Plug the gaps in our education

By Fr. Roy Cimagala

Schools and universities will once again open for another school year in just a few months, and the cities will be swarmed with students, the question about what authentic education is should be asked.

It would be a pity if after all the precious effort and money expended for the pursuit of education, something else is achieved. And this, sad to say, is not improbable.

We have met many people, otherwise quite educated in a certain way, but who display precisely the absence, or at least a serious deficiency in education. They do not know how to reason out, how to express themselves, how to relate parts with the whole.

They may be good, even experts, in some specialized field, but gravely wanting in basic virtues, like order, prudence, justice, or ignorant of what full human development is.

They may be giants in the things of the world, but pygmies in the things of the spirit. They may be quite adept with the computers and the other modern gadgets, but awkward with prayer and the practice of the teachings of the word of God.

Extrapolate this phenomenon to the whole of society or a good part of the world, then you will have a tremendous crisis at hand. This is no exaggeration. A good part of the big troubles we have at present can be traced to the kind of education we are having.

There are those who think that education is simply sending children to school, or simply a matter of learning some useful skill, getting a degree and some title, and being able to get a job.

Education is much more than these. It's not simply a commodity to have or to show off. It essentially starts with something intangible or spiritual, for it involves a quality, a habit, an orderly universe of virtues and values that should characterize the whole person, and not just some aspects of him.

Education is the transformation of the whole person. It involves the complete, not partial nor fragmented and broken, integration of all his aspects in accordance to the objective nature of man.

Unfortunately, even many of our higher institutions of learning fail to see this. Many of them just get contented with teaching some specialized knowledge and skill.

There is nothing wrong with that, as long as these specializations are done in the context of the over-all development of man. And as long as these specializations foster, not hinder, the appreciation of the complete and ultimate good of man.

The problem becomes a genuine crisis when these schools and universities do not have a clear vision of what man ought to be. Their anthropology is faulty, in that they focus only on some aspects of man, without a good grasp of what would comprise man's full development.

In other words, there are serious gaps in their vision of human development. This can happen in many ways.

When schools only give technical instruction or mere techniques and know-how, education can be considered incomplete. It's like saying that man is being developed with respect to his hands, but not so much with respect to his head.

When schools only involve themselves in secular sciences or social sciences, ignoring religion and the so-called sacred sciences, education is not served.

Such training makes man knowledgeable only about the things of this world, but quite deaf and blind with respect to spiritual and supernatural realities. Such training ill equips man to face the complete reality that concerns him.

One can become experts in biology and the other sciences, but quite deficient in the moral sense. This explains why there are now serious problems related to bio-ethics, for example.

These gaps and deficiencies should be plugged and attended to. This, to me, is a serious challenge we all have to tackle. It's a long way, there are a million steps to be taken, before we can declare some progress in this direction.

Who's going to take the lead in this endeavor? I would say, both the State and Church, in a manner of speaking, can sit down to thresh out concrete plans to solve this problem.

Education is a mixed matter involving both Church and State, because education is for man, and man is both body and soul, individual and social, citizen and faithful, temporal and eternal, of this world and beyond.

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There are right ways and wrong ways of doing things. What is important is what others learned from what we did -- especially to the young and fragile minds.

There was a popular tagalog advertisement which says, "Sa mata ng isang bata, ang mali ay nagiging tama kapag ito ay ginagawa ng mga matatanda."

The Way Out of the Morass

Excerpts from "Whereto, Philippines?"
By H L Neri

Although it was generally believed that the ouster of Mr. Marcos and ascension of Mrs. Aquino to the presidency constituted a severe setback to the communist insurgency in our country, the increasing frequency and boldness of NPA attacks and assassinations has made it quite apparent that the movement has actually gained a lot of ground since then. This would seem to lend more credibility to the extrapolations of experts that - unless checked - such a rate of growth will enable the communists to achieve a strategic stalemate in a matter of years.

Nevertheless, insofar as the generality of our people are concerned, alarm about the escalating problem still has to take on a sense of immediacy or of clear imminent danger. Nor indeed is there enough realization on the part of the beneficiaries of the status quo that they must now move towards letting go of their unjust privileges, in order to eradicate or alleviate the general poverty injustice has spawned and the insurgency is thriving in.

It would seem that some people never learn from history and are therefore "doomed to repeat it." It was this same lack of social awareness that enabled the communist in other countries to bring down the edifice of the existing order while the privileged classes slumbered. One thinks of how termites do it undetected until it is too late; or of how complacent and derisive the doomed remained until right before the great flood which Noah and his family were so sedulously preparing for.

The simple-minded are convinced that all that is needed to crush the insurgency is stronger, more single-minded and solidly cohesive military action. For is not the military still many times superior in numbers and weaponry to the NPA?

Fortunately, neither our political nor our military leadership appears to be so naïve. Time and again they have expostulated that the insurgency cannot be eliminated by military action alone. This must go hand in hand with social and economic approaches.

The problem is that there seems to be no clear or correct consensus on what such approaches should specifically be.

The general view is that what is needed is a more vigorous prosecution of the government's existing socio-economic program, incorporating conventional economic approaches, a much watered-down land reform, and some alleviant welfare measures. But, in general, the structures of privilege are to remain.

The communists, on the other hand, are demanding a radical restructuring of the social order in accordance with their own conception of what a just and democratic social order should be.

Would the communists be willing to put their proposal to a free democratic vote if the Communist Party were to be truly legalized and allowed to freely argue and propagate their proposals in unrestricted public fora? Would they be willing to put down their arms, on this condition firmly guaranteed, plus amnesty> and would they be willing to live with whatever system gets the popular nod, whatever its perceived defects and infirmities, until - if ever - they succeed in swaying the mind and will of the democratic sovereignty in favor of their ideas?

Equally important: Would the Establishment be willing to open up its mass media to all contrary views, and forswear harassment and underhanded persecutions against those whose views might shake the foundations of the existing order?

It would seem unrealistic to expect affirmative answers to these questions. It seems more realistic to expect that neither the communists nor the guardians of the status quo would want to transfer the venue of their conflict from the military battlefield to the battlefield of ideas, where neither can withstand the searchlight of unobstructed public scrutiny or the unimpeded winds of free public debate.

The initiative for such transfer of venue should come from those who believe that the only way - indeed the only right way - to achieve real and enduring national peace and progress is to bring about a restructuring of our national society on the firm and solid foundations of justice and solidarity, in accordance with a national consensus freely and democratically arrived at.

Along Destiny's Road
By H L Neri

Do not cry, my darling,
That we suffer in the night;
The sun will soon be here,
And its light shall dispel our gloom.

The first rays of the dawn
To break into the clouds
Shall kiss our tears away
And set our hearts aglow.

Our pains shall be but memories,
No tear shall leave a trace -
Our hardships shall have steeled our hearts
For the challenges of day.

The fruits that we shall reap
Will not spring from Mammon's fount;
They will be that cheerful feeling
That shall well up from our souls -

The feeling of being alive,
With all our powers tickling;
The sense that we are equal
To any task ahead -

The knowledge that we are marching,
Along Destiny's road,
To the heights of light and glory
Where alone our hearts can rest.

The Way to Defeat Communism in Our Country

Excerpts from "Whereto, Philippines?"
By H L Neri

Ask the average Filipino if he is against communism and he will unhesitatingly tell you that he is. Ask him what communism is and he will give you a blank look. He does not know.

He can, however, tell you why he does not like communism. He does not like communism because it suppresses civil liberties. He does not like it because it advocates the violent overthrow of the social order. He does not like it because it denies the existence of God.

The average Filipino has been so bombarded with anti-communist propaganda that he knows everything that is bad about communism. And knowing only what is bad in communism, he concludes that communism is all bad.

Hence, he cannot understand why people talk so much about the communist menace. How can communism ever be a threat? It is so unspeakably evil that he cannot imagine that anyone in his right senses could fall for it.

Our people, he tells himself, may be poor, unhappy and discontented; they may be disenchanted with the way our democratic system has been working and disgusted with the way their elected officials have been serving themselves at their expense; but they could never be so irrational and so stupid as to fall for the communist alternative. What then, he asks himself, is there to fear in communism?

Thus ignorance about the real nature of communism breeds complacency which can lead to disaster. It makes one absolutely helpless in coping with the real challenge communism poses.

Indeed, if communism were all evil, it should not be a threat at all in our country or anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately, communism has its attractions side by side with its undesirable features. And these attractions have been underscored by the findings of some Filipino visitors to Red China whose veracity and competence we have no reason to question.

Life in Red China, so their reports go, is not as bad as we had thought. People there are generally better fed, clothed and sheltered than our people here. On top of that, they do not have to worry about education, medicine and medical care. The state takes care of all these. There are even exotic vacation resorts within the reach of everyone. In short, the Chinese in mainland China never had it so good, and this fact was radiated by the smiling and healthy faces which met the Filipino visitors wherever they went.

These reports perplex the average Filipino. It's as if some people had returned from the other life and told him that the problem of burning heat in Hell had been solved by air-conditioning.

To his mind, these reports completely discredit whatever U.S. propaganda he had imbibed before. There is real danger that he will react by thinking that there is nothing wrong at all with communism and that, in fact, it is the panacea to all the ills besetting our country.

We must face up to the fact that communism scored a tremendous propaganda victory in our country from the visit of Filipinos to Red China. There can be no better time to pause and ponder the problems and the dangers that have ensued, particularly if assessed in the light of the war in Vietnam and our own Huk resurgence here.

The thing for us to do is to take a closer look at communism, to know it better the more effectively to combat it.

Knowledge of communism tells us that not everything in it is evil, that it has its good and bad features, and that the way to fight it is not to reject everything in it but to reject only what is bad in it.

How would we appear if we fought communism by saying that we should not try to make our people better fed, clothed and sheltered because that is what the Red Chinese have done and to do the same is to be a communist?

How would we appear if we said that we should not advocate free education and free medicine and medical care because that is what they have in Red China and to have the same is communistic?

How would we appear if we fought communism by saying that we should not mouth nationalist and anti-imperialist slogans or speak against the injustices and abuses of capitalism because that is what the communists have been doing and to do the same is to be a communist?

Such a way of fighting communism would boomerang. It would be tantamount to giving the communists a patent on social justice and social welfare and nationalism and the socio-economic uplift of the masses. And it would be the surest way to make communism win in our country.

Neither should we fight communism by saying that, well, all right, there are good things in communism, but they have had to pay for all these things at the exorbitant cost of their freedom. It so happens that our people have been actually paying the same exorbitant price, without getting what the Chinese in mainland China have gotten for it.

There can be no real choice between bread and freedom because there can be no real freedom without bread. Economic bondage makes a mockery of political freedom, removes the substance from the form and renders the whole thing chimerical and meaningless. There can be bread without freedom, but there can be no freedom without bread. To make one choose between bread and freedom is to make him choose between bread and nothing. Any fool would know which to take.

The only way to defeat communism in our country is to demonstrate the ability of our system to give our people the good things communism offers without making them pay the price communism exacts.

We must show them that they can be as well fed, clothed and sheltered as the communists in mainland China without having to pass through the totalitarian regimentation the mainland Chinese have had to undergo.

We must show them that we can give our children free education up to college level without making them give up the freedom which is the only status worthy of the educated man.

We must show them that this Christian and democratic nation has the collective conscience to see to it that no one languishes in sickness or dies of a curable disease for lack of money to pay for medicine and medical care.

We must show them that we who believe in God and adhere to the teachings of Christ love and help one another through a government which not only fights lawlessness but also serves as our instrument for mutual assistance and national cooperation in the spirit of justice and charity.

I have drafted a Credo. I commend it to those who sincerely want to make this nation truly united and progressive under the benign skies of justice, liberty and fraternity.

Credo

We believe in the true and eternal principles of freedom and democracy;

We believe that communism is wrong because it denies these principles and the concept of human dignity from which they spring;

We believe that communism thrives best in the soil of discontent and the climate of despair in which the people find it preferable to surrender these principles in exchange for the essentials of life;

We believe that communism can be defeated only when social injustice is uprooted and the people are given the opportunity to improve their lives under a firmament of freedom, dignity and democracy;

We believe that our progress towards this goal, buffeted as we are by storms and high waves in a shark-infested sea, has been too slow for our comfort and peace of mind;

We believe that social reform should not be made to wait for economic development but should go hand in hand with it in accordance with the spirit of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum;

We believe that the patrimony of the nation and the wealth that springs from it should be equitably shared by all its citizens in the spirit of justice and charity, the fundamental tenets of Christianity to which this nation adheres;

We believe it to be the minimum imperative of Christian charity and justice that every citizen in this country have clothes for his body, roof over his head, food to keep himself alive, medicine and medical care when he is sick, and the opportunity to get the education he needs to become a useful and self-supporting member of society;

We believe it to be the collective duty of the citizens to bear the costs of these essentials of life according to their individual ability - more from those who can give more, less from those who can give less, and nothing from those who can give nothing;

We believe that on this rock of Christian charity and justice we can build a strong and united nation against which the storms and the tempests and the very gates of hell will never prevail.

[Philippines Free Press, July 9, 1966]

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H L Neri, a native of Bohol, is author of many relevant and insightful writings. At the age of 23, he was Editor of Filipino First, a fortnightly in the late fifties. In the mid sixties, his feature articles began to come out in various periodicals: Philippines Free Press, The Weekly Nation, The Manila Times. Among the articles he wrote that have come out in the Manila Bulletin are: "The Limits of Authority of the Aquino Government", "The 1973 Constitution Still Stands", and "True Land Reform".

H L Neri has also authored and produced two color posters, "Love Your Work" and "Along Destiny's Road." "Love Your Work" is a familiar sight in offices, workplaces, and homes in the country. "Along Destiny's Road" began as one of the projects approved by the Media Bureau of the Cory Aquino for President Movement (CAPM) where H L Neri was a volunteer writer during the presidential campaign.

The Left, Left Out

By Manuel L. Quezon III

The Explainer, Episode 31, 03/20/2007

The Cultural Revolution thrilled radical students in the Philippines. The idea of Chinese-style revolution gave birth to the New People’s Army.

March 29 will mark the 38th anniversary of the New People’s Army. To crush the NPA, the government has declared war on political parties it claims are allies of the NPA. It’s latest target has been a member of congress: Satur Ocampo, who is now in police custody.

Does crushing the NPA require the elimination of certain legal political parties?

I.

If Filipinos who matured in the first half of the 20th century defined politics and society in American terms -Lincoln’s a government for, by and with the people, Jefferson’s life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, by the 1960s such sentiments seemed horribly old-fashioned. A new generation of Filipinos that grooved to the beatles, became long-haired hippies, and discovered marijuana, and many thrilled to a different set of beliefs.

The beliefs were known as Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought. And if their parents parroted Jefferson, Filipino students, to be different, parroted the Sayings of Chairman Mao Zedong. In a sense, the same kind of colonially-minded dog, but this time wearing a Mao collar.

The bible of these young radicals were the collected sayings of Mao Zedong. They are authoritative, concise, and therefore, convenient. Particularly when you’re doing indoctrination or what’s called the teach-in. They’ve come down in history as The Little Red Book.

What Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought teaches is a particular framework for history:

Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history, such is the history of civilization for thousands of years. To interpret history from this viewpoint is historical materialism; standing in opposition to this viewpoint is historical idealism.

-”Cast Away Illusions, Prepare for Struggle” (August 14, 1949), Selected Works,† Vol. IV, p. 428.

If, said Mao, you adopted that framework, then you would seek to work with like-minded people to accomplish victory; and victory would be the aim of an organization, the Communist Party:

A well-disciplined Party armed with the theory of Marxism-Leninism, using the method of self-criticism and linked with the masses of the people; an army under the leadership of such a Party; a united front of all revolutionary classes and all revolutionary groups under the leadership of such a Party - these are the three main weapons with which we have defeated the enemy.-”On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship” (June 30, 1949), Selected Works,† Vol. IV, p. 422.

Therefore, the Great Helmsman advised,

It is up to us to organize the people. As for the reactionaries in China, it is up to us to organize the people to overthrow them. Everything reactionary is the same; if you don’t hit it, it won’t fall. This is also like sweeping the floor; as a rule, where the broom does not reach, the dust will not vanish of itself.-”The Situation and Our Policy After the Victory in the War of Resistance Against Japan” (August 13, 1945), Selected Works,† Vol. IV, p. 19.

And because class struggle required hard work and making tough decisions, it would be well to remember, Mao said in one of the most famous passages he ever wrote, that

A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another. -”Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan” (March 1927), Selected Works,† Vol. I, p. 28.*

And finally, Mao said, it is necessary to know thine enemies:

Our enemies are all those in league with imperialism - the warlords, the bureaucrats, the comprador class, the big Landlord class and the reactionary section of the intelligentsia attached to them. The leading force in our revolution is the industrial proletariat. Our closest friends are the entire semi-proletariat and petty bourgeoisie. As for the vacillating middle bourgeoisie, their right-wing may become our enemy and their left-wing may become our friend - but we must be constantly on our guard and not let them create confusion within our ranks.

-”Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society” (March 1926), Selected Works,† Vol. I, p. 19.*

I’ve quoted Mao extensively because only by reading what he wrote can we know how thoroughly Jose Ma. Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, was indebted to foreign influence. He crafted a modernized, Beijing-oriented Communist ideology for in the wake of the defeat of the Moscow-oriented Huks. Listen to his words from 1964:

Kabataang Makabayan, in its historic role as the vanguard organization of Filipino youth, should know the balance of forces between imperialism and feudalism on the one hand and national democracy on the other. On the side of U.S. imperialism are the compradors and the big landlords. On the side of national democracy are the broad masses of our people, composed of the working class and the peasantry to which the vast majority of the Filipino youth today belong; the petty bourgeoisie, composed of small property-owners, students, intellectuals and professionals; and the national bourgeoisie, composed of Filipino entrepreneurs and traders.

From the present scheme of social classes, we can derive a new and powerful combination of youth-the students, young professionals, labor youth and the peasant youth. Above all, the Filipino youth should integrate themselves with the masses in order to achieve victory in the fight for national freedom and democracy.

Sison’s words became the theoretical and rhetorical foundation for a way of thinking that won’t go away. Two concepts from Sison’s ideology concerns us in particular tonight.

The first is class war. The second is the concept of the united front.

Class war is fought in the mind and in the mountains: through the study of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology, and its application in reorganizing areas controlled by the NPA, areas secured by fighting it out with our armed forces.

As Human Rights Watch in 2006 said,

The NPA and CPP continue to enact “revolutionary justice” against civilians in areas under their control, including the killing of individuals they consider to be criminals, despotic landlords, or business owners.

Writing in the Asean Focus Group newsletter, historian Patricio Abinales, gives us more details:

The NPA has largely survived on its own, amassing its weapons from carefully planned small attacks against government forces. Military victories in the countryside have been complemented by successes in “revolutionary taxation”. Businesses and entrepreneurs operating in the rural areas have now come to include NPA extortion as part of their annual budgets, with such allotments sometimes going as high as 2 million pesos.

These triumphs have prompted the Party’s eternal chairman Jose Ma Sison to encourage the formation of larger company-size units to replace the smaller platoons. But this move has been a major stumbling block for the NPA… now that the NPA has just about returned to the level it was in 1980.

At its height in the early 1980’s, that level was 25,000 armed fighters. If Abinales is right, this explains to us why AFP chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. would rather that the Communist Party of the Philippines be outlawed once more.

But so much for the NPA. What of other parties, perfectly legal ones, who also believe in Marxism. Should they be lumped with the NPA, and fought in the same way?

II.

A while ago, we took a broad look at class struggle.

Let’s look at another concept, that of the united front.

The united front is forged when Marxists participate in the political arena, by building alliances or by using other groups and parties to create an atmosphere conducive to their movement’s goals.

Opponents call such efforts subversion. From 1957 to the Ramos administration, the Communist party, Communism itself, indeed, anything that might be considered, even confused, with Communism, was declared illegal, and anyone the government disliked could be branded a subversive.

There was no fiercer anti-Communist fighter and lover of the Anti Subversion Law than Ferdinand Marcos, but his policies came in for criticism from Pope John Paul II.

As Rodel Rodis pointed out in 2005, John Paul II castigated President Marcos for human rights violations. He did this on February 17, 1981, in Malacanang itself:

Even in exceptional situations … one can never justify any violation of the fundamental dignity of the human person or of the basic rights that safeguard this dignity.

Hating Communism didn’t excuse hateful methods in fighting, the Pope said then. This is what critics of our government’s policies towards political parties disliked by the government are saying now.

From 1986 to 2005, or almost 20 years, the policies of our presidents from Aquino to Estrada, was to convince rebels to come down from the hills.

Mrs. Aquino set political prisoners free. President Ramos issued an amnesty proclamation in 1994, had the the Anti-Subversion Law repealed by Congress, and established the National Amnesty Commission to process applications for amnesty.

President Estrada extended the NAC’s existence twice, in 1998 and 2000. From Ramos to Arroyo, our government encouraged united front politics, on the principle that intigration is preferable to discrimination.

But on March 22, 2005, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed Executive Order 415, abolishing the National Amnesty Commission. This was the prelude to abandoning two decades of peace-building.

In June last year, President Arroyo gave the army a two-year deadline to eradicate the New People’s Army (NPA): in itself, that wasn’t so different from anything her predecessors had said. What is different is that the very same parties president Ramos had encouraged to be set up, and join in mainstream politics, have been declared the targets of the government.

Testifying before the US Senate last week, G. Eugene Martin of the United States Institute for Peace, said he’s pessimistic -that’s the precise word he used- that political killings would stop. Let’s quote verbatim from his testimony.

* Campaigning for national elections on May 14 is well underway. Little if any serious effort will be exerted to investigate killings of political significance.

* Candidates from left-wing political parties will be particular targets. National Security Advisor Norberto Gonzales stated on March 8 that such candidates must not be allowed to win seats in the Congress. The Gonzales view [is] that party-list candidates “are under the direct influence of the communist party” gives a potential hunting license to military and local officials who agree with him.

* The new anti terrorism law, which President Arroyo signed on March 6, gives new “legal teeth” to the government’s war on terrorism. The Arroyo administration describes the law, titled the “Human Security Act of 2007,” as being “very concerned on human rights.” Many observers fear the law may increase unfettered military operations against opponents deemed to be terrorists. National Security Advisor Gonzales has already stated that the NPA will be labeled a terrorist organization when the new law is promulgated. Legal leftist organizations and elected individuals may be designated.

* The new Defense Secretary, Hermogenes Ebdane, Jr., is a retired police officer. He succeeds a civilian… Secretary Ebdane likely will promote military perceptions of security threats. UN Rapporteur Alston stated “the AFP is in a state of almost total denial…of its need to respond effectively and authentically to the…killings…attributed to them.”

Why is the government so upset at political parties it claims are merely fronts for the CPP-NPA?

Here’s why.

Recently, the Social Weather Stations, conducted for the Ateneo School of Government, with support from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation a survey on political parties and guess which three parties did best? Lakas-CMD, then the Liberal Party and -surprise, surprise- Bayan Muna.

Yet of the three, Lakas is as traditional as a party gets, the Liberals are divided, and the government claims Bayan Muna is the enemy. Rep. Satur Ocampo, who was arrested over the weekend, is a Bayan Muna representative and it’s a sign of how badly the mainstream parties are doing, that Ocampo has more credibility in a survey than say, Kampi, the President’s pet party.

Here’s another reason. According to the First Quarter 2007 SWS Survey, the top three choices for the party list are all parties the government says are Communist fronts. 17 percent of respondents said they will vote for Bayan Muna; 9.4 percent for Anakpawis; and 8.1 percent for Gabriela.

SWS says that given the survey result’s scenario: “Bayan Muna would keep its current 3 seats… Gabriela would gain 2 from its current 1 seat, while …Anakpawis [is] poised to gain 1 more seat to [its] current 2.”

Anakpawis is represented by Rep. Crispin Beltran, who has been under hospital arrest for over a year, accused of conspiring against the Marcos government. The Marcos government is gone, eliminated by millions of decent Filipinos having rebelled against it in 1986.

President Aquino granted Beltran an amnesty; but apparently an amnesty isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. Under similar logic, despite President Roxas’s amnesty in 1948, successive presidents could’ve imprisoned Laurel, Recto and other covered by the amnesty for charges of collaboration in the 1950s.

Finally, there’s the question of the electorate. In the 2004 elections, for party list Bayan Muna came in first with 1,203,305 votes; Anakpawis came in fifth, with 538,396 votes; Gabriela Women’s Party came in seventh with 464,586 votes. That’s millions of Filipinos entitled to representation -and who should deny them that? Any other congressman with as many votes wouldn’t tolerate being deprived of their seat.

So I ask you, isn’t there a major betrayal going on here? From 1994 our government had said, join the system. And when, time and again, the Left has done respectably, insteading of respecting their mandate, now our government reacts by denying those that elected those parties, representation?

My view

If you can’t beat ‘em, cheat ‘em. If you can’t cheat ‘em, kill ‘em. If you can’t kill ‘em, harass and arrest them. In a nutshell, that seems government policy today. It’s brutal, and stupid.

Creating martyrs is not the way to go.

Cory Aquino released Jose Ma. Sison from jail, and it provoked coup attempts against her by the military.

But the end result of that policy was to reduce Sison to singing karaoke in the Netherlands and dancing with Ara Mina.

A rebellion needs martyrs. Sison is not a martyr. Those martyrs are being created here, at home, by a military unable to see how counterproductive it is when people dedicated to legal political work are killed. How subversive it is, to law and order when a turning a blind eye to liquidation squads becomes military policy.

An idea, which Communism is, can only be fought if other ideas remain relevant and prove they can accomplish social justice better than Communism ever can.

You do not fight Communism with fire. You fight it, as it has been effectively fought before, by dazzling a previously oppressed and hopeless citizenry with the blinding light of a democracy that works.

You do it by means of a corruption-free military, where honest generals command well-fed troops respectful of the civilian population; where government delivers justice, and doesn’t indulge in political persecution; where the state delivers basic services, and holds fraud-free, credible elections.