Opposition swells against dictatorship

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SIC I € MILITARY TERRORI Workers demonstrate in Manila against President Ferdinand Marcos Socialist Action June 1984 3 Despite widespread intimidation and voter fraud, opponents of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos appear to be winning a substantial minority of seats in the May 14 elections to the largely powerless National Assembly.

According to the May 22 New York Times, opposition candidates had won 51 out of 183 elected positions and were leading Marcos' "New Society Movement" (Kilusang Bajong Lipunan— KBL) in 31 other races. (An additional 17 seats are to be appointed by Marcos.) In metropolitan Manila, where nearly 20 percent of the Philippine population resides, up to 15 of the 21 open positions have been won by anti-Marcos candidates. As Marcos told CBS News, "Our instructions to our people to allow the opposition to win some seats might have been taken too literally.?

The road to the elections was marked with "irregularities" According to the April issue of Ang Katipunan, it was estimated that in Manila alone the number of registered voters was 37 percent higher than census figures. Further, UNIDO (United Nationalist Democratic Organization), the party of the "elite opposition, was denied ballot status as the major opposition in numerous areas, thus allowing local officials to deny the party the right to have poll watchers.

To further complicate the picture, disgruntled KBL members who had been denied candidate status by their own party began filing as "opposition" candidates, complementing other "opposition" parties apparently funded behind the scenes by the KBL. Last but not least, more than 20 people have been assassinated in election-related violence. And to guarantee the sanctity of the ballot-box in this tense climate, Marcos broke an earlier vow to demilitarize the elections by "deputizing" the Philippine Constabulary and the Integrated National Police to guard the polls.

DUT- DA. BOBBY dela PAZ While Ferdinand Marcos remains firmly in control, the surprising May 14 election results reflected the deep opposition to the dictatorship which had been galvanized by the brazen assassination last August of opposition leader Benigno Aquino. At the same time, the respectable showing for the elite opposition buoyed U.S. and oppositionist hopes for an "orderly" transition from Marcos' rule—a transition which would leave U.S. economic and military interests, and those of the anti-Marcos capitalists, intact. To the United States the most important concern is the continued existence of its strategic Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Base.

Boycott urged

In the months prior to the elections, debate raged within the broad anti-Marcos movement over whether to take part in the elections. Nationalist middle-class forces, organized in the Justice for Aquino-Justice for All movement and the Nationalist Alliance for Justice, DR.

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Freedom, and Democracy, joined with the labor unions of the May First Movement (Kilusang Mayo Uno-KMU) in advocating a boycott. These forces argued that only the elimination of the dictatorship and the ouster of U.S. bases could begin to solve the Philippine crisis, and that participation would only give credence to the continued existence of the dictatorship. The underground National Democratic Front also urged a boycott.

While the extent of the boycott is not yet known, the earlier Jan. 27 plebiscite turned out less than 40 percent of the eligible voters despite stiff penalties for not voting. Boycott activities for the May 14 elections culminated in a mass rally in Manila on May 13.

Proponents of participation saw the situation differently. The U.S. Embassy, for example, in Manila viewed a respectable opposition participation in the elections as both a key face-saving measure for the regime and a means of setting the stage for an "acceptable" coalition transition government. It, therefore, lobbied heavily among elite opposition politicians. Similarly, UNIDO leader Salvador Laurel was granted meetings with Vice President George Bush, State Department officials, and congresspeople during his recent trip to this country.

Seek "polities as usual"

UNIDO participation was critical in giving the elections credibility, both in the United States and in the Philippines. A coalition of 12 parties, UNIDO seeks a return to premartial law "politics as usual, when elections were dominated by parties representing the interests of various factions of the oligarchy.

Martial law and the resulting economic hegemony of Marcos and his cronies undermined the basis of the old jockeying. A return to premartial law politics has been further eroded by the deterioration of the Philippine economy and the mass unrest that followed the Aquino assassination. On May Day, for example, the KMU mobilized 50,000 people in Manila calling for the dismantlement of the dictatorship.

Despite its early blustering about boycott, the elite opposition was pressured to participate in the elections by the threat of the mass movement getting out of hand, and by U.S. encouragement. Even Cory Aquino, the widow of the slain oppositionist, urged participation.

Caught between Marcos and the mass movement, the "elite opposition" of the Philippine ruling class is in a quandary. The hopes raised by the election results cannot be sustained. Marcos remains in power, backed by 250,000 troops and the United States, which as yet has no other option than to support him. Marcos soon renegotiates Philippine repayment of the foreign debt with the International Monetary Fund. In the long run, the May 14 elections will be seen as one of many stopgap measures designed to hold back the aroused workers and peasants of the Philippines.

Monde paid tribute not only to the internationalism and continuity of the Trotskyist movement, but also to the LCR's ability to impress with its symbols and imagination.

Before the cremation, Ernest Mandel on behalf of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International; Jose Iriarte Bikila, Basque leader of the section in the Spanish state; Jakob Moneta of the German section; Barry Sheppard of the American Socialist Workers Party; Charlie van Gelderen of the British section; and Alain Krivine in the name of the LCR, paid their last tributes, recalling the political acuteness, the consistency, the internationalism and the humanity of this man who "loved life and the revolution, in the words of Alain Krivine. And whose life, as Ernest Mandel said, "is intertwined with the history of the Fourth International"