


V. Revitalization and Resurgence of People’s War

The rectification movement was successful. The mass base expanded. The NPA could launch tactical offensives in different parts of the Philippines from 1996 onwards. It was able to capture a series of high-ranking military officers, including a general.

The people’s war was revitalized and resurgent in the last two years of the Ramos regime and in the three years of the Estrada regime. Estrada approved the military campaigns of suppression against the NPA and terminated the peace negotiations soon after he signed the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). Eventually, he became preoccupied with the campaigns against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in Mindanao.


VI. Oplan Bantay Laya

The Arroyo regime pretended for a while to continue the peace negotiations with the NDFP in 2001. But it decided to launch Oplan Bantay Laya I and II from 2001 to the end of her rule. International human rights organizations and UN human rights agencies called attention to the gross and systematic violation of human rights and made recommendations to the Arroyo regime to improve the human rights situation in the country. The regime turned a deaf ear to all of them.

Since its inception, Oplan Bantay Laya has perpetrated the abduction, torture and extrajudicial killing of more than 1000 social activists, including trade unionists, peasant leaders, human rights advocates, religious and journalists. At the same time, the peasant masses and indigenous peoples in the countryside have been subjected to arbitrary arrests and detention, bombings and forced evictions from their land and homes.

The violent attacks on urban based social activists was calculated to demoralize and weaken the legal mass movement and cut it off from the armed revolutionary movement in the countryside. But the people’s war intensified in response to the escalating campaigns of suppression.



VII. Prospects under the Aquino II Regime

The present Aquino regime follows the US Counterinsurgency Guide and is continuing Oplan Bantay Laya up to January 2011. However, there is already a 5-year military plan intended to defeat and destroy the NPA. By cutting the budgets for education, health and other social services, Aquino has increased the budget for the military and made way for a huge amount of debt service.

He has also increased the budget for an agency that is intended to be the civilian arm for facilitating the forced evacuation of peasants and the indigenous people who are victims of displacements due to militarization and wide-scale land grabbing by mining and logging companies.

There are indications that the Aquino regime is not interested in peace negotiations as a way of addressing the roots of the armed conflict and laying the basis for a just and lasting peace. To date, the Manila government has not reciprocated the NDFP’s demand for the resumption and acceleration of formal peace negotiations and has not responded to the NDFP’s proposal for a Concise Agreement to End Civil War and Achieve Immediate Just Peace. This proposal has been relayed to the GRP since August 27, 2005.

The NDFP is patiently waiting for the Aquino regime to dispatch its emissaries and to form the new negotiating panel of the GRP. ###


(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Joma Sison)


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Source:

Sison, Jose Maria. People's War. 22 Sept. 2010. http://www.josemariasison.org/?p=5015#more-5015


(Brief Presentation in Expert Workshop on Escalation Processes in Irregular Warfare, Raadszaal,Achter de St Pieter 200, University of Utrecht, 17 September 2010)



Photo credits:

http://www.librarylink.org.ph/revdetails.asp?rev=33

http://joseangelito-angeles.tripod.com/marcos.htm

http://baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/17649




Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.

Sa Bayang Filipinas, 31 Agosto 1899 Emilio F. Aguinaldo

Sa Bayang Filipinas, 31 Agosto 1899

Emilio F. Aguinaldo

Sa Bayang Filipinas, 31 Agosto 1899. Tarlac, 31 August 1899.

Folder No. 678, Document No. 2, Roll No. 38 of the Philippine Revolutionary Records

BUOD: Sa kanyang mensahe sa sambayanang Pilipino, nananawagan si Pangulong Emilio Aguinaldo sa mga sibilyan na magsibalik na sa kani-kanilang tahanan at sinisiguro niya na walang tigil na isinusulong ng Hukbong Rebolusyunaryo ang pambansang pakikibaka laban sa mga mapanlinlang na Amerikano. Handang ialay ng mga rebolusyunaryong Pilipino ang kanilang buhay upang masiguro na ang mga susunod na henerasyon ng mga Pilipino ay mabubuhay sa isang malaya, mapayapa, at maunlad na Pilipinas. Ipinapahayag ni Aguinaldo na ang kasalukuyang digmaan ay nagdudulot ng pag-usbong ng nasyonalismong Pilipino at pagmamahal sa bayan at sa kapwa. Ayon sa kanya, ninanais ng mga imperyalistang Amerikano na masakop ang Pilipinas dahil na rin sa angking kagandahan at likas na yaman ng bansa. Nagbibigay-pugay siya sa mga kasapi ng Partido Demokrata, isang partido pulitikal sa Estados Unidos, para sa kanilang pagsuporta sa kalayaan ng Pilipinas at paglaban sa mga imperyalistang patakaran.

   Isinulat ni Julius Cesar I. Trajano; Inedit ni Raymund Arthur G. Abejo

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: In his message to the Filipino people, Pres. Emilio Aguinaldo directs all Filipino civilians to return to their homes to look after their personal affairs. He vows that the Revolutionary Army will continue to advance the national struggle for independence against the treacherous Americans and assures them that Filipino revolutionaries are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to ensure that the future generations of Filipinos will live in an independent, peaceful, and progressive Philippines. Aguinaldo says that the ongoing national war stimulates the rise of Filipino nationalism and civic consciousness. He praises the members of the Democratic Party, a pro-Philippine independence American political party, for their anti-imperialist stance and says that the American imperialists want to annex the Philippines because of the country's natural beauty and rich resources.

   Written by Julius Cesar I. Trajano; Edited by Raymund Arthur G. Abejo

Read original Spanish text

SA BAYANG FILIPINAS

Sa pagtupad ng kabaitang tinatalima ng ating gobierno at ng hokbo, ay panibago kong inihahayag sa manga ginigiliw na kababayan, bagama't mabigat sa loob namin, na ang sinomang tawong walang katungkulan sa gobierno, ay mangyayaring umowi at tumahimik sa kanikanilang bayan, nasasakop man ito nang kalaban, upan[…] mapangasiwaang mahusay ang mga pagkabuhay […] at bilang ipinagtatagubilin lamang sa lahat, na […]gay sanang parang walang inaayunang sino pa man neutrales baga;—at sakaling sila'y ganyakin ng kaaua’y, na balaan o hibuin, katulad na nga ng nangyayari, ay ipinababahala sa kani-kanilang malinaw na bait ang politicang maitutugon, yamang kilala ko rin naman ang pagirog at pagdamay sa Inang Filipinas ng bawa't isa sa inyo.

Hindi kailangan ng gobierno natin ang napakaraming tawo, kundi ang kaugma lamang ng bilang ng manga sandata niya at iba pang kailangang katungkulan: kaya, tumiwasay kayo at pawiin sa loob ang pagaalangan, at asahang hindi magpupuknat sa pakikilaban ang ating matiising hokbo, samantalang may extranjerong ibig umalipin sa pinakaiibig nating Filipinas, at kapus man sa sandata ay pagiinutan sila habang may buhay, na di lilingonin ang anomang kapinsalaan.

Tangi sa rito'y minamatamis sa puso nang ating hokbo ang makalilibong mamatay, maipagtangol lamang ang santong katowiran at ang… ¿aanhin pa nga naman ang manga katawan sa ibabaw nang lupa, kung mabubuhay rin lamang sa di katowiran at sa kaalipnan?

Sayang nga nang mahiguit na tatlong daang taong sinkad na iminulat nang manga mata natin sa naging Inang Españang tinatawag, kung ngayon ay pasupil pa tayo sa kaaway! Kaaway na ang adhikay ipagpilitan sa atin ang kanilang wika, upang tayo’y manauli na naman sa pagkasangol! Na sa kalitohan sa inuulak nilang maling adhika ay hindi nawari minsan man na

Ang isip na dilat, ay mahirap nang mabulag.

Di umano’y pamamahalaan tayong ang susundin ay manga leyes ding minana natin sa España!

Sa wari ko’y hindi ligaw na maniwala akong, ukol dito’y marunong pa tayo kung sa manga padpad lamang.

Bayang natutong bumawi nang kaniyang kalayaan, ay sapilitang matutumpak din naman nang paggamit nito!

Sa kabilang dako, ay mabuti rin naman ang ating digmaang itong laban sa partido imperialista (=Republican Party), pagka’t dahil sa kaniya’y lalong namumulat ang isip nang bayan, nalilinang at nadadalisay ang dilang kabaitan, natututong magmasakit sa kapowa, at habang lalong dumadami ang nabubuhos na dugo, ay lumulusog at nagtitibay naman sa puso ng lahat ang pag ibig sa Inang bayan.

Datapua’t kung tahimik na ay dapat naman nating pakatandaang huag magbibitaw ng salitang inaakalang hindi matutupad, gaya nga nang kanilang mga ginawing wica sa unang pagdating dito sa ating lupa, na di umano’y kaya naparito ang americano, ay upang maitangol at matulungan ng pagahon sa hirap ang mga bayang inaalipin ng iba, at ng magkaroon ng sariling Pamahalaan o Gobierno, at agad maitayo ang bandila nang lahi, pangakong buhay sa isip nila at sa isip ng madlang malalaking naciones, na nangakatunghay buhat sa dagat ng Maynila, na pinakasaksing hulog ng langit, ng nangagtagumpay na gawa ng ating malualhating panghihimagsik.

At ipinapapansin ko sa boong mundong matalino, na hindi nililimot ng bayan at ng hokbo ang tipanan at pagiibigang sa ngalan niya’y pinagkasunduan naming ng dumating ditong kinatawan ng Estados Unidos, na si almirante Dewey (=George Dewey), sa pamamagitan ng mga consules americanos sa Hong-Kong at Singapore.

At buhay na buhay sa puso ng bayan at ng hokbo itong bantog na Convenio, na pagkamalas sa mga americanong nabihag naming, ay ipinagsisigawang hinihingi na agadagad pawalan, pagka’t anila’y

Ayan kami at hindi kami nakikipaglaban sa Estados Unidos.

Ang manga tubo sa makapangyarihang naciong iyan ay manga kaibigan namin, aming manga kapatid.

Ang nabawing pagsasarili ay sa imperialista lamang namin ipinaglalaban at hinihinging kilanlin.

Isauli nga natin sa Estados Unidos ang kaniyang manga anak na ating nangadakip, pagka’t ang ating manga kapatid at manga kaibigan ay hindi natin mabibihag.

At sa gangayong kahingian ng lahat na lubhang akma sa aking puso, at sa aking kasalukuyang gobierno ay ipinasiya ko ang pagpapawala ng mga americanong bihag, na ipinagbilin sa G. Secretario ng Guerrang agad ipadala kay general Otis (=Elwell Otis), Comandante general ng mga kalaban.

Kaya nga, mga iniibig na kababayan, ulitulit na ipinamamanhik sa inyong, huag sanang tutulutang mabahirang dungis ang madilag na buhay ng ating Inang Filipinas, at huag tutularan iyang asal na manirang pilit ng katowiran na daanin sa dahas, lalo nanga iyang mga natititik sa tinatawag na leyes internacionales (=international law), at huwag lilimuting kailan man ay di kukulangin ng magtatangkakal ng katowiran; isaisip na laging maraming matang tumitingin, malao’t madali ay sapilitang maghahari ang matowid, gaya nanga ng nangyayari sa bayang tunay ng America, na may isa ngayong partidong (=Democratic Party) kasalukuyang sumusulot sa kanilang gobierno, upang kilanlin nito ang Pagsasarili ng Filipinas. Anopa’t mayroon pa nga tayong maaasahang sa atin ay magtatangol, na pipilit sa kanilang mga kababayang tupdin ang kapangakoan sa atin, kapangakoang malinaw at hayag, bagaman di pinagsulatan , dahilang dapat naman nating ihati sa kanila ng taos sa loob na pasasalamat, sa mangyari at dili man itong unang pagganap, yayamang marahil ay mangagbago nang pasiya balang araw ang ating mga kaaway, at para waring tayo’y tinitikman lamang nila, na gaya ng inaasahang ko, palibhasa’y nakita na naman natin ang kanilang tapang na di mangyaring itangi.

Sa ganitong sanhi, kaya nga naman kusang nagtatangol ang ating kawal, na hindi alintana anomang hirap at sampo ng kamatayan, makita lamang na mabuhay sa katiwasayan ang mga pinakaiirog naming kababayan, at ang mga familia nila, sa lubos na pagasang ito nga

ang malaking kayamanan, na ating maipamamana

diyan sa mga bagong sumisipot na sangol, na dugo ng puso at kapilas ng buhay.

Anong pagkagandaganda mo at pagkasarap-sarap, virgeng Inang Filipinas! Sa kaayaaya mong ayos, sino kaya ang di mahahalina? 

punong dahilan manding ipinagaadhikang kamtan ka at..., datapua’t mauubos naman muna kaming lahat, bago itulot na maagaw ka.

Manga kababayan, inaanyayahan ko nga kayo ngayon magdala nang titigisang dakot na uling at putik; at nang mapahiran at matakpan ang kariktan nang ating virgin Inang Filipinas, upang siya’y huag nang matanyag at pagagawananan pa, gaya na nga ng nangyayari ngayong kasalukuyan.

Maraming dugo at buhay tuloy ang napaparamay na namamatay, dahil lamang sa kapagnaghilian sa kaniyang kagandahan nang ilan katauong taga America; sarisaring paratang na nga tuloy ang ibinubuhat upang tamuhin lamang siya, at salamat na nga lamang at ang mga alagad nang Filipinas ay nangagkakaisang loob sa pagtatangol sa kaniya, na di alumanang makitil ang hininga at mawala ang mga kayamanan, palibhasa’y siya ngang katowiran at kapurihan nang lahat; at matanto ng madla, na ang ating boong hokbo ay pawing nagkusang hiningi sa ating gobierno na habang may kalaban ang bayang Filipinas ay huag na muna silang bigyan nang sueldo, at tuloy iniaambag nang mga mayroon ang kanikanilang kaunting kayamanang iniingatan.

Idaing, nga natin sa Panginoon Dios, na bigyan niyang kapangyarihang makapaibabaw sana sa Estados Unidos ang dakilang partido democrata (=Democratic Party), na siyang nagsasangalang ng independencia ng Filipinas; tuloy bigyan ng pangpalubay loob ang mga imperialista, upang huag na tayong daanin sa dahas ng sandata, at kahimanawari huag matuloy ang isang panaginip, na di umano’y sakasakaling sila’y matalo nang democrata, ay panghihigantihan naman ang Filipinas nang malaking indemnización na inaakalang hindi makakaya, at nang magkaroon sila nang katowirang masunod ang dating nasa… sa macatowid, ang digmang ito’y malinaw na isang malaking pangangalakal lamang, na kung pasusuriin ay tunay na kusang pagpatay.

Datapua’t maaasahan pa natin ang mga americanong may mga ganap na bait at tumutupad ng dati nilang lahing may manga puri, na sinasabi na sa itaas; at marami rito sa kanilang mga kasamahang may ganap na kabaitan, lalo na sa mga sundalo, na bagama’t nakikipaglaban sa atin, ay dahil lamang sa disciplina: sa katunayan nito’y marami nang presentados o desertores americanos dito sa atin, na di umano’y ayaw silang makipaglaban sa mga Filipinos, na siyang talagang may katowiran, tangi sa kilala nilang ang digmang ito’y kusang pagpatay at pagamis sa kapowa, palibhasa’y tanto rin nila naman ang kakapusan natin ng sandata dahilang lalong ipinaguulol nang canilang poot sa partido imperialista.

At sa katapusa’y muling inaluluhog sa manga kababayan, na huag na sanang ipagsabisabing ang Filipinas ay maganda at may kayamanang iningat, upanding huag naman tayong mahirapan bukas makalawa sa manga maingitin, at nang tayo’y mapanulos na sa ating katahimikan.

Lumawig ang Pagsasarili nang Filipinas!

Mabuhay ang Republica!

Mabuhay ang hokbong taga pagtangol!

Mabuhay at lumagi ang pagiisang loob!

Tarlak 31 nang Agosto nang 1899.

Emilio Aguinaldo

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Europe-wide Day of Action vs Austerity Gets Support from the ILPS

by Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson
International League of Peoples’ Struggle
22 September 2010

WE, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, express our solidarity with and support for all the workers and the rest of the people in Europe in connection with the Day of Action on 29 September 2010 to resist austerity measures and to demand jobs and real economic growth. We therefore call on all our member-organizations and allies in Europe to participate in the Day of Action.

Responding to the call of the European Trade Union Confederation, tens of thousands of trade unionists from Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and France are expected to assemble at Gare du Midi, the south railway station of Brussels at 1130 HRS and then march to the Parc du Cinquantenaire to hold a rally at 1500 HRS.

The Day of Action is spearheaded by trade unions and is at the same time actively supported by left political parties, community organizations, church groups, students and other forces. In specific countries of Europe, strikes and mass protests shall be held in conjunction with the focal mass action in Brussels. A general strike is going to be held in Spain, following the previous examples in Greece and France.
The Day of Action coincides with the meeting of European finance ministers in Brussels. It is a mass mobilization aimed at protesting the rising rate of unemployment, the lowering of wage levels, the attack on pensions and the cutting back of social services as a result of austerity measures being imposed by the European governments.

The European governments are poised to make budget cuts amounting to 200 billion euros, which can result in further job losses. The proletariat and people of Europe oppose the call of the European Central Bank Governor for the strict imposition of severe austerity measures at the further expense of the workers.

Under the guise of economic stimulus programs, the soaring public debts and heavy deficit spending have been incurred for the benefit of the very malefactors that caused the current grave crisis—the finance oligarchy and the monopoly bourgeoisie as a whole. The proletariat and people of Europe are therefore opposing austerity measures and demanding the use of public resources for expanding production and employment.

The austerity measures are hurting the workers, pensioners and communities. They are bound to prolong and deepen the economic crisis. The reduction of employment and incomes for the proletariat and the people will further stagnate and depress the economy. There is no let up in the aggravation of the economic and financial crisis.

Exploitation is the lot of the working class, starting at the workplace with the extraction of the surplus value. Further on, the capitalist class maximizes profit by accumulating capital and reducing the wage fund, thus causing the crisis of overproduction relative to the shrinkage of the market.

In the last three decades of “neoliberal globalization”, the banks, investment houses and major corporations have used growing amounts of debt financing, entailing the speculative creation of money, credit and derivatives, in order to continue making profits and ride over the recurrent and worsening crisis of overproduction and the chronic tendency of the economy to stagnate and the profit rate to fall.

After the dramatic bursting of the financial bubbles, including those related to the subprime mortgages in the US and the spread of so-called collateralized debt obligations in Europe, the states of the world capitalist system have used public money to bail out the banks and the big corporations on the pretext of stimulating the economy.

The bailouts have not resulted in the revival of production and employment. They have only served to improve the balance sheets of the banks and big corporations and to conjure momentarily the illusion of recovery in the financial markets. The fiscal deficits and public debt have ballooned. Now this huge financial bubble is bursting and the states are frantically adopting austerity measures and further passing on the burden of crisis to the workers and the people at large.

States are setting aside huge amounts of funds for debt service and are raising new taxes and fees at the expense of the people and cutting government payrolls and public services. In Europe, the governments openly apply the austerity measures. In the US the federal government is babbling about prudent financial management, while the local states and municipal governments are running ahead in openly applying austerity measures.

In all the imperialist countries, the forces on the Left side of the political spectrum are exposing the real roots of the crisis in the exploitative character and processes of the capitalist system and the forces of the Right are blaming immigrants and migrant workers for the worsening economic and social crisis and are whipping up chauvinism, racism, religious bigotry, repression and aggression.

There is a sharpening polarization of society. At the moment, a see-saw struggle is going on between the Left and the Right in electoral contests, resulting in hung parliaments and unstable coalitions of the so-called Center with the Right or the Left. The prolongation and worsening of the crisis in the imperialist countries is stirring up the most reactionary currents as well as the progressive currents against capitalism and imperialism and for a socially just society and for a radical transformation of society up to socialism. ###

(Reposted with permission from Mr. Joma Sison)

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 Sison, Jose Maria.  ILPS SUPPORTS EUROPE-WIDE DAY OF ACTION AGAINST AUSTERITY AND FOR JOBS AND REAL ECONOMIC GROWTH.  22 Sept. 2010. http://www.josemariasison.org/?p=5009#more-5009

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Intensified Struggle against Imperialist Exploitation & Plunder as Key to Development & End to Poverty

by Prof. Jose Maria Sison

Chairperson,

International League of Peoples' Struggle

FROM the year 2000 when 189 world leaders made pious pledges to reaffirm the principles and values of the UN for the new millennium and declared that the central challenge for the moment was "to ensure that globalization becomes a positive force for all the world's people."

In this connection, the UN promulgated eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), targeted for fulfillment by 2015. With barely 5 years left before the deadline and in the midst of the first global depression of the 21st century, world leaders are convening in New York to proclaim their continued commitment to pursue the MDGs while diverting people's attention away from the real roots of the problems that these goals are supposed to solve.

The MDGs were adopted ostensibly to marshal the efforts of governments towards "doable" and "measurable" targets. The real intent was to legitimize “neoliberalism” and make pretenses that the world capitalist system was humane even as the rapacity of imperialist exploitation and plunder remains the reality. The goals were deliberately chosen – principally by bureaucrats and spin-doctors from the OECD, IMF and WB – to deal superficially only with the most obvious symptoms of poverty and oppression which riled even the imperialist-funded NGOs and some rock stars.

They obscured the necessity of overcoming colonial and neocolonial domination and monopoly capitalist exploitation which have shackled the majority of the world's population to chronic poverty and dehumanizing privations. They brushed aside the long-standing demands of underdeveloped countries within the UN system to redress the unequal relations between countries and to respect national sovereignty and mutual benefit in international relations. They dismissed the demands for social justice and structural transformation voiced by people's movements in all continents.

Indeed, the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs were essentially propaganda offensives to push back the advance of the progressive forces against imperialist globalization. During the last decade of the previous millennium, such forces had been mounting increasingly militant actions in connection with the People's Conference against Imperialist Globalization in Manila in 1996, the People's Caravan Against APEC in 1997, and the Battle of Seattle in 1999.

Since their 2000 launch, the MDGs have been used to sugarcoat the bitter overdosages of “neoliberal” policy that the imperialist financial institutions have been shoving down the throats of people in the impoverished and bankrupt countries. The MDGs, thus, have served to perpetrate the exploitative relations between the imperialist powers and the client countries . The first goal, "eradicate extreme poverty and hunger", is farther from realization than ever, with the number of hungry people worldwide increasing from 842 million in 1990 to over 1 billion last year. 

The aggravation of hunger is due to the tightened monopoly capitalist control of the global food system -- from production inputs, to credit, to marketing and distribution. This has deepened the long-standing crisis of agriculture and food production in underdeveloped countries. This is also rooted in the legacy of feudal land monopoly and compounded by governments that would rather support foreign agribusiness, mining and logging interests and landed elite interests than uplift the condition of the peasantry and poor consumers.

The UN claims that the MDG target of halving the number people living in extreme poverty is well on its way to being met. But this is mostly due to puffing up the aggregate figures with the reported rise in household incomes of a narrow section of the Chinese population. Concealed are the decline of employment and incomes among the workers and peasants and the reduction of social incomes in the form of public goods and services as a consequence of capitalist restructuring and the worsening global economic crisis.

In 2005, there were still supposedly about 1.4 billion people living below $1.25 per day, down from 1.8 billion in 1990. Without China, to which most of the reduction is ascribed, the number actually increased by 36 million. Rising food prices and the global economic crisis that erupted in 2008 is pushing millions more into absolute poverty. The share of the poor in the world's income is also declining. In 1990, the ratio of the per capita income in the richest 20 countries to that in the poorest 20 was $42 to one dollar; in 2005, it was $59 to one dollar.

The UN claims that universal primary education is on its way to being achieved. But nearly half of all secondary school-age children in developing countries are known to be out of school, especially those from impoverished families in remote rural areas where public schools, teachers and other basic social services are not provided by governments due to fiscal tightening or austerity imposed by imperialist financial institutions. Monopoly capitalists are also pushing for the privatization and commercialization of education in order to profit from building schools, charging fees and churning out students adapted to the needs of multinational corporations.

The UN admits to making little headway in redressing gender discrimination, whether this be in the realm of education, employment, incomes and most especially in terms of maternal health. As of 2005, a woman in the third world dies of complications related to pregnancy every minute while more than 1 million infants are left motherless every year. Some 8.8 million children under the age of five die every year -- 13 times more likely in poor countries compared to advanced capitalist countries.

Malnutrition and preventable diseases due to lack of access to health care, water and sanitation are the primary causes. As in the case of education, the priority given to servicing foreign debts and privatization has eroded most third world government's capacities to provide these basic services and deploy health personnel where they are needed most. Monopoly control of giant pharmaceutical companies over medicines, medical technologies and medical research, reinforced by so-called intellectual property rights protection provided to them by governments and the WTO, also undermine efforts at combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases that are rampant in poor countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.

While the MDGs include environmental sustainability in the wishlist, the anarchic, wasteful and destructive capitalist production for profit has now pulled our world close to the brink of ecological disaster. The massive dumping of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere by the operations of monopoly capitalist firms in the energy industries, manufacturing, transportation, industrial agriculture, mining, construction, etc., is now generating climatic changes that are causing massive devastation and loss of human lives around the world.

The relentless extraction of mineral ores and wanton destruction of forests by multinational mining corporations persist in the underdeveloped countries that are rich with natural resources. Massive environmental destruction and pollution, widespread landlessness and displacement, loss of livelihood, distortion of local culture, and rampant human rights violations are left in their wake.

Central to the MDG schema is the avowed obligation of the advanced capitalist countries to provide more development aid, debt relief, access to markets, medicines and new technology for the underdeveloped countries in the name of "global partnerships for development." But in fact, these are the very same instruments by which imperialists exploit and keep backward countries dependent. Debt relief and aid granted to the most indebted countries are a mere fraction of the resources siphoned off by monopoly capitalists from underdeveloped countries in the form of debt payments, unequal trade, profit remittances, tax evasion, capital flight, and resource plunder.

According to UN estimates, the underdeveloped countries are transferring resources to the industrialized countries at an average rate of nearly USD 500 billion per year since 2000, reaching a peak of USD 891 billion in 2008. Moreover, so-called development assistance remains attached to policy conditionalities such as liberalization, privatization and deregulation that favor monopoly capitalist interests over the requirements of real national development.

The MDGs are a grand and expensive distraction from the real effort to address the structural roots of poverty, injustice, oppression and underdevelopment. That is the struggle against imperialist exploitation and plunder through painstaking education, organizing and mobilization of the masses. This is the only path to national and social liberation and all-rounded development. ### http://www.josemariasison.org/

(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Joma Sison)


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Source:


Sison, Jose Maria. To Attain Development and End Poverty, the People Must Intensify the Struggle againsg Imperialist Exploitation and Plunder. 20 Sept. 2010. http://www.facebook.com/notes/joma-sison/to-attain-development-and-end-poverty-the-people-must-intensify-the-struggle-aga/496362083065


Photo credits: 

http://www.endpoverty2015.org/2010_mdg_review_summit

http://www.un-ngls.org/spip.php?page=amdg10&id_article=2831

http://photovault.com/Link/People/o/vPoverty3rdW/show.asp?tg=POVVolume01/POVV01P06_16
Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.

On the Commemoration of the Declaration of Martial Law

by Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant
National Democratic Front of the Philippines

FERDINAND Marcos himself designated September 21, 1972 as the date for Presidential Proclamation 1081, declaring martial law. In previous days, he had set in motion the imposition of fascist dictatorship on the people, including the mobilization of his armed minions, the murder of a whistle blower in his own intelligence agency, the fake ambush on his defense secretary and the mass arrest of his opponents and critics.

More than a year ago, he had staged the dress rehearsal for the declaration of martial law by proclaiming the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus on August 21, 1971 when without evidence he blamed the Communist Party of the Philippines and Benigno S. Aquino for the Plaza Miranda bombing immediately after it happened.

It is important to commemorate the declaration of martial law today in order to recall the 14-year long fascist dictatorship, the gross and systematic infliction of violence and suffering on the broad masses of the people and the steady growth of the resistance of the people and the revolutionary forces until there was a convergence of contradictory forces that effected the overthrow of the fascist dictator on February 25, 1986.


It is useful for the people to remember the fascist dictatorship not only because there is a need to draw up consciousness and courage to prevent the rise to power of the junior of Ferdinand Marcos and his other political heirs but also more urgently to struggle against the manifest plan of the son of Benigno Aquino to beef up the military, use his power to enlarge the wealth of his family and cronies and seek to destroy the revolutionary movement of the people.

Irony of ironies! The son of the underdog and outstanding murder victim of the Marcos fascist regime is practically aping the fascist dictator. Mr. Benigno S. Aquino III has declared that the Philippine population has doubled since the last time that Marcos beefed up the military and that by implication he must double the strength of the military.

Unmindful of the severe economic economic and bankruptcy of the reactionary government, he has begun to increase the budget of the military by 81 per cent. He has also increased the budget of the DWSD by 123 per cent only because it is going to be the chief partner of the military in so-called base-denial operations and forcing the evacuation of the people from their homes and land. A huge part of the national budget is for debt service. The budgets for education, health and other necessary social services have been reduced.


The Aquino regime is hell-bent on following the US Counterinsurgency Guide and intends to use the USD 434 million windfall from the Millenium Challenge Corporation as complement of the peso budget for the military. It has continued Oplan Bantay Laya and the gross and systematic violations of human rights under the Arroyo regime. It has made its own five-year operational plan for one more futile scheme of atrocities to destroy the revolutionary movement. It has condoned the bloody crimes of the Arroyo regime and has kept hundreds of political prisoners, including Morong 43.

It looks like there is no end to the chain of rulers who serve US imperialism and the local exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords and who are exceedingly corrupt, brutal and mendacious. But let us remember that the New People’s Army had only 300 automatic rifles when Marcos falsely claimed that it had 10,000 rifles in justifying the declaration of martial law in 1972. At the fall of Marcos in 1986, the NPA had grown to 6000 automatic rifles and had gained a rural base of millions in all regions of the country, except the predominantly Moro provinces.

The armed revolutionary movement was a major force that caused the downfall of Marcos but it did not have enough armed strength yet in 1986 to overpower the reactionary state of big compradors and landlords. It is not true that it had 25,000 highpowered weapons. Moreover, certain ultra-Left and Rightist opportunist currents were already undermining the armed revolutionary movement in most of the 1980s and up to 1991, resulting mainly in the loss of substantial parts of the revolutionary mass base in the rural areas.

But the Communist Party of the Philippines launched the Second Great Rectification Movement in 1992. Since then, according to publications of the CPP, the armed revolutionary movement has been revitalized and grown in strength in an all-round way. However, it has not yet gained sufficient strength to overthrow the reactionary state or to compel the formation of a coalition government of national unity, democracy, social justice, development and peace against US imperialism and the worst forms of reaction.

The CPP and the NPA have publicly announced that in the next years they will strive to advance from the stage of strategic defensive to that of strategic stalemate in the people’s war. This course of probability is well-founded because of the growing strength of the subjective forces of the revolution and the rapid deterioration of the long rotten ruling system of big compradors and landlords. As demonstrated in the 14-year long fascist dictatorship, the rule of open terror and unbridled greed can only drive the broad masses of the people to the road of armed revolution.

The revolutionary forces and the people can be expected to grow in strength through people’s war if Benigno Aquino III chooses to rule like Marcos or even like his mother, trying in vain to use military force to defeat the revolutionary forces and the people, instead of availing of the peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in order to address the roots of the civil war and lay the ground for a just and lasting peace through basic social, economic and political reforms.###

(Reposted with permission from Mr. Joma Sison)

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Source:

Sison, Jose Maria. On the Commemoration of September 21. http://www.josemariasison.org/?p=5006#more-5006



Photo credits:

Bulatlat.com. http://bulatlat.com/news/3-32/3-32-retrospect.html


 http://www.network54.com/Forum/589568/thread/1212262016/last-1212264250/Getting+to+know+our+country.....+PHILIPPINES



Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.

Massacre of Migrant Workers in Mexico near US Border Condemned by ILPS

by Prof. Jose Maria Sison

Chairperson

International League of Peoples’ Struggle

THE International Coordinating Committee and all member-organizations of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) hereby condemn the massacre in Mexico of seventy-two (72) migrant workers from various countries of Latin America and demand a thoroughgoing investigation and the rendering of justice to the hapless victims.

The barbaric crime was committed in Tamaulipas, Mexico near the US border on August 23-24 in Rancho San Fernando. Among the murdered migrant workers are 21 from Honduras, 16 from El Salvador, 6 from Guatemala, 5 or 6 from Ecuador and 1 or 2 from Brazil. An Ecuadorian survivor claims 76 migrants as victims. Other survivors include 1 Honduran in the custody of Mexican authorities, 1 Salvadoran in the custody of US immigration authorities and 1 Honduran who reportedly has gone back to Honduras.

Tamaulipas is the most militarized region in Mexico. It has the largest ground Mexican troops and the most numerous roadblocks. The high degree of militarization is financed through the US Merida Initiative, which is patterned after Plan Colombia and includes Colombian military and security advisors and trainors. The purpose of the militarization is supposedly to carry out a war against the drug trade and also to prevent migrant workers from crossing from Mexico to the US.

Murdered migrant workers

More than 60,000 migrants disappeared during the last five years and more than 10,000 migrants disappeared within a period of six months in 2009. These are borne out by investigations and reports by various concerned entities such as Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, Diocese of Saltillo, Miguel Agustin Pro Human Rights Center, Catholic Church´s network of migrant shelters and rights defenders, and the independent researcher Father Nieto.

Surviving migrants and the mothers and families of disappeared migrants have made multiple testimonies which have found their way into media reports, investigative reporting, books and documentaries since 2007.

Tamaulipas has become a notorious field of forced disappearances, massacres and unmarked graves. It is a trap devised by the US imperialist government and the Mexican government for disappearing and murdering the migrant workers who desperately try to enter the US after losing their means of livelihood in their countries of origin under the ruthless US policy of neoliberal globalization.###


(Reposted with permission from Mr. Joma Sison)

________


Source:

Sison, Jose Maria. ILPS CONDEMNS MASSACRE OF MIGRANT WORKERS IN TAMAULIPAS, MEXICO NEAR THE US BORDER. (Sept. 2010). http://www.josemariasison.org/?p=4951

Photo credit:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE67P3D520100826


Reposts are licensed to the respective authors. Otherwise, posts by Jesusa Bernardo are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Philippines.