Washington applauds Repression

E. San Juan, Jr.

With an interview of Dr. Carol P. Araullo, Chairperson of BAYAN, by Dr. Rainer Werning

Except for what may appear to be relatively minor investment of Dutch capital in the Philippines and the presence of 18,456 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in the Netherlands, nothing really connects Filipinos with the land of fabled windmills. But the events of last week may presage a change. The much-touted bonanza of consumerist globalization may have produced its most hackneyed if repulsive scenario yet, this time in the land of state-approved prostitution, where a handful of Filipino political exiles have taken refuge from the brutal regimes back home. The personnel and offices of the National Democratic Front Philippines (NDFP), legally allowed in Utrecht since the late 1970s, were raided on August 27.

The assault evokes memories of the Nazi Gestapos in an early morning raid on the Dutch resistance, except the victims this time are Filipino national democrats and socialist intellectuals.  The NDFP’s chief political consultant, Jose Maria Sison, was arrested by trickery and coercion. Behind the tulips now prowl the undercover sleuths of both the Dutch and Philippine governments who don’t seem to be hobbled by human-rights guarantees sanctified by the Constitution of the Netherlands and the European Convention of Human Rights. Jails and police brutality now await Filipino activists in the land of the atheist Spinoza (at least, of the Spinoza Museum), of free marijuana in Amsterdam and auctioned “sex work.”

Seizing on this sordid event, U.S. ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney volunteered the full force of the U.S. imperial state apparatus to persecute progressive Filipinos for imputed “terrorism.” Despite its catastrophic failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington is not too busy to ignore this minor incident. Not everyone knows of the heavy and deep involvement of U.S. troops and clandestine agents in Mindanao and other regions in the Philippines since 2002. The Pentagon’s close supervision of the Philippine military dates back to the days of Col. Edward Lansdale, whose notorious “Phoenix program” of systematic assassination of suspected enemies in Vietnam was first tried in the Philippines against the Huks in the 1950s. So the U.S. may turn out to be the “real handlers” if not the chief accomplice in this August operation.

Ambassador Kenney told reporters that the U.S. is “willing to help” prosecute Sison and anyone supporting the New People’s Army (NPA), the communist-led guerilla force labeled “terrorist’ by the U.S. State Department immediately after Sept. 11, 2001 (Philippine Inquirer, August 31, 2007). The NPA has been a headache to the neocolonial regimes since its founding in 1969. It was proclaimed to have been defeated again and again by successive administrations since the dictatorship (1972-1986) of Ferdinand Marcos, aided by General Fidel Ramos (who allowed the return of U.S. troops after the closure of Clark and Subic bases in 1991) and business tycoon Juan Ponce Enrile, sponsor of the dreaded anti-terror bill (ironically named “Human Security Act, Act 9372).

Refugees, Beware of Dutch Treats

Domiciled in that reputedly “tolerant” country since his release from prison in 1986, Sison has applied for political asylum-only to be put in the European listing of terrorists at the behest of Washington. Sison is the most well-known Filipino “Maoist” refugee in Europe. He helped re-establish the moribund Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in 1968 as a spearhead of the socialist revolution in the Philippines. In the last decade, Sison has been serving as a political adviser to the NDFP in peace talks with the Philippine government.

Despite the patently weak evidence presented to the court at The Hague last August 31, the Dutch judge extended Sison’s detention to 14 more days until a second hearing on Sept. 7. Meanwhile Sison is held incommunicado at the National Penitentiary in Schveningen where the Nazis used to imprison and torture Jews and Dutch resistance fighters during World War II. His wife Julie de Lima-Sison claims that her husband is being kept in solitary confinement and denied medicine, visits from his wife or doctor, and access to newspapers and TV. If true, this speaks volumes about Dutch liberalism and concern for human rights. As a Dutch activist W. Wijk noted after the hearing, “The persecution of Sison through the use of the judicial process exposes the rottenness and corruption of the Dutch justice and political system.”

The “liberal” Dutch treat here so far has offered us the spectacle of warrantless arrest, theft of personal belongings, and racist inferiorization of Filipinos. Not to be outdone by the Nazi Gestapos who terrorized Holland, hundreds of Dutch police and security agents raided the offices and homes of NDFP staff, broke down apartment doors, ransacked and confiscated computers, records, and assorted private property in the hunt for evidence. In this instance, pious bourgeois law quickly translated into arbitrary fascist coercion. The NDFP has been based in Utrecht since the seventies, legally representing the revolutionary forces in peace negotiations with the neocolonial government of the Philippines, talks sponsored by Norway and other states in the European community. Colluding with the corrupt, illegitimate Arroyo regime in the Philippines, Holland’s justice ministry revealed its fascist core by the deceitful method of Sison’s arrest and its violent attack on legal residents.

What is Sison’s crime? He is alleged to be guilty-not presumed innocent, as legal niceties would have it-of ordering from his remote residence in Utrecht the killing of two former associates (Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara) in 2003 and 2004. The leadership of the New People’s Army (NPA) had already publicly admitted that it was responsible for punishing the two for their counter-revolutionary crimes against the people. Whether Sison personally can order the collective leadership of the NPA or not for this specific act is a pseudo-issue for anyone familiar with the praxis of Filipino insurgent solidarity and its durable tradition. Filipino jurists such as Prof. Raul Pangalangan and others have asked whether the Philippine government has given up its sovereignty by allowing Dutch jurisdiction over a case committed on Philippine soil. What Dutch law has Sison violated?

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark commented that “the Dutch can’t determine the facts. They can only rely on what the Arroyo government tells them, and what it wants is persecution for Sison…. The demonization of Sison will destroy us if we permit it to continue” (News Release of the New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, August 31, 2007).

Sinister Conspiracy

It has been public knowledge for some time that those associates had been collaborating with the military in the persecution and murder of many underground activists. Sison has no court case on this matter in the Philippines. A similar concocted accusation against him, six Congresspersons, and other civilians (which includes the killing of the Kintanar and Tabara) have already been dismissed by the Philippine Supreme Court last July 2, 2007, as politically malicious and without merit. Recently, journalist Kenneth Guda (Jailing Joma , 31 August 2007) in reminded us of the confession of police official Col. Reynaldo Berroya that in May 2000 Kintanar and Tabara, already in the employ of the AFP, were commissioned by the government to assassinate Sison in the Netherlands. The project was botched, so the AFP/PNP and security officials had to wait until August 27.

Recently, Arroyo officials in Malacanang as well as AFP and PNP officers have admitted furnishing documents, testimonials, forensic evidence, etc. to the Dutch government, as well as financing the travel and other living expenses of the two widows (Gloria Joy Kintanar and Veronica Tabara) to the Netherlands (Inquirer.net, August 29). Arroyo officials are thus the main sponsors of the two widows who filed an affidavit against Sison with the Philippine Department of Justice. This is the basis of the case that the Dutch are pursuing (Newsbreak, 28 August 2007). Secretary Raul Gonzalez confessed that his office gave all kinds of assistance to the Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department, including names and data of NDFP personnel. In short, trumped-up charges, collusion of Dutch and Filipino officials, skullduggery and bureaucratic abuses all climaxed in the August 27 attack. The editor of the Philippine Tribune (August 30) predicted a shameful embarrassment awaiting the Dutch, “given the history of the Arroyo government’s practice of manufacturing evidence against its political foes.”

One theory why the Dutch and Filipino sleuths decided on this preemptive action is this: Sison won his case in the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg last July 11. This is arguably a landmark decision for all anti-imperialist refugees or exiles suspected of being “terrorists.” The Court annulled the May 29 decision of the Council of the European Union to retain him in its “terrorist” blacklist.  The Court condemned the European Union for violating Sison’s rights of defense and depriving him of judicial protection. This sent shivers to his enemies, exposing more legalistic fraud, thus their strategy of pre-empting any further erosion of their defenses by concocting this new accusation (the Dutch Embassy in Manila fallaciously claimed that the new “terrorist” listing of June 29 which included Sison was exempted from the Court’s decision). As Julie de Lima, Sison’s wife, accurately noted, it’s Arroyo/Bush’s dirty war in the mode of psychological warfare and solitary confinement that Arroyo and her Dutch patrons are engaged in.

Evidently, this exercise in criminalizing the Filipino popular democratic struggle is meant to physically handicap Sison and distract his followers from the more urgent TASK of unseating Arroyo in Metro Manila. It is meant to deflect attention from the extra-judicial carnage, the rising anger at Jonas Burgos’ kidnapping, the “Hello Garci” hearings, deepening economic bankruptcy, and scandals of large-scale corruption involving the higher echelons. The International Committee of DEFEND is on target with its hypothesis that Arroyo, Washington and the Dutch reactionaries “are using judicial proceedings to put political pressure on the NDFP to surrender to the Manila government.”

However, underneath these incidents we suspect a larger narrative or subtext of causality and historical determinations. To understand why this Filipino-Dutch “connection” is occurring at this specific conjuncture, we need to take into account three important developments that seem to triangulate the impending ruin of the Arroyo regime and its replacement by a new set of oligarchs who may have a more “populist” appeal to calm the turbulent masses. As I discussed in an earlier commentary (see “Seven Theses,” Bulatlat Online, April 29-May 5, 2007), the crisis and disintegration of the Arroyo clique cannot be eluded by Arroyo’s meretricious rhetoric of defeating the worker-peasant and Moro insurgencies by the end of her term in 2010. It can at best delay or soften the impact of the crash, but not permanently defer it.

So what are the parameters for understanding the August surprise?

Contradiction No. 1

First, the brutal and corrupt Arroyo regime has been severely criticized by numerous human rights organizations, among them KARAPATAN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Asian Commission on Human Rights, the World Council of Churches, and the United Nations. Arroyo has shrugged off the criticisms lodged by the president of Finland and other international monitors. UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston’s visit last February gave a stamp of authority on the judgment that President Arroyo has command responsibility over the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and its paramilitary death-squads. State terrorism has been responsible for over 900 extrajudicial killings and 200 forced disappearances or abductions of civilians since she assumed office in 2001. Despite claims that she is concerned about these horrendous events, Arroyo glorified one of the “butchers,” General Jovito Palparan, who is now being linked by two peasants with several abductions and murders.  Arroyo, together with her chief patron George W. Bush, was indicted by the Permanent People’s Tribunal last March for “crimes against humanity” committed in the pursuit of the U.S.-led “war on terror” in the interests of global profiteers.

All this is of no consequence to Arroyo were it not for the danger raised in the U.S. Congress of a real halt, if not drastic reduction, of military and economic assistance. Impelled by the crescendo of complaints, Senator Barbara Boxer and Rep. Ellen Tauscher in April and May urged Arroyo to “move quickly” against the murder and abduction of left-wing political activists. Last July, after lobbying by influential church groups, the U.S. Senate appropriations committee instructed the State Department to monitor U.S. military assistance so that it is not “misused by units of the security forces…against civilians…who are members of political opposition parties and human rights groups” (Inquirer.net, July 5, 2007).

Last month, the pressure climaxed with the highly publicized letter of 48 US lawmakers, initiated by Rep. James Overstar of Minnesota and Joseph Pitts of Pennsylvania, that expressed alarm on the atrocious human-rights situation and called on Arroyo “to prosecute the perpetrators” (Tribune Online, August 6, 2007).  At last, the regime seems to be registering pain and anxiety over possible long-term damage. The recommended token cuts of over fifty million dollars in the Foreign Military Financing, the International Military Exchange Training for the AFP and funding for the Philippine National Police (PNP), if implemented, would demoralize Arroyo’s supporters, particularly the generals and hirelings dependent on their share. It would also prove that Arroyo cannot “deliver,” thus lending credibility to her essentially hollow claims of economic progress and stability.

Contradiction No. 2

Second, the defeat of the Arroyo camp in the May elections despite the usual rampant cheating supervised by Arroyo flunkeys in the Commission of Elections (COMELEC) exposed the inherent weakness of the current bloc of the neocolonial elite. It revealed the flaws in the hegemonizing effort to unite the most backward, malefic oligarchs. Fearing that that the detained ex-president Joseph Estrada might rally his followers, many of whom got re-elected, to a repeat of “People Power 2”-the mass demonstrations in 2001 that unseated him and catapulted Arroyo to power-when a verdict of his case is handed down in the near future, Arroyo ordered thousands of troops to saturate Metro Manila and environs in addition to already militarized urban zones. This is an unequivocal symptom of panic and political bankruptcy.

Further, the election of Senator Antonio Trillanes, one of the officers who led the aborted “Oakwood mutiny,” is a clear repudiation of Arroyo’s illegitimate rule.  As former president of the University of the Philippines Francisco Nemenzo observed, the presence of civic-minded nationalist officers inside and outside the Establishment who oppose Arroyo may not support her advisers’ view that the military is always political neutral: “The military is either partisan for the elite or partisan for the people.” While the other maverick officer and elected Senator, former Col. Gregorio Honasan, may have been “pardoned” as a compromise by the Arroyo bloc, Trillanes and other principled officers (beholden to other political factions of the elite, or nationalists in their own right) still pose a serious threat to the prolongation of Arroyo’s tenure. The horrific slaughter of AFP troops in Basilan and scarcely suppressed criticism from the ranks are a forecast of further mutinous upheavals from the ranks (on the Moro crisis, more below). Could bribery, threats, and concessions allow Arroyo to complete her term?

Meanwhile, Arroyo’s favorite bureaucrat, COMELEC chair, Benjamin Abalos, Sr., is now implicated in one of the most outrageous bribery scandals in Philippine history. It involves the Chinese firm China ZTE Corp. which won a government contract for $1.6 billion without any rival bidding. Named accomplices are Arroyo’s appointees, among them Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza, Finance Secretary Margarito Teves, Trade Secretary Peter Favila, and the aforementioned Abalos, among others. But this is nothing new to Arroyo; it has been her modus operandi since she entered public service.

At this point, it would not be anticlimactic to mention that before Sison’s arrest, the Netherlands won a valuable multimillion-dollar oil exploration contract from the Arroyo administration. Rep. Crispin Beltran revealed that an oil exploration company with significant Dutch participation, Premier Oil, was granted by the Arroyo regime the right to drill for oil within a million hectares in the Ragay Gulf of the Bicol region. Aside from this, Dutch investments (from oil to banking, insurance, electronics, etc.) are expanding rapidly. It is now the Philippines’ third largest trading partner, and the second largest foreign investor in the country, hence its willingness to support the criminal Arroyo regime for the sake of profit and imperial self-aggrandizement. After all, Arroyo has turned over to the Dutch capitalists the gas reserves of Malampaya and the indigenous people’s ancestral lands, hence the quid pro quo.

The most worrisome is the Supreme Court Justice Reynato Puno’s show of independence from the executive branch. Last July Puno initiated a summit on human rights to which civil-society activists and left-wing groups were invited. Like the Melo Commission and the government’s Human Rights Commission, this exercise in ritualized respect for “the rule of law” would have been just that, an inutile exercise, were it not for Puno’s courage in protecting two escaped peasants, the Manalo brothers, from testifying to their reprehensible imprisonment and torture by the military, and their first-hand witnessing of military complicity in nefarious crimes of kidnapping and extra-judicial murder. Earlier, several top generals expressed willingness to offer substantive evidences of such complicity in the process of Congressional or Supreme Court inquiries.

In addition, perhaps inspired by the global monitoring of the human-rights situation, various groups (aside from BAYAN and KARAPATAN) have finally gathered their forces to petition the Supreme Court to declare the reprehensible Human Security Act RA 9372 as unconstitutional. Aside from religious and church groups, lawyers and lawmakers (among them Senators Jamby Madrigal, Serge Osmena and former senator Bobby Tanada) have argued that the Act would give license for those temporarily in power, or in control of State apparatuses, to label any act as “terrorist” if it expresses “a demand deemed unlawful by the government.” Basically the Act would suppress the constitutional right to freedom of expression and of assembly for the redress of the people’s grievances. Authored by the right-wing Senator Enrile, who was a fanatical persecutor of critics of Marcos authoritarianism, the Act is modeled after the infamous USA Patriot Act and similar measures aimed at warrantless arrests, surveillance, and repression of democratic rights and civil liberties.

Not to be neglected is the recent passage in the Philippine Congress of a bill penalizing State agents for forcible “disappearances” and abductions, putting pressure on the Senate and Arroyo to ratify and sign the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances (so far Arroyo has withheld her endorsement). In the light of the revelations over the abduction and torture of Pastor Berlin Guerrero and the military kidnapping of Jonas Burgos, two college students, and other highly esteemed civic leaders, the well-organized campaign against extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations is gearing up with full force, mobilizing millions not only in the Philippines but in the shifting diaspora of about 10 million OFWS around the world. Indeed, given the fact that its annual remittance of $12 to $14 billion to the government treasury is the single reason why Arroyo can meet its huge foreign debt payments, the OFWs can deliver fatal blows on U.S. imperialism and its local subalterns if they can be fully united and mobilized for national-democratic liberation.

The splits within the elite have undermined any claim of Arroyo to moral or ideological leadership of the U.S.-subservient local oligarchy.  The formation of such a broad consensus critical of Arroyo’s attempts to suppress any public protest against her corruption and cheating, threatens Arroyo’s monopoly on State power.  With a possible revival of impeachment moves coinciding with the coming out of military officials involved in the “Hello Garci” spying (the secret taping of Arroyo’s manipulation of votes during the presidential elections of 2004), Arroyo cannot rally the legislative branch to support her failed policies on the economy (the Philippines has regressed to a status well behind Malaysia and Thailand) and the two militarily undefeatable insurgencies. Whether impeachment proceeds or not, the investigation of corruption scandals, the final judgment over the Estrada case, the challenge to the Human Security Act and other schemes, plus the Moro and peasant-worker rebellions exploding everywhere–all these trends, exacerbated by a severely eroded agricultural-industrial base, are bound to converge in the inexorable exhaustion and collapse of the Arroyo presidency.

Contradiction No. 3

Finally, the third fatal blow to Arroyo’s dominance will come not from the New People’s Army, nor from Sison and the NDFP-although one should not underestimate their ideological elan as a catalyzing point of departure-but from the Bangsa Moro nation, arguably the most victimized group in Philippine history. I am referring not to any particular group, whether the Moro National Liberation Front or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, both of which have provided formidable if uneven leadership to the Moro struggle for cultural dignity, political self-determination and communal justice.  I have in mind the quite ethnically diverse communities of more than six to ten million people of Islamic faith who, given their heroic resistance to Spanish, American and chauvinist neocolonial oppression, have collectively embodied the spirit of liberation and justice in our region of the world (see my chapter on the Moro struggle in my recently released book, U.S. Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).  All Filipinos (if we might claim to speak editorially here) owe the Moro people tribute for their sacrifices, endurance, and collective solidarity in the fight against imperialism and corporate globalization. This giant is yet to fully flex its muscles; it is capable of overcoming U.S. Special Forces together with its mercenary AFP/PNP helots.

U.S. military intervention heightened after 9/11 when Bush sent thousands of U.S. Special Forces to the Philippines in early 2003 under the pretext of joint war exercises called “Balikatan.” Both Marcos and Estrada vowed to crush the Moro aspiration for self-determination in their “total war” policy, but to no avail. Spellbound by the same imbecilic or addlebrained experts on terrorism from the military and bureaucratic intelligentsia, Arroyo has fallen into the same path of ignominious disaster. In the last four years of Arroyo’s tenure, utter barbarism and havoc–with thousands of innocent civilians driven from their homes and farms, turned into famished refugees or killed outright in the engagements with the Abu Sayyaf (ABS)– have characterized the government’s obscene treatment of the Moro struggle for independence (often deplored as fanatical “separatism”).  The recurrent turmoil in Basilan island, southern Philippines, is a symptom of the larger cynicism and hypocrisy of the elite toward the plight of the Moros (see the insightful article of Carlos Conde, “Abu Sayyaf in Basilan: A Deadly Redux,” in Bulatlat Online, Aug. 26-Sept. 1, 2007).

How do we explain this chaotic confusion?  Arroyo’s militarist-chauvinist method of stopping what she calls “mayhem and bloodsport” cannot be prettified by tawdry humanitarian gestures. Arroyo’s impromptu gifts and gratuitous donations only prove the cynical program for resolving historically profound and complex sociopolitical problems that underlie the deprivation and desperation of the Moro communities, not to speak of the ethnic Lumads and other indigenous peoples in Mindanao and Sulu. While hypocritically claiming to be committed to peaceful negotiations with the MILF, monitored by Malaysia and the Organization of Islamic Conference, the Arroyo regime-to all indications-has no coherent, long-range strategy of solving the social, economic and cultural demands and needs of the Moro nation. Its only approach to this most crucial problem in Philippine society is military-technocratic violence, aided by U.S. Special Forces, the CIA and FBI, and the diplomatic sorcery of US State Department officials such as John Negroponte and Admiral Timothy Keating of the US Pacific Command, both recent visitors praising Arroyo’s savage onslaught on the Moro resistance in Jolo and Basilan.

Invincible Bangsa Moro Nation

Here I can only speculate briefly on two reasons that have bedeviled Arroyo and her advisers on the Moro revolution.  First, Mindanao is not only the last remaining undeveloped economic frontier of the country, incalculably rich with untapped natural resources, minerals, and human labor. It also provides the ideal forward staging ground for U.S. military forces intervening in the “hot spots” of the Middle East and Asia as a whole. Aside from an impending confrontation with Iran or North Korea, U.S. strategic interests (always impelled by profit-driven corporate gangsterism) dictate their scrutiny of what is happening in Indonesia and IndoChina as part of a long-range strategy to circumscribe China’s power, China (allied with a revitalized Russia) being the real contender for U.S. hegemony in this part of the world. Reports of huge U.S. investments in military infrastructure in Mindanao, as well as experiments in unconventional warfare, reinforce the theory of prolonged U.S. intervention in the Philippines.  The second reason is the need to sustain the myth of the Abu Sayyaf (and by extension the Jemiah Islamiyah chiefly based in Indonesia) as the main rationale for continued U.S. military “exercises” and permanent training of Filipino officers and soldiers for atrocious genocide, for unconscionable exploitation of the natural environment and its inhabitants.

In the annals of neocolonial history in the Philippines, and perhaps for third world countries in the region, perhaps the ABS will remain one of the most enigmatic and hilarious hoaxes, if it were not a deadly serious affliction to millions of Moros as well as for Filipinos as a whole. It is public knowledge that this group was formed by a collusion of military officers, public officials, and businessmen to divide the Moro National Liberation Front that was leading the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship from 1972 up to 1996. It was also a lucrative business deal. While some of its members may have been trained in Indonesia or Afghanistan during the Reagan period as potential manpower for the anti-Soviet mujahedin, the majority were and continue to be disaffected, lumpen elements (with a handful of religious teachers or mentors) egged on by local politicians or warlords, and tolerated or encouraged by regional military officials who have benefited from its kidnapping-for-ransom business. In short, the ABS is distinctly a local problem with a historically specific provenance in the Philippine economic, political and cultural terrain.

It is really remarkable how the dead in the southern Philippines can resurrect after periodic intervals. From the administrations of Ramos to Estrada and Arroyo, the government has announced repeatedly that the ABS has been decimated, curtailed, and finally defeated. This ritualized alibi persists ad nauseam. Arroyo and her security council are quick to grab the opportunity to boast of their definitive extirpation of the ABS. But like the mythical hydra-headed monster, the ABS rears its head every time, as it did last July 10 when it killed 14 Marines as a result of a mistake-the soldiers failed to heed the warnings of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) not to venture into their territory in Basilan.  Originally, the troops were supposedly in search for ABS partisans who kidnapped an Italian missionary priest. However, the truth is that Arroyo and her clique may have wanted to instigate heavy fighting with the MILF, labelling its encounters as attempts to suppress “terrorists.” This also applies to the heavy fighting in Jolo and other areas of Sulu islands which has been raging since February 2005 when over 100 soldiers, including two colonels, were killed by fierce MNLF resistance by government attacks in their territory. Arroyo has to shore up her credentials as a bonafide leader of the U.S.-sponsored global war on terror, thus deserving material and political support from Washington/Pentagon.

The AFP in the last two months have suffered the largest number of casualties so far, disturbing the rank and file, as well as the hundreds of widows and orphans of the dead. It is not Basilan that is the target but Jolo and the Sulu island chain where MNLF forces are entrenched and whose reach encompasses the strategic region of Davao and Cotabato.  This is where the issue of autonomy will be decided. While its former leader Nur Musuari earlier compromised with the government in 1996 when he signed the final papers of its agreement to join the government (the negotiation over the treaty began in Tripoli during the Marcos dictatorship, with Libyan strongman Khadaffy’s sponsorship), significant numbers of the MNLF bypassed Misuari in order to continue the Bangsa Moro struggle for independence.

Meanwhile, with the MNLF’s decline, the MILF, with a more openly religious orientation compared to Misuari’s secular program, took up the leadership of the armed struggle against the Manila government.  It is with the leadership of the MILF that Arroyo is now negotiating, even though a dual policy of fighting and talking seems to have been adopted and practiced by both sides. Even if a truce or treaty is signed, this will not solve the enduring problem of exploitation, oppression, and lack of any dignified viable future for millions of Moros and indigenous communities in the southern Philippines, not to speak of thousands of impoverished Christian peasants and workers inhabiting the same region.

The Abu Sayyaf is surely bound to outlast Arroyo and her tutors.  So long as Arroyo and her generals, as well as their Washington advisers, persist in judging the ABS as a military problem, or an isolated case of anomie or loss of identity and cultural status, as some American anthropologists and social scientists believe, the ABS will thrive and attract followers. After all, so many of its handlers are benefiting from the kidnappings and plunder. This is in addition to the U.S. and Arroyo’s need for an enemy as vicious as these “terrorists” who allegedly behead their dead enemies.  The people who live in Basilan, Jolo or any part of Mindanao know why the ABS exists and remains: the misery of everyday life from exploitation of land and other resources by transnational corporations, the immense poverty and desperation of the thousands who feel there is no future. That is why U.S. officials find it necessary for them to say that their heavily armed Special Forces are not just fighting the terrorists, they are also “winning hearts and minds” (the old tired formula from the Vietnam carnage) by digging wells, building bridges, curing the sick, etc.  Stop-gap solutions, charitable work, with no participation on the part of the communities-such is Arroyo’s formula for thwarting “terrorists.”

Self-Determination is the Key

Due to lack of space, I will simply quote the conviction of Abhoud Syed Lingga, the executive director of the Institute for Bangsa Moro Studies, a non-profit research group devoted to Filipino Muslims, concerning the present situation: “The problem in Basilan or Sulu cannot be isolated from the overall problem of the Bangsamoro people…. I have doubt on the effectiveness of the government strategy…because it does not address the grievances and aspirations of the people. The best way to fight terrorism is to address people’s grievances and to open democratic avenues where people can pursue peacefully their political aspirations. Self-determination for Muslims will open the windows of opportunity to resolve the long-drawn conflict peacefully” (quoted by Conde in article cited earlier).

In the context of this wider perspective, Sison’s arrest will not stop the National Democratic Front nor the New People’s Army from the protracted complex struggle for national democracy and genuine sovereignty. Neither a picnic nor a dinner party, as the old adage goes, the progress of the revolution does not depend on individual leaders or heroes, however important their contribution might be. The torture of Sison will not lead to the capitulation of the CPP or NPA, as Arroyo’s advisers expect; nor will it diminish its powerful appeal or influence. It will certainly dampen if not halt the peace negotiations. It surely will not postpone Arroyo’s downfall.  BAYAN chairperson Dr. Carol Araullo summed up the thrust of these events in a news release during a protest in front of the Netherlands Embassy in Metro Manila last August 30: “It is clear that the Arroyo regime really has no intention of talking peace.  It is only interested in waging all-out war.  This is not just about Joma now. This is an attack on the Filipino people and their aspirations for a just and lasting peace.” Given her distinguished leadership of BAYAN, one of the largest coalition of progressive groups in the Philippines today, and her vital role in the united front against the state terrorism of Arroyo, the U.S. and the Dutch reactionaries, Araullo’s commentary in her column “Streetwise” in the Business World magazine (August 31-September 1, 2007) deserves to be quoted at length:

The Arroyo regime is blinded by its denial of that great lesson of history-that revolutions bred by social injustice and oppression cannot be defeated, much less be eradicated by the state’s iron hand and that brutal suppression of revolutionary leaders only constitute temporary setbacks. Many more invariably stand up to take their place in the frontlines of the struggle.   The Netherlands government thinks that by colluding with the Philippine and U.S. governments to politically persecute Mr. Sison and the NDFP and to scuttle the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines)-NDFP peace negotiations, it has done away with a big thorn in its throat, a political embarrassment as well as a pesky obstacle to Dutch multinational corporations’ unbridled profit-making in the country…. The Dutch has clearly interfered in the matter of the sovereign right of the Filipino people, the right to determine its political affairs including the political settlement of internal armed conflicts.  Its shameful role in this outrageous episode shall, in due time, be thoroughly exposed and it shall consequently be held accountable.”

INTERVENTION FROM THE BOOONDOCKS:
An Interview with DR. CAROL P. ARAULLO by Dr. RAINER WERNING

Leading in the defense of Sison and other persecuted Filipino refugees/exiles today is the militant coalition of civic organizations, BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance) in the Philippines, with affiliates around the world. Its chairperson is Dr. Carol P. Araullo, an exemplary Filipino progressive intellectual and nationalist organizer. She has a long brilliant record of political activism, dating back from her student days at the University of the Philippines and as a doctor engaged in community medicine while opposing the Marcos dictatorship. As former executive director of the Philippines Peace Center, she promoted the peace negotiations between the Manila government and the NDF. She acts as global vice chair for external affairs of the International League of People’s Struggle, co-convenor of the Gloria-Step-Down-Movement, and other broad alliances. Her regular column, “Streetwise” in the Manila journal, Business World, has provided lucid, insightful analysis of current developments (I recommend in particular her two articles in its August issue on the recent fighting in Mindanao-Sulu, “The crux of the Moro problem” and “Tell that to the Marines,” accessible from her Website and from Bulatlat).  Her commentaries may be taken to represent one of the most provocative and sophisticated trends in current progressive circles in the Philippines today.

Dr. Carol P. Araullo, together with Representative Satur Ocampo and other progressive
militants, in a recent rally against the Arroyo regime in Manila, Philippines

The following is a transcript of an interview of Dr. Araullo (CPA) conducted by Dr. Rainer Werning (RW) during her attendance at the Permanent People’s Tribunal Session 2 on the Philippines held at The Hague, the Netherlands, last March 2007. Dr. Werning is a distinguished political scientist and journalist teaching at the Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung of Bad Honnef, Germany. He has lectured in various countries, UK, Japan and recently in the Philippines sponsored by the Goethe Institute and other universities.  He interviewed Jose Maria Sison in a notable book, The Philippine Revolution: The Leader’s View (1989), and co-edited with Nicklas Reese the highly useful Handbuch Philippinen (2006).  This interview (slightly edited here for grammar and coherence) was recently aired over German public radio and published here for the first time.

(For other articles about Dr. Araullo, see Political Affairs , Homefront  and Socialist Viewpoint )
RW: It is now more than 30 years ago since the ouster of the Marcos dictatorship (1972-86). What, in your viewpoint, constitutes the chief differences between Marcos’s rule and the GMA administration?

CPA:  The fall of the Marcos dictatorship was supposed to have restored democratic processes and institutions in my country. We did not expect it to overhaul radically the social stratification, the wide gap between the rich and the poor, the stranglehold of the elite on economic and political power. But at least there were high hopes then that civil political liberties and human rights would be upheld and promoted under a so-called democratic regime.

But under the current government of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, which ironically came to power on the heels of a people’s uprising that toppled a corrupt and oppressive government (that of former President Joseph Estrada), the hope did not materialize. Arroyo’s regime is proving itself to be as brutal, as vicious, as terribly fascist as that of the former dictator. What is exceptional is that it does not have the honesty and decency to call “a spade a spade.”  It engages in oppressive policies in political repression under the guise of democratic processes, under the guise of a rule of law. Mr. Marcos at least declared “martial law” and made clear that he was an authoritarian leader who had control of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and would utilize the AFP to impose his will. Mrs. Arroyo pretends to be a democratic leader.

RW: I understand there were several executive orders and laws passed under the Arroyo administration that turned out to be quite oppressive. Could you name such orders and laws and tell us what the essentials of these laws are?

CPA: There is a law that was carried over by the previous Marcos dictatorship. It is a law that purports to uphold free speech and assembly–it dates back to Marcos’ martial law era-but instead it is used consistently and persistently by the Arroyo administration to curtail freedom of assembly. It is used in a very conscious effort to preempt the massing up of people in protest against her policies and against her government in general. It is deployed to preempt a wave of mass demonstrations and protests that could culminate in an armed uprising in the cities that could topple her government.

As you know, the Arroyo regime is undergoing a crisis of legitimacy. It is under a cloud of having engaged in massive and systematic fraud in the last presidential election. Now this law, while guaranteeing the fundamental right to freedom of assembly and to seek redress from government, has an obnoxious provision: it states that a permit is required to be applied for and gotten from local government officials purportedly to insure that traffic inconvenience and other forms of disorder are avoided. Now this provision has been misinterpreted by all governments after Marcos–much more so by Arroyo’s government–as a no-permit no-rally policy. Consequently, the arbitrary refusal of a mayor to give demonstrators a permit has in actuality curtailed the basic freedom of assembly.

Mrs. Arroyo carried this repressive policy a step further by proclaiming by executive fiat the so-called “calibrated pre-emptive response” decree which she announced on Sept. 21, 2005, the anniversary of the declaration of Marcos’ “Martial Law.” This decree essentially magnified the maximum intolerance policy of government to any forms of street protest, workers’ strikes, or any kind of democratic expression of opposition by citizens to government policies. Essentially, it was a way of cutting short any attempt to mass people up and to stage a mass demonstration.

By Feb. 2006, this reached its height during Arroyo’s proclamation of Emergency Rule, Proclamation 1017, which was bodily lifted from Marcos’ dictatorial Proclamation 1021. Arroyo’s proclamation essentially mimicked the provisions of Marcos’ “Martial Law,” but stopped short of calling itself “Martial Law.” When this was announced by the Arroyo government, a big, big demonstration scheduled on that day was violently dispersed and for one week, no demonstrations were allowed at all.

Now, these are, shall we say, bits and pieces of discreet laws that attempt to undercut the fundamental rights of citizens, but now an anti-terrorism bill has just recently been passed by Congress. It is ironically or euphemistically titled “Human Security Act.” It is a compilation of oppressive provisions that is patterned after other anti-terrorist legislations such as the USA Patriot Act. It was lobbied for by the US embassy and the main authors were architects of the Marcos’ martial-law regime. It permits warrantless arrests, it allows being held under police custody and interrogations for three days without any charges being filed. Even if a person has been able to avail of bail, and despite the fact the current law itself says that a person can not be detained if there is no sufficient evidence against him, under this “Human Security Act,” the person accused could be put under house arrest and prevented from using any form of communication, whether internet, telephone or whatsoever.

Worse, it sets up an anti-terrorism council which is essentially composed of the current members of the Cabinet Oversight Committee  On National Security, the heads of the AFP and of the Philippine National Police, the National Security Adviser, the head of the Local Government, Cabinet Secretary–persons who have a military mindset. These people will now compose the anti-terrorism council headed by the president. And they will have the power to apply to any court to call for the illegalization or proscription of any organization on the basis of whatever they say, and so these organizations are deemed “terrorists.”

As you know, there is no anti-subversion law anymore in the Philippines–it was repealed during the presidency of Fidel Ramos. The intent was to allow the Left–Communists if you will–to enter into the legal parliamentary arena, no longer to be illegalized. Of course, armed rebels are still illegal and can be punished as rebels. But with the anti-terrorism bill, we expect that New People’s Army and its leadership, the Communist Party of the Philippines, will be proscribed as terrorist organizations. And legal organizations or progressive organizations that are being smeared, up to this day, as front organizations of the CPP will be in practice treated as guilty by association. Or eventually, under the anti-terrorism bill, they will be proscribed as terrorist organizations.

So we are anticipating a massive crackdown after the election in May when the bill comes into effect. In addition, the president has issued Executive Order 464 which basically requires all government officials to get permission from the office of the president …

RW: (Mic problem) We start again …

CPA: Executive Order 464 was issued by Arroyo in September 2005 about the same time that the policy called “Calibrated Pre-emptive Response” was announced. Basically, Order 464 disallows any official in the executive department at any level to appear before any congressional investigation on any subject matter without getting prior explicit approval from the Office of the President. This includes military officials, police officials, officials of any of the departments under the Executive. What is the rationale for this Executive Order?

We believe– and it has been proven that it was used–it is being used by Mrs. Arroyo to prevent any kind of investigation by Congress of any corruption, scam, any illegal use of government funds, any involvement of high government officials in election fraud, or any entering into any kind of agreement that undermines national sovereignty–like the agreement entered into by the national security adviser with a US private company to lobby Congress in a campaign to change the constitution of the Republic of the Philippines.

In other words, this order is designed not just to stifle but prevent from the outset any kind of relatively independent investigation into the shenanigans of the government. And the idea here is to deprive the opposition and the progressive movement from being able to utilize any issue that can spark public disaffection with government and possibly spark public outrage and massive protests against the government.

RW: Carol, what’s your analysis of the ongoing counter-insurgency plan…Oplan Bantay Laya. I understand there are two phases.

CPA: No…the government recently announced Oplan 2– Operation Plan Bantay Laya 2– which is actually not a phase but a new Oplan along the same lines. Basically, Oplan Bantay Laya 1, which started in 2002 if I am not mistaken, the period for the implementation of Oplan Bantay Laya 1 just ended, and they have not been able to achieve the objectives of that counter-insurgency program…That is why they have re-issued it under Oplan Bantay Laya 2. It is essentially the same, it has the same objectives and features as previous counter-insurgency programs; they are patterned after the counter-insurgency programs of the US military that were tried out in Vietnam, for example. And in Latin American countries, dubbed as the secret “dirty war” in Latin American countries.

These counterinsurgency schemes are simple to understand. They basically utilize military forces to clear an area of guerilla activity and then to hold that area by means of destroying the political infrastructure and support of the guerillas in that area and introducing socio-economic alleviation programs and basically turning the population away from support for the guerillas. But this model of counter-insurgency has failed and it has been proven incapable of achieving its objectives in destroying the armed revolutionary movement and the support of its mass base. However, it is now being re-cycled by the current government with a distinct and very brutal, very vicious component and that is the systematic targeting of progressive groups and activists for the purpose of intelligence gathering, harassment, surveillance and eventual filing of trump-up charges of rebellion and other criminal activities. Or worse, these concerned citizens or groups are set up as targets for death squads that are under the direction and control of the military.

This is the most reprehensible, the most terrible, aspect of this new counter-insurgency program in that it fails to stem the tide of armed guerilla activity. It is being turned against non-combatants, civilian populations and mass organizations of the poor and exploited, who by means of the legal arena, by means of the protest movement and by entering into Congress through the elections, are pushing a progressive agenda. The Arroyo regime’s objective is to annihilate this kind of legal progressive opposition to the government–to incapacitate it by basically killing people or putting them in jail.

RW: From what we gather, the influence of the military is quite pronounced. Would you have any figures how many military people are currently placed in strategically high positions in the government?

CPA: There are figures but, sometimes, we stop counting. The trend is clear. For example, there was supposed to be a clamor to put civilians at the head of the national defense department, but now it is occupied by an ex-general. The telecommunications portfolio is held by an ex-general, also the department of–many generals are now serving as consultants or under secretaries in the Office of the National Security adviser. Many of them are also in the Department of Interior and Local Government, they are spread out. And Mrs. Arroyo clearly is employing retired generals who, after retirement are immediately assigned to civilian positions– either as sinecures or as strategic locations–to put them into strategic control for the administration.

Because it is a beleaguered government, an illegitimate government, the Arroyo regime is reviled by a majority of the people. All the surveys show that people want Arroyo either to resign or be removed from power. We have a government that is more and more relying on the military and police to stay in power as well as the support of the United States, the business community. And as it holds on to power, it becomes more and more tenuous. It will rely more and more on the armed forces, that is why she is giving them all the money all the leeway… Arroyo has clearly made a policy of impunity for any kind of infraction of the generals… not only with respect to violations of human rights but also massive corruption in the military. In other words, Mrs. Arroyo is being propped up by the military that may soon devour her if she does not watch out.

RW: Do you feel harassed in your daily activities?

CPA: Yes, even during the time of Marcos, especially in the later years of the Marcos dictatorship when the mass movement, the guerilla movement and the international public opinion had turned against the Marcos dictatorship, if you have the support of the church, or if you are a professional…let us say you are known in the international human rights community, you have some kind of mantel of protection. But now the government appears to be …very defiant of all of these considerations in making its decisions about implementing a counterinsurgency program that is bound to generate a lot of protests, and a lot of …there would be lot of political fall-out on the basis of this program. So that makes us very, very vulnerable. Either you would be taken out by a death squad, a death squad that is not necessarily politically sensitive or even mindful of political consideration before they pull the trigger. Or else, you are set up for criminal charges, a situation that can keep you in jail until you are old and grey and are hardly a political threat to the government. So we feel insecure, we are threatened and we try to find ways to minimize the risks but, yes, we are very, very vulnerable.

E. SAN JUAN, Jr. works with the Philippine Forum, New York, and the Philippines Cultural Studies Center in Connecticut. He was recently a fellow at the Rockefeller Study Center in Bellagio, Italy, and Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. His recent books are Filipinos Everywhere (IBON), In the Wake of Terror: Class, Race, Nation, Ethnicity in the Postmodern World (Lexington Books), US Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines (Palgrave Macmillan), andBALIKBAYANG SINTA: An E. San Juan Reader (Ateneo de Manila University Press). He is a member of the American PEN Center, National Writers Union, and the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism.

Michael A. Lebowitz

‘Save me from these so-called Marxists who think they have the key to history in their back pocket! Save me from disciples like those who followed Hegel and Ricardo!’ Few people understood better than Marx how a theory disintegrates when the point of departure for theoretical work is ‘no longer reality, but the new theoretical form in which the master had sublimated it.’

Happily for him, Marx was spared the spectacle of disciples scandalized by the ‘often paradoxical relationship of this theory to reality’ and accordingly driven to demonstrate that his theory is still correct by ‘crass empiricism’, ‘phrases in a scholastic way’, and ‘cunning argument’. Lucky Marx who (if Engels is to be believed) was before all else a revolutionary whose ‘real mission in life was to contribute, in one way or another, to the overthrow of capitalist society’ – he missed the affirmation by 20th Century scholastics that what the working class really needs for its emancipation is proof that he was right all along about the transformation of values into prices and the tendency for the rate of profit to fall!

How can we today follow Marx’s mission and contribute to the overthrow of capitalism? How can we help the working class become ‘conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation’?

In a talk several years ago, subsequently published in Monthly Review (June 2004) with the title, ‘What Keeps Capitalism Going?’, I stressed two main points. Firstly, if we understand anything from Capital, it should be that capital tends to produce the working class it needs – workers who look upon its requirements ‘as self-evident natural laws’. Why? The point is really simple: (a) the wage necessarily appears as a payment for a quantity of labour, thereby extinguishing every trace of exploitation; (b) all notions of justice and fairness are based upon this appearance of an exchange of labour for money; (c) capital, the product of workers, necessarily appears as the independent contribution of capitalists and thereby deserving of a separate return; and (d) workers, as individuals within capitalist relations, really are dependent upon capital in order to meet their own needs and, indeed, are dependent upon particular capitals.

Accordingly, in the absence of an understanding of the nature of capital, even when workers struggle, these struggles are for ‘fairness’, for justice within capitalist relations but not justice beyond capitalism – i.e., at best, they reflect a trade-union or social democratic consciousness which does not challenge the logic of capital. Given, then, that the spontaneous response of people in struggle does not (and cannot) go beyond capital, the responsibility of Marxists remains (as always) that of communicating the essence of capital to workers and thus the necessity to go beyond it. But, it’s not enough.

My second point was that ‘For those within the grasp of capital, however, more is necessary than simply to understand the nature of capital and its roots in exploitation. People need to believe that a better world is possible. They need to feel that there is an alternative – one worth struggling for. In this respect, describing the nature of a socialist alternative – and analysing the inadequacies and failures of 20th Century efforts – is an essential part of the process by which people can be moved to put an end to capitalism.’

Can anyone seriously deny this second point? Given the failures of ‘real socialism’ and the success of capital thus far in the battle of ideas – capital’s success in convincing people that ‘there is no alternative’, contributing to the overthrow of capitalism requires us to demonstrate to working people that there is a socialist alternative to the barbarism of capitalism.

Socialism for the 21st Century

There is a spectre haunting capitalism now. It’s not the socialism of the 20th Century – either real or theoretical. Rather, it is a challenge to capital that starts from the needs of human beings. At the core of the concept of socialism for the 21st Century is a focus upon human development. Marxists need to understand this spectre and its centrality to Marx’s thought.

The term, socialism for the 21st Century, entered general currency with Hugo Chavez’s declaration at the 2005 World Social Forum about the need to reinvent socialism: ‘We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything.’

As I indicate in Build it Now: Socialism for the 21st Century (Monthly Review Press, 2006), that vision – although not identified yet with socialism – was already present in the Bolivarian Constitution (1999) which talks about ‘ensuring overall human development’, and about ‘developing the creative potential of every human being and the full exercise of his or her personality in a democratic society.’ And, it was articulated when Chavez talked in 2003 about the nature of the ‘social economy’ which ‘bases its logic on the human being, on work, that is to say, on the worker and the worker’s family, that is to say, on the human being’ – an economy which ‘generates mainly use-value’ and whose purpose is ‘the construction of the new man, of the new woman, of the new society.’

This is a vision which rejects the perverse logic of capital and the idea that the criterion for what is good is what is profitable. It rejects the linking of people through exchange of commodities, where our criterion for satisfying the needs of others is whether this benefits us as individuals or groups of individuals. Istvan Meszaros expressed all this clearly in his Beyond Capital when he drew upon Marx to talk about a society in which, rather than the exchange of commodities, there is an exchange of activities based upon communal needs and communal purposes. And, Chavez explicitly embraced Meszaros’ perspective in July 2005 when he said ‘we have to create a communal system of production and consumption, a new system.’ We have to build, he insisted, ‘this communal system of production and consumption, to help to create it, from the popular bases, with the participation of the communities, through the community organizations, the cooperatives, self-management and different ways to create this system.’

The concept of socialism for the 21st Century which has been evolving in Venezuela combines three characteristics: (a) social ownership of the means of production which is a basis for (b) social production organised by workers in order to (c) satisfy communal needs and communal purposes. (I develop this point in ‘New Wings for Socialism’ in Monthly Review, April 2007.) At the heart of this concept and permeating all its elements, though, is the essential link between human development and praxis.

That focus on practice was present from the outset in the Bolivarian Constitution, which insists that participation and protagonism by people is ‘the necessary way of achieving the involvement to ensure their complete development, both individual and collective.’ and in the identification of democratic planning and participatory budgeting at all levels of society and ‘self-management, co-management, cooperatives in all forms’ as examples of ‘forms of association guided by the values of mutual cooperation and solidarity.’ With the current development of communal councils (representing 200-400 families in urban areas) as the cell of a new form of state and with proposals for workers councils and worker management, there is definitely a deepening of the commitment being made in Venezuela to what Chavez called ‘a new type of socialism, a humanist one.’

Yet, as I indicated in Build it Now, given the many obstacles (both internal and external) to this process, it is not clear whether Venezuela’s attempt will succeed. Nevertheless, socialism is back on the agenda, a socialism for the 21st Century which has at its core Marx’s concept of ‘revolutionary practice’ – ‘the coincidence of the changing of circumstance and of human activity or self-change.’

All this should be recognized as a break with thinking about socialism in the 20th Century. In that view, socialism was considered to be the first post-capitalist stage – a society with its own specific characteristics and laws, which was distinguished from the higher stage, communism. Having passed beyond the exploitation and irrationality of capitalism, socialism would ensure the rapid development of productive forces and thus would prepare the ground for the communist society of abundance.

While this conception (and the resulting stress upon productive forces) corresponded to the immediate concerns of societies attempting to break with capitalism yet surrounded by more powerful capitalist enemies, the separate stage of socialism was presented as Marx’s view of the necessary step that all people would have to take. Marx’s own comments about the inherent ‘defects’ of the new society, further, were taken as a justification for building upon the basis of self-interest – ‘to each according to his contribution’ would have to be the rule until the development of productive forces had created the society of abundance.

But that wasn’t Marx’s perspective. Rather than two separate stages, Marx understood that the new society necessarily develops through a process – a process in which it transcends the economic, social, and intellectual defects it has inherited from capitalism. And, the specific defect that he identified was not that productive forces were too low but, rather, the nature of the human beings produced in the old society with the old ideas – people who continue to be self-oriented and therefore consider themselves entitled to get back exactly what they contribute to society. Building upon defects – rather than working consciously to eliminate them – is a recipe for restoring capitalism (as experience has demonstrated).

In short, just as capitalism developed through a process of ‘subordinating all elements of society to itself’ and by creating for itself the organs which it lacked, so also must socialism develop. In place of the logic of capital and self-interest, the new socialist society develops by inserting its own logic centred in human beings; rather than taking self-interest as a premise, associated producers work to develop new social norms based upon cooperation and solidarity among members of society.

Thus, building the new society stresses not the growing production of things but, rather, creation of the conditions for development of human forces – i.e., conditions which replace capitalism’s fragmented, crippled human beings with ‘the totally developed individual’ and permit people to develop through their own activity. With the ‘all-round development of the individual,’ all the springs of co-operative wealth would flow more abundantly.

This concept of socialism for the 21st century rescues Marx’s original idea of an ‘association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all,’ a society focused upon the ‘development of all human powers as such the end in itself.’  It embraces Che Guevara’s stress in his classic work, ‘Man and Socialism in Cuba’, that in order to build socialism it is essential, along with building new material foundations, to build new human beings. Thus, it rejects the practice of ignoring the transformation of social relations and human beings in order to develop productive forces – an unfortunate characteristic of the top-down efforts at building socialism in the 20th century.

Marxism for the 21st Century

Is there a relationship between the Marxism of the 20th Century and the errors in the attempts to build socialism in the 20th Century? I think there are many. For one, Marxists need to assign the 1859 ‘Preface’ (with its formulaic economic determinism) to a book of proverbs and study instead the Grundrisse‘s insights into the ‘becoming’ and ‘being’ of an organic system, insights that will permit a better understanding of process. Further, grasping Capital‘s focus on how relations of production precede and shape the character of new productive forces would help to reduce the worship of technology and the development of productive forces.

However, I think there is a problem in 20th Century Marxism that flows from Capital itself. Why don’t Marxists automatically begin from the question of human development and the concept of ‘rich human beings’? Why do so many Marxists not grasp that Marx’s premise in writing Capital was his understanding that real wealth is human wealth, ‘the rich individuality which is as all-sided in its production as in its consumption ‘and that he wrote from the perspective of a society in which the results of past labour are ‘there to satisfy the worker’s own need for development’? If Marx did not have the socialist alternative clearly in mind, how could he describe the situation where means of production employ workers as ‘this inversion, indeed this distortion, which is peculiar to and characteristic of capitalist production’? An inversion of what?

The problem originates in a misunderstanding of Marx’s Capital – in the view that Capital is Marx’s study of capitalism rather than an exploration of the side of capital, conducted through the beginning of a critique of the political economy of capital. When you fail to understand the limits of Capital (limits that Marx himself pointed out), it is not surprising that economic determinism, the view of the productive forces introduced by capital as neutral, the treatment of the proletariat as abstract, the inability to understand how ‘the contemporary power of capital rests’ upon the creation of new needs for workers, the failure to recognize the ‘general and necessary’ tendency of capital to divide and separate workers and the effective disappearance of class struggle from the side of workers all follow.

In Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class (Palgrave, 2003) and in the Deutscher Prize Lecture, ‘The Politics of Assumption, the Assumption of Politics’ (Historical Materialism, 14.2, 2006), I explore the implications of Marx’s failure to complete his epistemological project – in particular, the one-sided Marxism that flows from the failure to recognize implications of the missing book on Wage-Labour. Why didn’t he ever write that book? Marx was less interested, I proposed, in the completion of his epistemological project than in his revolutionary project.

Of course, as followers of Marx, we can do both. However, scholastics and disciples for whom the point of departure is ‘no longer reality, but the new theoretical form in which the master had sublimated it’ can do neither. We need to return to Marx’s premise – the vision of a society of  the ‘rich human being’, one in which there is the ‘absolute working out of his creative potentialities,’ the ‘complete working-out of the human content,’ the ‘development of all human powers as such the end in itself’. In short, we need to embrace the vision of ‘socialism for the 21st Century’.

And, as Marxists who live in this real world, we need to ask how precisely can we help the working class of the 21st Century become ‘conscious of its own position and its needs, conscious of the conditions of its emancipation’? What are their needs? What are the barriers that 21st Century capitalism has created to the realization of those needs? What, given their actual conditions of life, are the ways for workers to struggle against capital now? What, indeed, is to be done?

We need, in short, to understand the conditions which global capitalism in the 21st Century has created. Obviously, they are not ones which we would have chosen. But, they are the only ones available in which we can make history.

This article was written originally for Junge Welt, a German left daily, in advance of a Berlin conference on Marxism for the 21st Century in April, 2007.

An interview with Senator Jamby Madrigal

E. San Juan, Jr. (with an interview by Dr. Rainer Werning)

“Huwag po nating payagan na bumalik tayo sa kadiliman at takot na dinala ng martial law. Panahon na upang tumindig at lumaban.”  (Let us not allow ourselves to return to the darkness and terror of [President Ferdinand Marcos’] martial law [1972-86].  It is time to stand up and fight.) – Senator Jamby Madrigal, “Martial Law in the Guise of Anti-Terrorism Bill,” Joint Statement with Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Legend Restaurant, Oct 9, 2006

Last June 26, we attended a historic rally-demonstration of over 4,000 people in Washington, DC, called “Day of Action to Restore Law and Justice.” It was the first national mass mobilization of this kind undertaken by the American Civil Liberties Union, a rather staid institution, in cooperation with Amnesty International (USA), Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. It was a coalition representing a fairly broad spectrum of left to right civil-society lobbying groups. A petition bearing tens of thousands of signatures was delivered to Congress expressing five demands on behalf of rights gutted by the 2006 Military Commissions Act (MCA): the restoration of habeas corpus and due process, ending torture and abuse in secret prisons, stopping extraordinary renditions (secretly kidnapping people and sending them to countries that torture), the closing of Guantanamo Bay prisons and allowing prisoners held there access to justice; and the restoration of the rule of Law. The tide is turning against the rightist, neoimperialist Bush policy of gung-ho war of terror on humanity.

Together with the USA Patriot Act, the MCA is part of the Bush administration’s deceptive schemes to carry out the “global war on terrorism” on behalf of the corporate elite. It operates by casting aside basic democratic freedoms, chief of which is the principle of habeas corpus that protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment, a tenet enshrined in the U.S. Constitution (Article 1, section 9). By abolishing this doctrine of fundamental due process, the Bush regime can hold hundreds of prisoners-designated “unlawful combatants”-for more than five years without charges.

The USA Patriot Act and the MCA are the two weapons the fascistic Bush administration is using to fight what it designates as “terrorism.”  “Terrorism” for the U.S. ruling class includes the just struggles of peoples for self-determination, a right enshrined in the UN Charter; nonetheless, after 9/11, the U.S. State Department branded the New People’s Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines as “terrorist organizations.” With these legal instruments, Bush has the power to declare who is a terrorist “enemy combatant,” who should be held indefinitely without being charged, define what is torture and abuse, and so on. The MCA permits convictions based on evidence extracted from a witness by torture.  Numerous legislators, among them Senators Leahy, Dodd and others have introduced legislation to nullify MCA and key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, in particular warrantless domestic spying or surveillance through the National Security Letter provision, and other violations of free speech and privacy rights that defy the Constitution and ignore the principle of checks and balances. In short, the war on terror has been used to justify the undermining of the Constitution and the rule of law, the essential civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and basic democratic principles. Polls indicate that the majority of U.S. citizens, especially after the rejection of the war-mongering policies of the Bush leadership in the November 2006 elections, support the scrapping of the MCA and the repeal of the USA Patriot Act. Such laws against terrorism destroy security and civil liberties, engendering a worse kind of terror: inhumane, brutal treatment of civilians by State violence.

Revisiting Benevolent Assimilation

Meanwhile, we read in the Inquirer.net (June 27) an opposite, retrogressive trend in the Philippines: the Arroyo regime is harnessing all means to apply the anti-terror law, officially known as the Human Security Act (Republic Act No. 9372), which is set to take effect on July 15. This Act is patterned after the USA Patriot Act and the MCA, ostensibly designed to be used in the fight against what Arroyo and her US patrons perceive as “terrorism.” It goes beyond the U.S. models by including under the rubric of “terrorism” the political conduct of rebellion or insurrection, which is punishable with 40 years of imprisonment. Suspects can be jailed without charges. Surveillance of terror suspects, including the use of wiretaps and tracking devices, and the freezing of the suspect’s personal assets, are unconscionably permitted by this Act.  The Philippine law tries to out-do Bush’s draconian measures, already condemned by international opinion and rejected by the U.S. public.

Despite the recent claims of Deputy National Security adviser Pedro Cabuay that the Act, considered as “the cornerstone in the Philippines’ fight against global terrorism,” will first be publicized and discussed before its application (Inquirer, 7/04), its eventual implementation seems certain. Arroyo is readying the public for the proscription of groups such as BAYAN, Bayan Muna, Gabriela, Anakpawis, and numerous organizations-all considered “communist fronts.” One proof of this is the continuing refusal of the Arroyo regime to take command responsibility for the thousands of victims of extra-judicial killings and forced disappearances.

Aside from the previous demonstrations of government military-police complicity with these heinous acts (Amnesty International, United Nations Rapporteurs, even by Arroyo’s Melo Commission), the recent Human Rights Watch report (28 June) reaffirmed the international principle of command responsibility-the top officials of the State, the President, the Armed Forces of the Philippines high command, and other security officials (particular Norberto Gonzales and Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez), are all accountable for the forced “disappearances,” torture, and murders of activists and other innocent civilians. Three generals have come out in support of Senator-elect Antonio Trillanes IV’s plan to investigate the involvement of military officials and other State agents in the continuing atrocities. Finding itself on the defensive, the Arroyo clique retools via mock-repentant compromises, cajoling, hypocritical apologies, and-by the end of the day-convenient scapegoats, and desperate appeals for more U.S./IMF/World Bank sympathy.

One example of the Arroyo regime’s hard-headed refusal to acknowledge responsibility is the revelation that three kidnapped victims-Sherlyn Cadapan, Karen Empeno, and Manuel Merino-have been witnessed by many to be in military custody. A petition for habeas corpus filed last July 17, 2006, was already served to Generals Romeo Tolentino and Jovito Palparan; but the military chiefs deny any wrongdoing. General Esperon and Secretary Ermita can repeat to kingdom-come their tiresome refrain that the government has no stated policy of killing political enemies or critics who are publicly stigmatized as “communist fronts” by government propaganda and media flunkeys, by OPLAN Bantay Laya 1 and 2, and countless covert schemes. Whom are they trying to fool?

It might be instructive to recall how UN Special Rapporteur Prof. Philip Alston’s comment last February that the government’s “passivity bordering on an abdication of responsibility” fell on deaf ears. Secretary Gonzalez, however, perked up and berated Alston for being “blind, mute and deaf.” In his report to the UN Human Rights Council last March 27, Alston reiterated that “based on my fact-finding, there is no reasonable doubt that the military is responsible for a significant number of the killings.” So, whatever protestations of Arroyo, Esperon and Ermita to the contrary, Alston’s earlier criticism that the military “remains in a state of almost total denial” cannot be met with more asinine denials.  Indeed, no one so far has been prosecuted; no military or police personnel has been investigated, or brought to trial.

We all know that denials are cheap and easy for tricksters in public relations. This is the confidence game Norberto Gonzales is playing when he recently quipped that “leftist propaganda is successful” (Inquirer, July 3). The same goes for hundreds of abducted victims, the most recent being the esteemed Jonas Burgos in Manila, Nilo Arado and Luisa Posa Dominado in Iloilo, and more starkly, the torture of Pastor Berlin Guerrero by the Naval Intelligence Security Forces and elements of the Cavite Provincial police last May (see Carol Pagaduan-Araullo’s “Smoking Gun,” Bulatlat June 10-16).
Unravelling the Web of Lies

Despite hedged admissions that the counterinsurgency program may not be sensitive to human rights-Secretary Ermita’s coy response to the European Union’s mission that categorized the political killings as a serious liability that may interrupt European aid and investments-Arroyo persists in spinning her “web of lies,” to quote Dr. Carol P. Araullo’s phrase. Dr. Araullo, chairperson of BAYAN, captured the prevailing climate of opinion in her recent column “streetwise” (Business World June 28): “Outrage, long pent-up and mounting, is bound to explode over the killings, unabated by universal condemnation and earnest appeals. In the short term, it can find expression in public support for the trailblazing efforts of the Puno Supreme Court to use the judiciary’s ‘expanded powers’ under the 1987 Constitution as a guardian of civil liberties and human rights….That outrage may also bring about the popular will and force that could oust the fascist criminals from power and put a stop to the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.” Prophetic words for the powerful who no longer have a future.

One of the most militant and formidable opponents of the State terrorism practised by the Arroyo regime, aided with U.S. Special Forces courtesy of Washington/the Pentagon, is Senator Ana Maria Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal. Senator Madrigal has already earned a well-deserved reputation as a leader in the crusade against government corruption and for social reform. She is sustained by a legacy of nationalist activism in her family: she is the granddaughter of the national martyr, Supreme Court chief justice Jose Abad Santos; and her grand-uncle is the well known revolutionary Pedro Abad Santos, the founder of the Socialist Party of the Philippines (which later joined forces with advanced sections of the working class to form the Communist Party of the Philippines in the thirties). Before becoming a Senator, she was active in managing several charitable foundations such as Books-for-the-Barangay Foundation, the Abad Santos Madrigal Foundation, and ABLE Foundatiion, to help the poor, especially women and children. In the Senate, Jamby Madrigal chairs two senate committees: one on Youth, Women and Family Relations, and another on Cultural Communities.

Three of Senator Madrigal’s recent nationalist bills are strikingly progressive and deserve national-democratic support: first, the repeal of the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1998, the bill to protect the national patrimony by repealing the Mining Act of 1995 (RA 7942), and another to impose a total log ban. While attending a religious procession on October 4, 2005, with other activists, Jamby was hit by Manila Police water cannons-a kind of baptism of fire for her.

While attending the Permanent People’s Tribunal Session 2 on the Philippines last March at The Hague, Netherlands, I had the privilege of meeting Senator Madrigal. She was one of the witnesses in the trial against the anti-people crimes of Arroyo and Bush. Her testimony cantered on the continuing displacement of indigenous communities and the plunder of the environment. Senator Madrigal criticized Executive Order No. 364 which subordinated the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples to the Department of Land Reform, thus rendering it inutile in its task of protecting and promoting the rights of indigenous peoples. She also condemned various multinational corporations for the devastation of our natural resources (for example, mining company Toronto Ventures, Inc. in Zamboanga del Norte; Lafayette Mining Corporation in Rapu-Rapu Island, Sorsogon, Marcopper Mining Company). She concluded her speech before the Tribunal with these words: “As a Filipino, I accuse and seek a guilty verdict for the regime of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo for the violations of the economic, social and cultural rights of the people, including the violation of economic sovereignty and the national patrimony through iniquitous agreements and economic plunder by foreign and local exploiters.”
Devil’s Wager: Exchanging Security for State Terror

Concerning the Anti-Terrorism Bill (ATB), Senator Madrigal called my attention to her joint statement with Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. at the Legend Restaurant, October 9, 2006. In that statement, she charged that the Bill (Senate Bill No. 2137, sponsored by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile) “legislates martial law.” She asserted that the bill “will create a shadow criminal justice system that in turn will be used as an instrument of a greater terror perpetrated by people in power against their critics and political opponents.” Sacrificing human rights for an alleged guarantee of security, ATB contains vague and sweeping provisions that practically abolish “the rights to freedom of expression and association, the liberty of movement, the prohibition against arbitrary detention, and the rights to the presumption of innocence and fair trial.”  Exactly what thousands of demonstrators in Washington DC last June 26 were saying about the MCA and the USA Patriot Act.

Senator Madrigal also recounted to me her trip to Europe in October 2006, specifically to the World Council of Churches in Geneva, and the International Parliamentary Union, the International Federation of Journalists, the Belgian and Flemish parliaments, the House of Lords in UK, and Amnesty International. She focused on the “repressive provisions of the proposed ATB,” intent on broadcasting to the international community that “Mrs Arroyo is bent on adopting policies and measures that will only further strengthen her control over Filipinos and encourage widespread human rights abuses” (Press Statement, 17 October; from Senator Madrigal’s Official Website).

Senator Madrigal finally referred me to her presentation entitled “Legislating Insecurity through State Terrorism” to the Eminent Jurists Panel on Terrorism, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights at the conference of the International Commission of Jurists in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 5 December 2006. In this extremely valuable speech, Senator Madrigal reiterated her principled stand against the ATB, an “oppressive” law that would legitimize Arroyo’s “State terrorism” because of its “terrifying provisions.”  I have already cited some: the likelihood that persons may be labelled terrorist “by reason solely of his religious or political beliefs,” which is already the practice of the AFP, their para-military death squads, and Arroyo’s security council. As illustration, Senator Madrigal cited the case of six progressive parliamentarians [Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran and colleagues]…who were accused of participating in a rebellion against the current regime,” as well as the case of the Tagaytay 2 who were arrested and tortured without any warrant.   One of the provisions of the ATB (on detention of suspects for 5 days or more) has already been judged by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) as violating Article 9, paragraph 3, of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which requires that a person arrested be brought “promptly [not exceeding 48 hours] before a judicial authority.”

Last March 12, the UN Special Rapporteur for promotion and protection of human rights, Martin Scheinin, issued a statement that the overly broad definition of terrorist acts contradicts “the principle of legality and [is] thus incompatible with Article 15 of the ICCPR.” Moreover, Scheinin noted other defective features, such as the 40 years imprisonment for suspects which “undermines judicial discretion in individual cases” and results into disproportionate punishment, and the questionable competence of various bodies authorized to review detention, as well as the restrictions on movement, including the imposition of house arrest-all amount to the conclusion that many provisions of the ATB “are not in accordance with international human rights standards” (see his website).

Senator Madrigal also warns of other extreme provisions of the ATB which are tantamount to disregarding “with impunity constitutional guarantees” and therefore sanctioning State terrorism. In her press statement of March 11, 2007, supporting Rep. Satur Ocampo’s defense, Senator Madrigal described the current dispensation as “martial law with a de facto civilian and military junta in control.”

What Is To Be Done?

At this juncture, I call the readers to the substantial and thorough critique of the ATB by the militant organization BAYAN, entitled “The Anti-Terrorism Act: Recipe for Undeclared Martial Law (June 13, 2007), accessible in BAYAN Website; and also to a recent letter of Amie Dural, secretary general of the Promotion of Church People’s Response, posted in Inquirer‘s Opinion Section (June 27).  Dural stressed the points raised by Senator Madrigal, BAYAN, and others: the ATB will embolden the abductors and torturers of activists like Pastor Berlin Guerrero and “multiply the number of unjustified arrests, forced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the name of the Arroyo administration’s ‘war on terror…. The full implementation of the anti-terror law threatens to arrest progressive parliamentarians and anyone who will participate in protest actions, such as nationally coordinated rallies, during the State of the Nation Address (SONA),” as well as legalize “the unconstitutional deployment of military troops in urban communities,” a step which proved useful for the regime in terrorizing citizen-voters during the May electoral campaigns and depriving citizens of their democratic rights.

Senator Madrigal articulates with great eloquence her nationalist and libertarian convictions in the following exchange with my colleague Dr. Rainer Werning (RW), lecturer at the Internationale Weiterbildung und Entwicklung of Bad Honef, Germany.  He has asked me to edit (for style and readability) the transcript of this taped interview of Senator Madrigal (AMM) during the session of the Permanent People’s Tribunal [words in brackets are the editor’s].

DR. RAINER WERNING INTERVIEWS  SENATOR MADRIGAL

RW:  Madam Senator, you listened to the presentation of Prof. Roland Simbulan on U.S.-Philippines relations. What is your response to that?

AMM: Well, he gave a very interesting and detailed historical perspective on the continued control of the USA over the Philippines with regard to sovereignty and the country on national defence. I listened very intently and he explained the situation in a very, I would say, factual manner and it is very worrisome when you see that we are – as he said – the last country in Asia to have an army capable of defending ourselves from external threats…merely having an army under the beck and call of the government of the USA to be used as a pawn in its so- called war on insurgency and terrorism.

So yes, I believe very strongly in what the Professor says, because the Philippines continues to be a country with not much pride in our own sovereignty because we continue to exist as a neo-colonial state, as a de facto American colony with regard to economic and national defence issues.

RW: It’s now almost 61 years after independence. You must get the impression that the Philippine isn’t a sovereign country at all with the AFP acting as a mere appendage of the U.S. military. Isn’t it?

AMM: Yes, it is merely an appendage of the US Army because we are bound by the treaties to be trained by the US Army and to buy all arms from the US. This would be tantamount in economic terms to a U.S. monopoly. Instead of being able to choose the best armaments, the best arms with the best prices in the free market, we are bound to the US without the right nor the power to choose and buy [what we need at a] price more suitable to us. So this is very inefficient. [We are caught in] a controlled economy where there is only one supplier; and monopolies, as you know, are never really very efficient.

And this has led to a steady decline of the capability of our armed forces when it comes to national sovereignty but they are continuously aided by the US Army to kill the perceived terrorists and insurgents who are not really terrorists and insurgents but opponents of American imperialism and the present regime albeit illegal (because Mrs. Arroyo cheated her way to election of 2004). Many people do not think she is the legitimate president.

So the goals and aims of the American government is to preserve their monopoly of power in the Philippines, both  economic and military. It is exactly the same as Mrs. Arroyo’s desire to preserve herself in power, so they are mutually beneficial for each other but not for the country as a whole.

RW: Irony of history … there’s so much talk about free economy but when it comes to military equipment, obviously it’s exactly the opposite.

AMM: I just want to say, it is very ironic because when they say, oh  we should be grateful to America, they are giving us so much military aid, only to pay themselves back …so there is really not much given because the money given to us is used to buy armaments back to pay the Americans. So net-net, there is really nothing much that the Philippines gets but America has all the gain.

RW: Who is mainly responsible for this kind of ongoing counter-insurgency – the U.S. or the GMA administration?

AMM: Well, as I said, I believe that the GMA administration is being used as a pawn to keep the US influence on the Philippines intact both militarily (in matters of defence) and politically. So that they can continue also to keep their multinationals in the Philippines with all the privileges that a multinational has. But in terms of killing the insurgents, I believe that the Macapagal Arroyo government [with its security advisers, AFP and PNP] are the ones who pinpoint who to kill because they are their political opposition, legitimate political opposition.

And I don’t think that the US really is concerned as to who is killed as long as it helps prop up the government and as long as their interests are not compromised. As the Professor said, he believes that the US knows about these extra-judicial killings; however, they do not condemn them. But as to who to kill – I think this is really more the job of the Macapagal Arroyo government because she is killing her political opponents. She wants the Americans to turn a blind eye to the killing, as long as they can keep military and economic hold over the Philippines.

RW: Would you agree that there is sort of dirty “division of labor” going on?

AMM: Shall we call it an immoral division of labor to keep both of them in power – the illegitimate Macapagal-Arroyo government – and to keep American interests forever in power in the Philippines, militarily, economically and politically?

RW: Quite amazing, you hardly come across a politician, in this case  even a senator, who so openly speaks about US-imperialism…

AMM: Well, I think during the Cory Aquino time there were few of the patriotic senators who had spoken about it. I have a few of my colleagues who continue to speak about it, but I think the litmus test was when these colleagues voted for the Anti-Terror Bill, which I did not vote for. At the end, there were only about two of us who voted no to this bill which will be used as an instrument for further oppression of our people and further weaken the national sovereignty of the Filipino people.

RW: You mean to say, out of 24 Senators, only two voted against it?

AMM: Two voted against it, one was in his office when the vote was called but he is a good colleague of mine and I believe he is one of the best senators we’ve  ever had, …Senator Osmena II would have voted against it. But aside from that, of the 23, only three perhaps in conscience would have voted against it.

RW: What do you think has been the reason for this? These people aren’t stupid, rather well-versed in political issues …

AMM: Well, “political compromise,” I think would be the best way to put it. Some point to other [reasons], they were just justifying their “yes” votes because their amendments were accepted. Yes, the amendments which changed only the grammar [or wording] of the bill. But the amendments which would have changed the spirit of the bill were not accepted and the amendments to safeguard human rights were not really there.

They say, oh the bill is safe now because we’ve put enough safeguards. To me…and I would not say it…it is a four-lettered word but that is all foolishness. There are no safeguards in the bill. You do not have to be a lawyer to see it, I’ve discussed it with the International Court of Justice. I ‘ve recently discussed it with United Nations Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights who issued a press statement asking the Philippines to repeal or amend the bill because it is not in harmony with the Covenant of Human Rights that the Philippines has signed.  So it really makes a mockery of democracy, this is a licence to kill and legitimize state terror against its people.

RW: Could you sum up your main arguments that made you vote against it? What are the most perfidious elements?

AMM: First of all, you can be arrested without any warrant on mere suspicion so it is back to the Inquisition of the Middle Ages.

If they don’t like your face, they can say I suspect you to be a terrorist and you can be arrested without warrant, your assets frozen, and you are put under surveillance and those of your family and friends who come in contact with you can be put under surveillance.

And what is worse is not only that there is a very vague provision in the law which the United Nations Rapporteur pointed out: [namely,] that aside from a judge, any member of the Philippine Commission of Human Rights who is not even a judge can issue a warrant. So…they are making a mockery of our Commission of Human Rights by making them now an instrument to make possible state terrorism against the people.

RW: I thought the Commission just investigates cases?

AMM: Yes, but it says, upon mere suspicion of someone being a terrorist, you can apply for a warrant from your [local] judge or you can go to the representative of the Commission of Human Rights in the area and get a warrant to arrest and bring that person into jail but you can just…on mere suspicion though. You can arrest someone and detain him for three days without warrant.  So there are really no safeguards.

If you look at it, the main sponsor was Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who in 1972 was the architect of Martial Law and he was the Minister of Defence under which Mr. Marcos committed human rights violations. The [first] Permanent People’s Tribunal, when it indicted President Marcos, also indicted Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, then Defence Minister. And Mrs. Arroyo has used this same man to be again her architect of martial law… they say, first time martial law was imposed, it was a tragedy. The second time with the Anti-Terror bill, it is a comedy of errors

RW: What in your view marks the difference between the Marcos era and the GMA administration?

AMM: Very easy. Marcos was a lawyer and he was very conscious of his place in history. When he wanted to extend his power way beyond his term, he was not a hypocrite and used all the excuses to declare Martial Law. At least the people then knew, that we were under dictatorship and that we had limited freedom.

With Mrs. Arroyo, it is worse because she is the best hypocrite that ever lived. The Filipinos are living today under a dictatorship masquerading as democracy. It is even harder when Mrs. Arroyo tries tell the international community that the Philippines is a democracy when she has killed more – if you look at the number of years – more people than Marcos  killed in his 20 years in power. Marcos killed three thousand or more people under that regime. There were about three thousand people killed. In the Macapagal Arroyo government we have almost 800 people in less than five years.

Pound for pound, although she is a little, a very small woman, I think she packs more repression, more hypocrisy, more killings, more violations of human rights, more violations of the constitution than Mr. Marcos ever did.

Do not forget, Mr. Marcos had a vision for the Philippines. Mrs. Arroyo has the myopic vision only of furthering herself in power way beyond 2010. And that is why should she get the majority in the lower and upper house this election – she would try to change the constitution into a parliamentary form and reign as Prime Minister for an indefinite number of years. Don’t forget we have no monarchy, our constitutional…institutions are very weak, and so to be a prime minister would again  be tantamount to an indefinite period of having a dictator in the Philippines.

RW: It must be awkward to travel around the globe and project such an image of the Philippines. How do your colleagues perceive the Permanent People’s Tribunal Session 2?

AMM: Well, my colleagues who are very much against Mrs. Arroyo are very happy that I am here. And we’ll use this indictment of Mrs. Arroyo to open the eyes of the Filipino people with regards to their gradual loss of freedom.

I feel as if we are living in a military junta with a puppet president willing to do what the military wants just to stay in power. And legislators like me have very limited power. All we can do is talk – if we are not killed.

I was water-cannoned last October for participating in a procession. And the last time I came here to [to Europe] and tried to negotiate peace talks with the NDF, I was under threat of being arrested when I arrived [home] for doing nothing.

Sen. Jamby Madrigal (center) NDFP Negotiating Panel Luis Jalandoni (left)
and NDFP Chief Political Consultant Jose Ma. Sison

In the Philippines, the modus operandi is that you are presumed the guilty unless otherwise proven innocent, whereas the presumption of innocence is what should be held especially under a constitution.

Mr. Satur Ocampo, a congressman, was not presumed innocent. [The government] got a warrant of arrest under trumped-up charges, he was arrested – I was with him in jail, I saw it. And then at the break of dawn [after his arrest], the police tried to kidnap him to bring him to a small town where his life could have been lost.

This is not a democracy. We are living under the worst form of dictatorship because it is masquerading as a democracy. To live in the Philippines is very frustrating at the moment. Whereas they tell you, you have your own freedoms, what they tell you…what is in the law is not what is happening.

E. San Juan, Jr. was recently a fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation Center, Bellagio, Italy; visiting professor of literature at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan; and Fulbright professor of American Studies at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He works with the Philippine Forum, New York, and the Philippines Cultural Studies Center, Connecticut. He authored a collection of poems in English entitled The Ashes of Pedro Abad Santos and Other Poems (1986).  His recent books are Filipinos Everywhere (IBON),  In the Wake of Terror (Lexington Books), US Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines (Palgrave Macmillan) and Balikbayang Sinta: An E. San Juan, Jr. Reader (Ateneo University Press).

Dr. Rainer Werning is a German political scientist who has lectured and researched in various institutions in the Philippines, UK and Japan. He interviewed Jose Maria Sison in The Philippine Revolution: The Leader’s View(1989), and co-edited Handbuch Philippinen (2006). He writes for various publications in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Luxemburg.