ANALYSIS

Politics of Dirt
Arroyo Aide Throws Mud at Progressive Political Parties

The politics of change that sustains Bayan Muna and five other progressive political parties to participate in the party-list polls in May remains under threat. This time around, President Macapagal-Arroyo’s own security adviser has accused the groups of being “communist fronts.” He has yet to prove his allegation.

By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com

The threat of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s national security adviser (NSA) to disqualify Bayan Muna (BM) and five other progressive Party-list groups from the May 10 elections allegedly for being front organizations of the communist movement was not entirely unexpected. The threat from NSA Norberto Gonzales was part of the systematic campaign of the Macapagal-Arroyo’s military wing to dismantle all suspected legal apparatuses of the revolutionary movement in the guise of fighting terrorism.

Early this April, Gonzales in a National Security Council meeting accused BM of funneling P500 million of its Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to the Marxist-led New People’s Army (NPA). He also named five other party-list groups – Anakpawis (toiling masses), Gabriela, Migrante, Anak ng Bayan (nation’s youth) and Suara Bangsamoro - of being CPP front organizations.

Incidentally, four of the six groups are leading in the latest Pulse Asia survey for the party-list polls, with BM pulling away with 22 percent of the projected votes followed by Anak ng Bayan, 6 percent. Gonzales’ own PDSP lost disastrously in the 2001 elections and his new party-list group, “Aksyon Sambayanan,” is nowhere in the survey results.

Gonzales’s accusations could not have been unleashed without Macapagal-Arroyo’s consent – although she has said that it was the NSA’s own independent action but that it has to be proven. Just the same, his accusations were immediately supported by top officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP).

BM Rep. Satur Ocampo called Gonzales’ accusation a “blatant lie” adding that the party’s PDAF has been used to build infrastructures and other projects mostly in remote rural villages that have long been neglected by government. Gonzales, who was dared to show proof of his allegations, has not done so at press time; neither has he filed any disqualification case against the party-list groups.

Now Macapagal-Arroyo’s adviser has to answer libel charges filed with the justice department on April 16 by Ocampo and fellow legislators Crispin Beltran, one of Anakpawis’ nominees, and Liza Maza, No. 1 nominee of Gabriela Women’s Party.

BM complaint

In their complaint, the BM leaders said their respective PDAFs are disbursed transparently by the Department of Budget and Management through various relevant agencies. Bayan Muna, they also said, is a duly-accredited political party having passed rigorous screening in 2001 by the Commission on Elections and by the Supreme Court.

"Despite these clarifications, Gonzales persisted in publicly maligning Bayan Muna through the media even if, as he admitted, he had no proof of the same," their complaint stated.

Quite alarmingly Gonzales’s wild accusations, they also said, have tightened the military noose around BM and other progressive party-list groups. For the past three years, 37 BM members and organizers and scores of other party-list volunteers have been killed reportedly by military and paramilitary hitmen. The demonization campaign against BM and other progressive party groups has been stepped up particularly in Visayas and Mindanao where even local police and military units – against Comelec rules - were reportedly campaigning against them.

Gonzales was appointed national security adviser after resigning last January from his post as presidential adviser for special concerns over the junking of Heherson Alvarez from Macapagal-Arroyo’s K-4 senate slate. Alvarez had been endorsed by Gonzales’ own party, the Partido Demokratika Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (PDSP).

Created during the Aquino presidency, the office of the national security adviser is supposed to provide policy advice to the president on internal security matters. A key person in the National Security Council, the NSA also oversees the operations of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) and works closely with the secretaries of defense and justice.

The position of national security adviser had been held mostly by retired AFP generals including Rafael Ileto, Alexander Aguirre, Jose Almonte, Lisandro Abadia, Eduardo Ermita and Roilo Golez, who was a Navy officer. Gonzales is the second civilian to occupy the post, the first being former UP president Emmanuel Soriano.

Manipulative

Although a civilian, Gonzales brings to the post the manipulative skills of an opportunist who, according to reports, cuts corners to play politics. His PDSP, a small political party which he still chairs, was formed during the Marcos presidency by anti-communist clerico-fascists to obstruct the growing influence of the national democrats. Since the Aquino presidency, “social democrats” led by Gonzales have wormed their way into the national government holding lucrative posts. Under Macapagal-Arroyo, they became a “coalition partner.”

Gonzales tried to endear himself to Macapagal-Arroyo by introducing her to European leaders whose parties are affiliated with the Socialist International (SI) of which his PDSP is a “consultative party” – not a regular member, as he claims. (The other consultative party is Etta Rosales’ Akbayan.) The post held by Gonzales embodies a strong pro-U.S. stance – a position that SI’s mainstream members do not bite. They have, for instance, called for the takeover by the United Nations of the peacekeeping mission in Iraq and have welcomed the newly-elected Spanish president’s pledge to pull out Spanish troops from that war-torn Middle East country. Just like his predecessors, Gonzales apes and echoes everything that the Americans say about their war efforts in Iraq and elsewhere.

There is a claim that Gonzales had a hand in persuading Norway – as well as Sweden – to facilitate the peace process between the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). His “pro-peace” pretensions however are betrayed by the fact that he is accused of having played a key role, as Macapagal-Arroyo’s presidential adviser for the peace process, in scuttling the peace talks between the two panels from 2001-2003.

In 2002, NDFP peace panelist Fidel Agcaoili denounced Gonzales as a “political hustler” and asked the president to pull him out of the GRP panel. Similarly, in 2003, key Mindanao leaders asked the president to pluck him out of the peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Moros

In the 1970s, PDSP was reported to have held talks with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) for an alliance against the Marcos government. But, according to Agcaoili, Gonzales betrayed the MNLF “by supplying intelligence information to the U.S. and Philippine intelligence agencies.” If that was the case, Gonzales may have committed a second betrayal against the MNLF when, based on reports, he became instrumental in the ouster of its chair, Nur Misuari, as governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in 2001. 

Sly and opportunist that he is, Gonzales’ moves against progressive political parties in the Philippines led by Bayan Muna cannot just be taken lightly. It is immaterial whether he can back his charges with proof - in the same way that Macapagal-Arroyo showed no proof when she accused the Kilusang Mayo Uno and other militant groups as “communist fronts.” It was a signal for the military and the police to reload their offensives against unarmed and legitimate political organizations. Gonzales’ own verbal attacks are just as well another sign that the war on terror in the Philippines is being pursued with a serious bent, mixing the “war on terror” with the electoral exercise.

If Gonzales cannot succeed in his demonization campaign now, he – or somebody else - will do it again after the elections. Bulatlat.com

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