Remember this? The national democratic movement, led by Makabayan, endorsed and supported Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, depicting him as progressive, even "socialist." 1/ 🧵
We are witnessing, as the 2022 Presidential election opens, another mad scramble by the 'national democratic' forces, to secure a useful alliance with a leading politico, whom they can endorse and with whom they can campaign. They are courting Robredo, Pacquiao & Isko Moreno. 2/
It is a sordid affair, watching them tie themselves into knots to both criticize and prepare to support these leading representatives of the ruling elite. In the process, they want everyone to forget that this photo ever happened. 3/
The question arises: who will they not endorse? Is there anyone that Bayan will not ally with? Let's revisit this history with a few images. 4/
Here are @satur_ocampo and Paeng Mariano allied with Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2000. 5/
Again, Ocampo, Crispin Beltran and GMA. There was a real intimacy to this alliance. But they would rather you forget this. 6/
Recall how in 2010 they allied with and campaigned for real estate billionaire Manny Villar. Here are Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza raising hands with the man responsible for the forcible eviction of more shantytown residents than almost anyone in the country. 7/
They shared Villar's slate with Bongbong Marcos. Here is Marcos, running for senate, raising hands with Satur Ocampo. 8/
Here is Ocampo shaking Marcos' hand. Shameless. 9/
How about the temporary alliance with Gregorio Honasan and Ping Lacson in 2004? Here Ocampo joins hands with Honasan, whose hands are covered in the blood of the Filipino working class, including Olalia and Alay-ay. 10/
Or the alliance between Bong Revilla and @teddycasino in 2013? 11/
Alfredo Lim, directly responsible for the Mendiola Massacre of 1987? Casino chose to stand next to him raising his fist to honor Crispin Beltran. 12/
How about Joseph Estrada, whom Bayan denounced as tyrannical and corrupt when they were allied with Arroyo? They welcomed Estrada's support for Colmenares in 2015. 13/
Here is the note that Crispin Beltran wrote to Estrada in 2006: "Dear Erap, you are great! ... Continue being steadfast, Erap! Magtatagumpay tayo!" Again, utter shamelessness. 14/
They are now looking to move from this to a new alliance. And they welcome all comers. In service to this they are looking to bury and rewrite the past, in a manner perversely akin to the Marcoses. 15/
If you want to gain a historical and theoretical understanding of how these rotten alliances are rooted in the program of the Stalinism, I would encourage you to read my lecture of last year. 16/16 wsws.org/en/articles/20…
I regularly came across Nepomuceno in my archival research for The Drama of Dictatorship and he makes a walk-on appearance in my book at several points. 2/ cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/978150177…
Willie Nepomuceno took part in the famed Diliman Commune of February 1971. When the barricades were lifted, Nepomuceno, who was a member of the UP Student Council, voted in defense of the commune behind the leadership of Ericson Baculinao in a bill sponsored by Sonny Coloma. 3/
Yes, there are other factors, many of far greater objective weight.
But in a revolutionary situation it is the subjective factor -- revolutionary leadership -- that is decisive. This is why the CPP has played such a critical role. 1/
The central question in a revolutionary situation such as February 1986 is this: will the working class fight for its own political interests, will it take up the perspective of socialism?
Here the intervention of the revolutionary party is decisive. 2/
All of the other actors have their own interests, hostile to the working class -- factions of the military, Marcos' cronies, the fractious bourgeois opposition rallied behind Aquino, the hierarchy of the Catholic church. 3/
A year ago today, I wrote an assessment on the WSWS of the election of Marcos. Published the day after the election, it is a historically detailed explanation for the return of the Marcoses.
Marcos' election, I wrote, was part of the "death rattle of democracy." 1/
"The outcome is a result of the impact of US imperialism on the country’s history expressed in a concentrated form under the conditions of the current global crisis of capitalist rule." 2/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
"The postcolonial Philippines was a country of two democracies—the democratic tradition of the masses and the formal parliamentary institutions of the elite—with no organic, historic connection between them whatsoever." 3/ wsws.org/en/articles/20…
As Mr. Marcos goes to Washington, it is useful to recall the state visit of his parents to the White House in 1966.
LBJ needed to manufacture the appearance of multilateral support for America's bloody war in Vietnam and he courted the Marcoses. 1/
We know from declassified material that LBJ's National Security team told the US president that the secret to securing Marcos support was to pledge discretionary money that Marcos could pocket, and to stoke Marcos ego. 2/
Under secret auspices, the Johnson administration channeled millions to Marcos who personally stole a good deal of the money. When this was exposed by the Symington subcommittee in 1969, the Nixon administration buried the evidence to help Marcos get re-elected. 3/
Founder and lifelong leader of the Stalinist Communist Party of the Philippines, Jose Ma. Sison, died on December 16 at the age of 83.
No figure in the past half-century was more instrumental in the betrayal of the Filipino working class and oppressed masses than Joma Sison. 1/
In an article published in Sojourn last year, "We Are Siding with Filipino Capitalists," I traced the nationalist, capitalist origins of Sison's core Stalinist ideas as a graduate student at UP at the beginning of the 1960s. 2/ doi.org/10.1355/sj36-1a