Philippines: Revolutionary Option

Story Location: http://www.bworldonline.com/BW062609/content.php?id=143

Philippines: Revolutionary option

“Whether one sympathizes with it or not, the fact is that this revolutionary movement is present and exerts significant political influence. It continues to challenge the ruling system and regime in power at every turn and raises the possibility of overturning the crisis-ridden system one day and introducing a radically different alternative…”

June 26, 2009 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES
BusinessWorld Online – Quezon City,Philippines

By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo

AFP Chief Gen. Victor Ibrado recently admitted that the military is having difficulty meeting the deadline imposed by de facto Commander-in-chief Gloria Arroyo three years ago, to end the decades-old communist insurgency in 2010. (Philippine Star, June 22, 2009). This was after he and his predecessors had repeatedly boasted that the military was on track in achieving the defeat of the New People’s Army (NPA).

The lame excuse is that the armed guerrillas “are just crisscrossing borders and transferring to another guerrilla front” even when the AFP had already allegedly “dismantled” the political and military infrastructure of numerous rebel fronts.

One need not be an expert on military strategy and tactics to know that guerrillas by nature employ flexibility and shifting tactics. This is a guerrilla movement’s way of dealing with the overwhelming superiority, in terms of numbers and weapons, of the state’s armed forces. Instead, it uses the favorable physical and social terrain in the countryside — i.e., the rugged mountains and remaining forested areas as well as the support of the rural populace — to conduct its revolutionary warfare.

Time and again ruling regimes announce the impending demise of armed revolutionary movements in much the same vein and for the same reasons that they belittle the democratic protest movement. The aim is to conjure strength and stability, to foist the illusion of popular acceptance if not support, because government is supposedly undertaking reforms that address the causes of armed conflict and mass protest actions.

Deceptive propaganda works up to a certain point, given government resources and numerous levers to manipulate, if not control, the mass media. But reality always catches up and the truth becomes so glaring that the regime’s minions are compelled to eat their words and offer the lamest of excuses or persist in the most egregious of lies.

JUFRAN Blog: “Turning silence into song”

For the JUFRAN workshop two weeks ago, we showed the interns a documentary called “That the Mountains May Chant the Truth”. It talked about the human rights situation in the context of the Cordillera region of the Philippines. Two summers ago, members of LFS’ Baliksambayanan Exposure Trip integrated with the Cordillera Peoples Alliance. There they saw for themselves the struggle indigenous people in the Philippines face. They’re fighting to preserve their culture, their land, and their people. Unfortunately, those are the same reasons why activists are being targeted and organizations like CPA face repression from their own government. This entry was written by JUFRANian Ian Conde, who is also a member of Anakbayan- East Bay.

Hello,

As much the ND (National Democratic) Movement here in the United States is moving in support of the movement back home in the motherland, the cause is rooted deeper back home. The different sectors are exploited. Women. Youth/Students. Workers. Peasants.  When we all watched the video from the CPA (Cordilleras People’s Alliance) all I can ever really think of was the STK (Stop The Killings) Campaign waged by BAYAN USA. I wear two pins on my backpack to not only show them off as an accessory, but a way to show people what I’m about. I get the occasional “what are those pins for?” & I can tell them with full confidence what they’re for, where I got them, & why I have them on.  As I mentioned the enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings have been escalated ever since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took office in the RP (Republic of the Philippines.) We may feel anger as our first impulsive emotion when we see videos that are really good at agitating an issue, but as the quote in the video says

“Turning silence into song,”

Kin, Friends Renew for Surfacing of Abducted Cordi Activist

PUBLISHED ON April 20, 2009 AT 12:05 PM

The family, clan, colleagues, as well as friends of missing Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) member James Moy Balao held a photo exhibit and information drive on enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings at the public market of La Trinidad, Benguet on April 17, the 213th day of his disappearance.

BY ALDWIN QUITASOL
Northern Dispatch
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Posted by Bulatlat

BAGUIO CITY (246 KMS NORTH OF Manila) ? The family, clan, colleagues, as well as friends of missing Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA) member James Moy Balao held a photo exhibit and information drive on enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings at the public market of La Trinidad, Benguet on April 17, the 213th day of his disappearance.

Amid heavy rain, Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA) and CPA members and supporters distributed statements, displayed banners and delivered speeches on Balao’s abduction, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings. They reiterated the call to surface James Balao.

Balao turns 48 this April 19.

On Tax Day: Cancel the $400 Million Payment of U.S. Tax Dollars for Human Rights Violations

**Please forward widely**

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 15, 2009

Reference: Rhonda Ramiro, Secretary General, secgen@bayanusa.org

On Tax Day: Cancel the $400 Million Payment of U.S. Tax Dollars for Human Rights Violations

Filipino Alliance in the U.S. Calls for End to Costly Balikatan War Exercises in the Philippines

Today, 138 million people in the U.S. will file their income taxes and pay a third or more of their income to the U.S. government. Today, 8,000 miles away in the Philippines, the U.S. will launch military exercises and begin its spending spree of $400 million taxpayer dollars over the next 10 years to pay for military war games, training, and materiel that fuel violence, rape, killings, abductions, and other human rights violations against innocent civilians.

BAYAN-USA condemns the continuation of the joint military exercises between Philippine and U.S. troops in the Bicol region of the Philippines, which begins today and runs through April 28. The resumption of the so-called Balikatan (Shoulder-to-Shoulder) exercises clearly indicates that President Barack Obama has not fundamentally revised the foreign policy of his predecessor. The Balikatan exercises show that the U.S. continues to use its military power to enhance its geopolitical interests in the world, at the cost of innocent lives in countries like the Philippines and hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that are desperately needed for education, health care, affordable housing, and other domestic services.