Aquino victory conceals continuing gov't crisis

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Members of the New Peoples' Army (NPA). Aquino victory lat polls also indicates resumption of war in the countryside.

The Feb. 2, 1987, approval of a new constitution in the Philippines barely conceals the continuing crisis of the government of Corazon Aquino.

In the preceding two weeks, her troops had fired on a demonstration of 10,000 farmers demanding land. Nineteen were killed at the Mendiola Bridge, where in late 1983, the same army, then commanded by Ferdinand Marcos, shot down 11 marchers.

The Jan. 22 shootings put a damper on illusory hopes in the "progressive" character of a regime unwilling to purge the dictator's army and incapable of instituting meaningful change in the lives of the working people. Though not engineered by Aquino, the massacre underscored her government's open shift to the right and the ascendancy of the army in Philippine politics.

In the crisis of confidence which followed, five members of Aquino's Human Rights Commission resigned, along with one of her spokespersons in the negotiations with the National Democratic Front/New People's Army (NDF/NPA).

Army's tenuous loyalty

One week after the Jan. 22 massacre, proMarcos army troops rebelled, citing Aquino's "coddling" of the NDF/NPA.

Ironically, two days after these troops surrendered, the NDF announced that it was abandoning the peace talks and allowing the 60-day ceasefire to lapse. Thus, the major achievement of the liberals in Aquino's regime—a truce in the 18-year war between the Philippine state and the peasant guerrillas of the NPA—lies in shambles.

Both the Mendiola massacre and the aborted mutiny which followed reveal that Aquino exercises minimal control over an army grown powerful through two decades of Marcos rule. The revolt confirms the precariousness of the Aquino-army alliance three months after the ouster of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile.

Although Chief of Staff Gen. Fidel Ramos successfully isolated Enrile and perceptibly pushed the government to the right, important factions in the army remain unappeased. While more extreme elements openly revolted, others disobeyed Aquino's orders to attack the mutineers. In the end, the stalemate was broken by a rebel surrender.

The resumption of in the countryside can only strengthen the more reactionary sectors of the army.

Roots of Mendiola massacre 'The Mendiola massacre,". " stated the NPA in ending peace talks, "mirrors the continuing contradiction and conflict riving Philippine society. It manifests the inherent inability of an elite government to heed the people's fundamental demands." (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 31, 1987)

On Feb. 7, our friend and comrade Tom Gustafsson died in Stockholm, Sweden, of pancreitis. He was 39 years old.

Tom was a founder and leader of the Socialistiska Partiet, the Swedish section of the Fourth International. For the past six years, he was also part of the central leadership of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.

Tom was a tireless fighter for world socialism from the time he became politically active at the University of Lund in the mid-1960s.

Tom plunged into the solidarity movement with the Vietnamese Revolu -tion. He was on the barricades in Paris in 1968 at the time of the student revolt and general strike. And he was in Czechoslovakia at the time of the 1968 Soviet invasion, where he witnessed the futile attempts by Communist Party leaders to reform the ruling Stalinist bureaucracy.

These demands-jobs, land, and national liberation-stem from the devastated condition of Philippine workers and peasants. According to Food First, 75 percent live in poverty. One thousand children a day die from malnutrition or preventable diseases.

While unemployment hovers at 18 percent of the work force, an additional 40 percent work less than half time. On the sugar-producing island of Negros, alone, 300,000 workers are jobless. Those who do find work are mercilessly exploited. In one free-trade zone, a worker who yearly produces $72,000 in goods receives only $222 in monthly wages. (Philippine News, Dec. 10-16, 1987)

The Jan. 22 peasant demonstration was a reaction to the new government's neglect. Marcos' discredited "land reform"-for which only 16 percent of tenant farmers could qualify and less than 2 percent = OR received land—has not been replaced.

The average three-acre plot given to recipients pales in comparison to the 16,000-acre plantation owned by Aquino's family, let alone the 74,314 acres planted by Castle & Cook or the 59,448 farmed by the Del Monte Corporation.

Millions of peasants fleeing these con -ditions have transformed the outskirts of Manila into a vast shantytown and swelled the ranks of the NPA.

The NPA's decision to resume armed struggle coincided with a major Aquino victory in the recent polls. The new constitution keeps her in power for six more years, thus placing Aquino's bourgeois rivals on the defensive and giving her supporters an edge in the upcoming May and August elections.

The new charter reflects the unstable coalition which succeeded Marcos. Despite the upsurge of "people power" which overthrew the dictatorship, the new con -stitution was drafted not by a democratically elected constituent assem -bly, but by a narrow committee picked by Aquino and dominated by the ruling class.

Instead of confronting the challenge to Philippine independence crystallized by the U.S. military presence in the country, the document allows U.S. bases to remain undisturbed until 1991, with their future • left up to a senate which will no doubt be dominated by interests historically I subservient to the United States.

As the Philippine ambassador explained to the Wall Street Journal, even the "nuclear-free Philippines" provision, which could prevent effective U.S. use of the interests of the Philippine ruling class.

Lukewarm "nationalism" is expressed in provisions granting "preferential" treatment to Philippine businesses while simultaneously allowing continued penetration by multinational capital.

The concerns of the peasantry are given a gratuitous nod, while landlords are assured "just compensation" for land reform. In the same spirit, the constitution generously allows "legal" strikes.

Also included is an extensive bill of rights which must be read not only in the context of the Mendiola massacre, but in the aftermath of the 2000 victims of counterinsurgency operations since the fall of Ferdinand Marcos.

For or against Aquino?

In light of recent events, it is ironic that many Philippine leftists supported the new constitution as a bulwark against the resurgence of the right. The nationalist coalition BAYAN, torn by dissension, took no position.

Yet, important sections of the mass movement opposed ratification and began to distance themselves from Aquino. Besides the NPA, these included the May First Movement (KMU), the largest tradeunion federation; the Peasant Movement of the Philippines (KMP), which called the Jan. 22 march; and the People's Party (PnB).

The Feb. 2 plebiscite was less concerned with the content of the new charter than with testing Aquino's popular support. Unlike the Nicaraguan constitution, the document was hardly distributed, much less discussed.

Nonetheless, the vote confirmed Aquino's appeal. To the urban middle class and the Catholic Church, which provide her base, Aquino not only represented the "February revolution," but also a "third way" between dictatorship and the NPA.

Her appeal also captured the working people, although support from this quarter had begun to wane even before the Mendiola massacre. The aborted coup, however, stirred fears of à Marcos restora -tion and more than compensated for this dip in support. Fully 75 percent of the electorate endorsed the new charter.

The armed struggle An important component contributing to Aquino's success has been the inability of the workers' movement to clearly counterpose itself to Aquino's liberals as well as to Marcos supporters.

For "tactical" reasons, its leaders have tended to give. political support to Aquino against an unreformed army. As a consequence, the former "elite opposition" has retained the initiative despite its unfulfilled promises.

As Aquino executes her pledge to the U.S. Congress to "take up the sword of war" against the NPA, the "democratic space" opened up by the fall of Marcos can only narrow.

Farmer, labor, and human-rights activists will encounter renewed repression. The government increasingly sees them as no more than an adjunct of the guerrillas. But heightened repression will further erode the illusions on which the Aquino regime is based.

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