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The Left’s historical re-entry in Congress

The failure of the Commission on Elections to immediately proclaim the winning party-list groups in the May 14 polls disappointed a lot of people, particularly those who realize the enormous historical significance of Bayan Muna’s victory. The party-list election topnotcher’s proclamation would have made formal the Left’s return to Congress after more than half a century.

BY ROWENA CARRANZA
Bulatlat.com

Even if it is still tightly guarded by conservative landlords and big industrialists against leftist intrusion, the Philippine House of Representatives finally has genuine representation of the Left with Bayan Muna’s victory.

This becomes doubly significant when viewed with the fact that it has been 55 years since the Left had directly participated in the legislative body (assuming, of course that the COMELEC would finally proclaim Bayan Muna.)

As of this writing, the three party-list representatives of Bayan Muna still await COMELEC proclamation. Bayan Muna revealed in a recent press conference that this is due to extreme pressure and lobbying from anti-left groups headed by the military and influential groups and politicians opposed to Bayan Muna’s politics.

It may be recalled that the Supreme Court issued last May 9 a temporary restraining order keeping the COMELEC from proclaiming any party-list winner until the COMELEC has submitted a report on which groups truly represent marginalized sectors.

The SC decision, however, did not state that the COMELEC has to wait for the SC’s go-signal before proclamation. It can simultaneously submit the compliance report after a summary hearing and proclaim party-list winners.

COMELEC Partial Compliance Report

Last Friday, the COMELEC finally released a partial compliance report, stating that Bayan Muna was one of the three party-list winners (out of the 10 winners) it found to be genuine. The others were Akbayan and Butil. The COMELEC, however, requested more time before proclaiming any party-list winner, reportedly to study the other party-list groups.

Bayan Muna stated that the poll body’s snail-paced conduct is giving opportunity for some parties to pad votes in their favor. Bayan Muna legal counsel Neri Javier Colmenares cited how party-list groups AMIN and LDP are suddenly climbing the required 2% margin to get a seat in Congress.

Bulatlat.com also received reports the COMELEC is being pressured into declaring a failure of the party-list elections in order to kick out Bayan Muna and other “unfriendly” party-list groups. A source who requested anonymity claimed that about P6 million has been reportedly paid to a COMELEC official. The plan to declare a failure of the party-list election, however, did not push through because the instigators found it difficult to justify.

The Democratic Alliance

Before Bayan Muna, the most recent significant experience in legislative participation for the Left was the victory of the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the congressional elections of 1946. The DA was led by peasant and union leaders, together with urban middle and upper class liberals who had been active in the resistance during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines (1942-45).

United by a common anti-collaborationist stand and desire for change, the DA was a coalition of organizations with liberal to radical orientations. It consisted of three guerrilla groups (the Hukbalahap or People’s Army Against the Japanese, the Free Philippines and Blue Eagle), a peasant group (Pambansang Kaisahan ng Magbubukid or National Peasants Union), a labor group (Committee on Labor Organization) and four progressive organizations (League for National Liberation, Anti-Traitors League, Anti-Japanese League and Civil Liberties Union).

According to historian Renato Constantino, the alliance carried a five-point program: full independence (as opposed to conditional independence to be reviewed by the US after a certain period), democracy against fascism, anti-collaboration, social security and agrarian reform, and industrialization.

The president then was Nacionalista Party’s Sergio Osmeña who, in an effort to defeat his political enemy Manuel Roxas, forged an alliance with the DA. Seven DA candidates succeeded to win seats in the elite-dominated Congress. They were Luis Taruc, Jesus Lava, Constancio Padilla, Jose Cando, Alejandro Simpao, Amado Yuzon and Alejo Santos.

Osmeña, however, lost the presidency by a slim margin to Roxas who ran on an unabashedly pro-American platform and was endorsed by World War II hero General Douglas MacArthur. Landlords and other prominent members of the oligarchy supported Roxas.

Viewed as a Threat

But having seven DA legislators was already too much for Roxas who viewed the DA as a threat to the restoration of the pre-war oligarchy. The peasants of Central Luzon (the Hukbalahap’s bailiwick), the CLO unions and other members of the DA all opposed the re-establishment of old economic ties which exploited Philippine resources.

But most urgent for Roxas was the passage of the Bell Trade Act which ensured the unlimited entry of American goods into the Philippines while imposing quotas on Philippine products being exported to the US. Its most onerous provision, however, was the parity clause which granted US citizens and corporations the same rights as Filipinos in the exploration and use of Philippine natural resources. Expecting opposition to the law, the US limited the war damage payments pending the Philippine approval of the Bell Trade Act. For the Roxas administration, the war damage payments were necessary for the rehabilitation of the country’s post-war economy.

But for the Act to be approved, the Philippine Constitution, which provided that Filipinos should own a 60% share in all corporations, had to be amended. Roxas needed a three-fourths vote of Congress and victory in a national plebiscite. The DA naturally conducted a vigorous campaign against the Bell Trade Act. A vocal opposition emerged, particularly against the parity provision.

Unseating the DA Legislators

The presence of the DA in Congress posed a danger to Roxas’ plan. Thus, upon the instigation of Roxas, the Congress passed a resolution unseating the seven DA legislators from Congress.

Narrated Constantino in his 1978 book entitled The Philippines: The Continuing Past: “His [Roxas] first point of attack was to get the Liberal majorities in both houses to refuse to permit the Nacionalista senators and eight congressmen, seven from the Democratic Alliance, to take their seats pending investigation of charges of alleged frauds and terrorism in their election. The DA congressmen had been elected mainly by the votes of the organized peasants of Central Luzon. The administration charged that voters had been coerced and that therefore the results were not reflective of the popular will.”

Through such manipulations, coupled with the personal persuasion and offer of pork barrel funds, Roxas managed to get his needed amendment. But the competition was so strong that the final vote, according to Constantino, was only the minimum needed votes in the Senate and a one-vote margin in the House. Thus, had the DA legislators not been booted out, the parity law would not have been passed.

Will history repeat itself?

The DA experience is significant in the light of military reports linking Bayan Muna with the New People’s Army (NPA) and the harassment, even killing, of some of its volunteers. Satur Ocampo, former National Democratic Front spokesperson and Bayan Muna nominee, already expressed before the possibility of Bayan Muna being disqualified on the basis of manufactured charges, just like what happened to the DA.

If anti-Left, militarist and other conservative forces, through the various underhanded means available to them, succeed in keeping Bayan Muna representatives from taking their seats in Congress, it would once again mean the exclusion of the Left from the parliamentary process.

The apparent and continuing efforts to exclude the leftist political group, even if they turn out unsuccessful, already show that 55 years after DA’s expulsion, the Congress remains a turf of the elite despite the recognition by the voters of the need for an alternative agenda, expressed in Bayan Muna’s number one ranking in the party-list election.

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