THREE organizations of the Philippine Left celebrated key anniversaries this year: the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) marked its 50th year on November 30, the Makabayang Samahang Pangkalusugan (MSP) its 36th on December 16, and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) its 46th on December 26. Being underground organizations, the activities commemorating the anniversaries were on the whole clandestine.
The KM, MSP and CPP have been waging what they called the national democratic revolution of the new type for nearly half a century now. These organizations and others allied with them like the New People’s Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front (NDF) continue to fight by way of a protracted war for national liberation and genuine democracy as applied to the context of the Philippines.
The guerilla warfare that characterize the protracted war has been fought in 69 of the country’s 81 provinces; the number of deaths associated with the conflicts between the Philippine Government and the revolutionary national democratic forces has been estimated at 40,000. Further, the 2005 Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR) said that the “insurgency has and continues to involve tremendous costs in terms of lost lives, displaced families, destruction of properties, and derailed development processes” and that “economic costs—both direct and spillover—entailed by the communist insurgency are no less real, although their measurement is more elusive“. The effects of the nearly 50 years of war are grounds enough to seek a peaceful end to the armed conflict between the Government of the Philippines and the CPP-NDF-NPA.
The other compelling argument involves the conditions that are the bases of the conflicts, which are sometimes referred to as causes, sources, triggers or factors of conflicts. The National Unification Commission (NUC) in 1993 conducted consultations nation-wide that led to the identification of the following as root causes of Philippine internal armed conflicts: a) massive and abject poverty and economic inequity, particularly in the distribution of wealth and control over the resource base for livelihood; b) poor governance, including lack of basic social services, absenteeism of elected local officials, corruption and inefficiency in government bureaucracy, and poor implementation of laws, including those to protect the environment; c) injustice, abuse of those in authority and power, violations of human rights; and inequity, corruption and delays in the administration of justice; d) structural inequities in the political system, including control by an elite minority, traditional politicians and political dynasties, and enforcement of such control through private armies; e) exploitation and marginalization of indigenous cultural communities, including lack of respect for and recognition of ancestral domain and indigenous legal and political systems. The other causes included “ideological differences between conflicting parties that include, on one side, the belief in armed struggle as the means to achieve political goals; perceived foreign intervention in domestic affairs; and degeneration of moral values”.
Imagine then the change that would be brought about if the above problematic conditions get addressed: the conflicts instigated by the causes would lose ground and momentum; and the political, socio-economic, cultural situation of Philippine society and its international relationships would change for the better—peace and change. The opportunity to successfully pursue thoroughgoing change that could not be achieved under “normal” conditions because of elite and foreign control over Philippine politics and the economy has always been, to me, the bigger argument for pursuing the peace process between the GPH and the CPP-NDF-NPA.
Unfortunately, the peace talks involving the CPP-NDF-NPA has been on again and off again. Unlike the peace process between government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the support that the GPH and CPP-NDF-NPA process generated from national civil society and the international community has not been as broad and as sustained.
But if there is one lesson that could be gleaned from the GPH and MILF peace talks, it would be the importance of tenacity in the face of fluidity and uncertainty. Filipinos have accomplished much in the last thirty years towards creating the conditions that pushed the GPH and MILF process to where it is now. Filipinos can be no less tenacious when it comes to the GPH and the CPP-NDF-NPA, that other great undertaking for peace and change.
As we approach a new year, perhaps our tenacity would be such that the KM, MSP and the CPP would no longer have to celebrate future anniversaries underground.
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