On the death of Corazon Aquino
(amihanmalaya.wordpress.com and monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)
Corazon Aquino died a week ago. The death of a former puppet is the latest talk of the town. As usual, the media has started yet another campaign to glorify her. The media serves its own agenda as a mouthpiece for the one section of reactionaries who trumpet the victory of “democracy” over the Marcos-led dictatorship as some kind of mystical event. Not only does this media-driven charade obscure the real historical narrative, it popularizes grandiose lies that bamboozle the masses under the banner of “peaceful revolution” — as if. Such idealist rhetoric leaves us with nothing concrete. Rather than such empty hype, the masses must embrace science and learn from history.
Let’s take a look back, in the late 80s and in the 90s, when the movement was in turmoil. Sison, as a leading theoretician, had the daunting task of putting the revolution back on track, to rectify the entire revolutionary movement. Sison outlined everything from organizational errors to ideological deviation. Sison was absolutely correct in reasserting Maoism as the universal ideological weapon of the oppressed and exploited peoples. In many of the party documents, Sison evaluates the aftermath of the EDSA 1986 “revolution.” He states that conditions under the U$-Aquino regime was as bad or worse than its predecessor. (1) An alternative news source, the Bulatlat describes Aquino’s regime:
“Aquino also implemented the same militarist solution to the armed conflict by ‘unsheathing the sword of war,’ displacing more than a million people in rural areas. The ‘low intensity conflict’ strategy that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) learned from the US Armed Forces and was implemented by the Aquino government included arming anti-communist vigilante groups, which was responsible for brutal attacks against the people in rural areas.” (2)
State terrorism was higher under Aquino than under either Marcos or Arroyo. The U$-Aquino regime unleashed many cutthroat vigilante groups, baranggay defense units, and other mercenaries, even calling them “defenders of democracy.” These were simply goons of the Aquino-Cojuanco clan, especially clerico-fascist cult outfits, Tat-tad, Ilaga to name a few. This also includes the heightened formal anti-insurgency operations of the repressive police and the military.
Now Sison has reversed himself. Two decades after, Sison implies that Cory is a “progressive.” In recent interviews with Sison himself, he reminisces about the friendly ties he had with the Aquinos prior to the downfall of the U$-Marcos regime. According to Sison, he had maintained a good relationship with the Aquinos even though he publicly opposed them. (3) (4) Now the misleaders of the popular movement in the Philippines, the NDF, not only conveyed their condolences to the Aquino family, they also align themselves with Aquino, the hated fraud. The NDF even states that the U$-backed Aquino regime promoted human rights, civil liberties, nationalist and progressive programs, land reform, etc. as called for by the 1986 Constitution. (5) To set the record straight, the U$-Aquino regime upheld such idealist rhetoric only on paper; to say otherwise is to betray the masses, whom the NDF claims to be fighting for. Nobody with a brain believes such nonsense. The Aquino government was an instrument of class rule. Like the Marcos dictatorship before it, Aquino’s regime inflicted terror upon the masses as an instrument of the comprador bourgeoisie, landlords and land thieves.
This unprincipled media stunt by Sison and the NDF is an effort to gain popularity with certain segments of the population, especially the middle classes. For decades, these segments have had a negative opinion of the popular movement for the most part. So, Sison sacrifices Maoism to win some points as a bourgeois politician.
This degenerate forgive-and-forget bullshit is unacceptable. These statements by Sison and the NDF are a betrayal of those who have suffered abuses under Aquino’s reactionary government. Sison only confuses the masses by making such opportunist statements. Such opportunism undermines Maoism as revolutionary science. It is now clear that the NDF has joined the yellow flag waving horde of intellectually bankrupt hippies. They have lost their revolutionary character many times over. And, they have lost their very minds by joining in the Pro-Aquino chorus. Nothing distinguishes the NDF from their predecessor groups. Revisionists are revisionists. And, they have misled the proletariat for far too long. If they can’t even distinguish friends from enemies, how can we expect them to lead the masses to socialism? Unlike the NDF and Sison, Maoist-Third Worldists are steadfast and determined to take principled stands. Genuine revolutionaries speak the truth. The shining path to communism is Maoism-Third Worldism. We shed no tear for a fraud such as Corazon Aquino: the death of an oppressor means nothing to the poor peasants, whom they kill and starve.
Notes
1. http://www.philippinerevolution.net/cgi-bin/cpp/pdocs.pl?id=reafe;page=05
2. http://www.bulatlat.com/main/2009/08/01/cory-aquino%E2%80%99s-place-in-history/
3. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20090803-218598/CPP-founder-Aquino-was-true-to-her-word
4. http://www.josemariasison.org/jumi02/inps/Coryexceprel.htm
5. http://www.philippinerevolution.net/cgi-bin/statements/stmts.pl?author=ndfnp;date=090802;lang=eng
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Good riddance to that comprador pig! As Comrade Mao would have said, her death was lighter than a feather.
It’s disgusting that the NDF is weeping by her bier. That’s just more proof of their political and intellectual bankruptcy.
The CPP-NPA, even though not a scientific, Marxist organization, has engaged in people’s war for decades. As has been said before, conditions are so ripe for revolution in the Third World that totally unscientific groups can lead major uprisings, even protracted ones, against the state: The CPP-NPA, FARC,even Islamist groups. The problem is that these groups will never be able to complete a proletarian revolution. Look at how quickly Prachanda’s victory turned into defeat. All of these groups like the CPP are, it is sad to say, dead ends.
They are echoes of the last wave of revolutions, but they haven’t learned a single thing since that time. And, in many cases, they have regressed. In the case of the CPP, it isn’t even clear it is a Maoist party even by First Worldist standards. They sit on the fence between First Worldist “Maoism” and “Marxism-Leninism.”
Those who will advance, those who will take the next step, need to go back and understand what Maoism really was first off. They need to understand Maoism before it degenerated in the 1970s. Then they need to take the leap to Maoism-Third Worldism. Once they raise the red banner, things will never be the same.
Perhaps Sison wants to reinvent himself as a Prachanda-style democrat. It would not surprise me if Sison led his party into some kind of peace deal before he dies. Prachanda path has shown the way..
Maoism-Third Worldism has stood alone in the ICM against all revisionism. MSH has been right at every turn.