 COMMENTARY
Marginalizing the Marginal
The
Macapagal-Arroyo administration and its military partner may have scored some
points in the dirty war of disenfranchising the Left in the recent party-list
elections. But they have made the electoral option less a palliative and have
destroyed completely whatever is left of the credibility of the electoral
process. It will make Congress more inconsequential and look like a gallery of
fools. Would the masses be blamed if this would make the armed struggle a more
viable option for articulating their demands and making their lives better?
By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com
“The
State shall promote proportional representation in the election of
representatives to the House of Representatives through a party-list system of
registered national, regional and sectoral parties or organizations or
coalitions thereof, which will enable Filipino citizens belonging to the
marginalized and underrepresented sectors, organizations and parties, and who
lack well-defined political constituencies but who could contribute to the
formulation and enactment of appropriate legislation that will benefit the
nation as a whole, to become members of the House of Representatives. Towards
this end, the State shall develop and guarantee a full, free and open party
system in order to attain the broadest possible representation of party,
sectoral or group interests in the House of Representatives by enhancing their
chances to compete for and win seats in the legislature, and shall provide the
simplest scheme possible.” – Republic Act 7941 or the Party-List System
Act of 1995
The
constitutional provision calling for the election of party-list representatives
to the House took shape in 1986 in the midst of the clamor for making
representation in Congress equal and so that the voice of the poor is finally
heeded. The 1986 charter replaced the 1973 Marcos constitution that upheld
authoritarianism, military rule and the suppression of democratic rights.
In
the old Congress, it was the power of the ruling elite of landlords and
comprador-bourgeoisie that held sway. The members of the elite and new
ilustrados that lorded it over used the legislative institution to legitimize
their political and economic domination of the country. It was this Congress
that, among others, legitimized the stay of the U.S. military bases, enshrined
the unequal free trade with the country’s colonial master and enacted bogus
land reforms that made the tenant masses more oppressed and miserable while
making the landlords more despotic. To traditional politicians, Congress was a
step closer to the presidency; it was also used to further enrich oneself and
plunder the country’s wealth while the people wallowed in poverty and hunger.
It
is now 18 years since the new constitutional provision on party-list was written
and nine since RA 7941 was enacted by Congress providing for the election of
party-list representatives who shall occupy 20 percent of the lower House’s
250 seats. Although the elections for the party-list representation began in
1998, it was the campaign period for the May 10, 2004 elections that the law
guaranteeing the participation of marginal and sectoral political parties came
under the most vicious attacks. And this was because, as far as the ruling
faction of the elite and its military and police conduits are concerned, the law
which calls for “full, free and open party system” cannot just open avenues
for genuine representatives of the toiling masses of workers, peasants and other
poor classes.
May
2001
The
militant Left took part in the party-list elections in May 2001 under the
people-first platform where it also committed itself to making Congress a venue
for articulating the poor’s concerns and popular demands. According to Carlos
Padilla, House minority leader of the 12th Congress, when the three
members of Bayan Muna (BM or people first) took their seats as party-list
representatives, the elite-dominated Congress was never the same again. Its
halls echoed of bills and resolutions that called for legislated wage increases,
the review of the country’s WTO commitments, the advancement of women’s
rights, the indemnification of Marcos torture victims and opposition to the U.S.
war on terror and military presence in the country. But the presence of BM
representatives also angered top defense and Armed Forces officials especially
when they began to be grilled over the rising incidence of military abuses all
over the country.
Since
the beginning, however, the entry of the militant Left into the party-list
system had been secretly opposed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, her
underlings and allies in Congress as well as, openly and brutally, by the
military and police establishments. Since 2001 until the May elections this
year, more than 40 leaders and members of BM, Anakpawis (toiling masses), Anak
ng Bayan (nation’s youth) and other progressive party-list groups have been
killed and scores of others harassed. Lawyers, church leaders and human rights
groups who investigated the cases said military, paramilitary and police forces
were the perpetrators. No single alleged perpetrator has been arrested by the
authorities.
The
vicious attacks against the party-list groups became known with a confidential
statement by Victor Corpus, erstwhile AFP intelligence chief, revealing a
military plan in 2001 to launch a new crackdown against the Left. The following
year, the AFP’s official newsletter, Ang Tala, came out with part of
the action plan in the guise of an article directing the “neutralization” of
Bayan Muna and other militant organizations. A top military official also raised
alarm signals about the presence of BM legislators in Congress with a veiled
threat that they no “communist” has any right being there.
Macapagal-Arroyo
That
same year also saw Macapagal-Arroyo lambasting BM representative and labor
leader, Crispin Beltran, and other allied organizations as “communist.” The
president’s public statements sent signals to the AFP to re-tool its local
U.S.-engineered “war on terror” into a war against the Left – whether
armed or unarmed. It was at about this time that Mindoro Island – particularly
Oriental Mindoro province – was used as a laboratory of the AFP for its
counter-insurgency campaign against BM and other legitimate unarmed progressive
organizations. Most progressive party-list organizers who have been killed or
disappeared came from this province. It was also here where in the last
elections many voters were disenfranchised; several communities were forcibly
herded to vote for one pro-administration candidate or another.
The
Macapagal-Arroyo administration, through the military and police, stepped up its
campaign of extinction against the progressive party-list network after five
more groups were organized to broaden the participation of the poor in Congress.
Brazenly, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales pressed for high-level
attacks when, without showing proof, he accused BM of funneling public funds to
the New People’s Army (NPA) while tagging the five other party-list groups of
being “fronts” of the NPA.
In
the months leading to the May elections, the administration unleashed the entire
military and police machinery to wage a systematic vilification campaign against
the bloc of progressive political groups. Some anti-communist and
military-backed party-list groups connived with government, the Commission on
Elections and other agencies to rig the elections at the expense of the
progressive forces – or at least reduce their chances of winning additional
seats in Congress. Ironically, BM and other progressive party-list organizations
were leading in pre-election surveys. Together with the AFP spokesperson,
Gonzales is now seeking disqualification moves against them on charges that they
were supported by the NPA.
The
tragedy that has befallen the party-list system in the Philippines is
reminiscent of Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries in Southeast Asia as well
as Chile, Bolivia, Guatemala and other Latin American countries where the
military, backed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, monopoly capitalists
and local landlords intervened during the 1950s-1970s to deprive the Left,
patriotic and democratic forces of their legitimate political ascendancy via the
electoral system. By pushing the Left and other progressive forces out of the
electoral process where their parties would have won handily because of strong
mass support, U.S. intervention in these countries allowed the coming into power
of military juntas. The subversion of the electoral process did not make
democracy alive but led to the further subversion of civil and political rights;
bourgeois elections were replaced by fascist repression.
Here
in the Philippines, the Democratic Alliance of leftists and progressive
politicians led to the election of seven representatives to Congress in 1947.
They never took their seats. In 1987, the “new politics”-oriented Partido ng
Bayan (PnB or people’s party) which represented militant and progressive
forces campaigned for a seven-member senatorial slate; it also supported a few
candidates for the House while endorsing other aspirants in the local elections
based on principled agenda. Several campaign activists were killed, there was
widespread fraud and only a handful made it to the House. It was also during
that year that then President Corazon Aquino, along with remnants of the Marcos
dictatorship and with U.S. backing, launched her blood-stained total war policy
against PnB and other militant groups and forces.
Blemished
elections
Indeed,
past elections had been blemished by widespread fraud and terrorism, by the
proverbial 3Gs (guns, goons and gold). Fraud and violence was – and is –
part of the electoral system that has become nothing but a political spectacle
where one faction of the ruling elite is replaced by another and where the whole
social system that they dominate and which becomes more rotten by the day
undergoes rehabilitation. To them, at least the elections are a palliative
assuring the people that the system is capable of reforming itself under a new
ring of leaders.
But
the May 2004 election was somewhat different in its own way. Not since Claro M.
Recto and Lorenzo Tañada ran for the presidential and vice-presidential slots
in the 1950s on the platform of nationalism has the Philippine electoral race
been imbued with legitimate issues to run for and debate upon. The entry of more
progressive party-list groups in the campaign is what gave meaning to the
elections as their constituencies – and the broad sections of the people
especially the urban poor, farmers and workers who became convinced of the
validity of their issues – rose in big numbers to make their voice in Congress
louder. Congress was to serve as one more vehicle for alternative policy
advocacy and putting the people’s agenda on the political centerstage.
The
ruling elite and the military that props them up however cannot allow militant
and progressive forces to make a dent on their domination of the country’s
main political institutions. They now feel threatened by the increasing inertia
of the progressive groups to get elected in Congress in bigger numbers and of
their capability to influence this reactionary chamber. They loath at the
prospects of Congress being animated by legitimate issues and their own demagogy
matched by principled debates. Unless other forces – like pseudo-radicals and
the social democrats – continue to allow themselves coopted and support
government’s reformist hypocrisy, then the powers-that-be can only make token
support for the party-list system.
At
stake in the next Congress are major legislative agenda that aim to perpetuate
factions of the ruling elite to remain in power in the guise of a charter
change. The same charter change will be pushed to legitimize foreign
monopoly-capitalist control of the economy as well as the country’s
anti-constitutional commitments to the World Trade Organization. There are also
indications to remove the constitutional provision that bans foreign military
bases as well as to weave in new provisions that would constitutionalize the
anti-libertarian Anti-Terrorism Bill. A strong Leftist voice in Congress may
make it all too difficult for these legislative measures to be railroaded.
The
Macapagal-Arroyo administration and its military partner may have scored some
points in the dirty war of disenfranchising the Left in the recent party-list
elections. But they have made the electoral option less a palliative and have
destroyed completely whatever is left of the credibility of the electoral
process. It will make Congress more inconsequential and look like a gallery of
fools. Would the masses be blamed if this would make the armed struggle a more
viable option for articulating their demands and making their lives better? Bulatlat.com
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