Marcos Regime
Against the Guerrillas by Paul Petitjean The Fernand Mars regime in the Pipes has man-.
aged to deal its adversaries some severe blows during the past year. The underground leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), of Maoist persuasion, has been hard hit by repression. It has been announced that the biggest trial of the past five years will open in Manilla on July 7; the defendants are ninety-two cadres and militants of the CPP, forty-two of whom are being tried inabsentia. Among the defendants in custody are José Luneta, the secretary general of the Central Committee, and Bernabe Buscayno, known as "Commander Dante, " who is commander in chief of the New People's Army (NPA). The Muslim dissidents in the South have taken many casualties, and the 24
Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has now been drawn into dubious negotiations and has allowed Marcos to seize the political initiative to the point of openly sabotaging the draft agreement on autonomy for the southern provinces. Nevertheless, the slow but steady growth of the Maoist movement seems to be continuing. The hard core of the MNLF has not been broken and the results of Marcos's referendum in the thirteen southern provinces that are claimed by the MNLF confirmed the Muslim population's disaffection with the regime. The church is still not extending unqualified support to the presidential clique and a minority but quite
active wing of the Catholic church is continuing to make its voice heard. On June 12, "independence day, " 800 Catholic workers and students met in a protest meeting in a school and were surrounded by the army. There is similar ambiguity in the realm of the social and economic successes of Marcos's "new society. " The apparent audaciousness of the measures that have been taken seem to weigh little against the rise of new contradictions. Breaking the power of the old oligarchy The project of the "new society" took shape after September 1972, when Marcos, who was already president, proclaimed indefinite martial law. Marcos's decision to suspend the functioning of political institutions and to rule by decree was, of course, primarily a reflection of his determination to retain power. He had been elected president in 1965 and reelected in 1969; under the constitution he did not have the right to seek a third term. He thus turned against the very people who had carried him into office in the first place. He broke the two-party system that had been in effect since the American occupation of the country after the second world war, imprisoned Benigno Aquino, the head of the Liberal Party and his major competitor, and replaced the elections with several well prepared plebiscites. But Marcos did not stop there. He quickly attacked the structures that had guaranteed the political power of the old ruling oligarchy. Before martial law the Philippines had been under the domination of the "great families": López, Soriano, Ayala, Aquino, Jacinto, Elizalde, etc. These families had begun to build their fortunes under Spanish rule (which began in the sixteenth century) and later accommodated themselves to the United States, which took possession of the islands under the 1898 Treaty of Paris, which'ended the Spanish-American War. These fortunes were initially based on landed property, but later spread into the banking, commercial, and mining sectors, as well as transport and communication. These great families established genuine regional powerbases founded on strong traditions of patronage and control of the mass media and defended by powerful private armies. It was these feudalities that Marcos attacked, insisting for the first time on the centralization of a national state capable of imposing its law. (See Richard H. Nolte, Whither the Philippines, Institute of Current World Affairs, Bangkok). He took advantage of the chaotic situation prevailing in 1972 and ordered martial law under the pretext that a "rightist and leftist" conspiracy was afoot. He even gained the support of some liberals by denouncing the shameless corruption of the old regime. Marcos confiscated or shut down the press controlled by his opponents. He brutally attacked some of the great families that resisted him, sparing no method. He arrested Eugenio López, junior and made his father talk. He also took control of the Manilla Electric Company. He ordered forced sales of capital and placed his own henchmen, such as Roberto Benedicto, in charge of many enterprises. He broke the private armies and confiscated 600,000 arms. He turned the police into a nationally centralized corps. The " new society » and neo-imperialism Marcos did not destroy the traditional great families in doing all this, but he weakened them sufficiently to deprive them of their political power. The new regime is based primarily on an alliance among the military apparatus, the state bureaucracy, and the big entrepreneurs. Marcos has resorted to populist demagogy and announced an agrarian reform, accompanied by a great public relations fanfare. But he also enjoys support from the imperialist forces whose exceptional investment conditions he has guaranteed. In fact, then, the "new society" is not devoid of some ragged nationalist cover. On the other hand, Marcos has halted the development of an "economic nationalist" current and the "new leff" that had been taking shape in intellectual circles. He annuled protectionist measures that had been taken previously, opened up the most advanced sectors to imperialist penetration, assured the repatriation of profits, and has often exempted foreign capital from taxes. Most important, the Philippines offer a rather wide range of abundant, relatively skilled, and very low cost labor. Marcos has given new impetus to the development of a "free zone" open to foreign capital oriented toward export products; it is known as the Bataan Export Processing Zone (BEPZ), not far from Manilla. The decision to create this industrial zone free of customs controls had been made in 1969; it was patterned after the Masan zone in South Korea and the Kaohsiung zone in Taiwan. Thirty-four industrial companies and six service companies are now functioning the BEPZ. (On this subject see the article of Ohara Ken in the special issue of the Japanese English-language review Ampo, published in late 1976.) There was no ambiguity about the reactions of his imperialist paymasters to Marcos's "legal" coup. U.S. military aid rose from $60.2 million for the two fiscal years 1970-72 to $126.2 million for 1973-75. U.S. economic aid rose from $110.7 million in 1972 to $198.6 million in 1973. It fell to $83.8 million in 1974 and rose again to $93.2 million in 1975. But this decline amounted simply to a reconversion of the channels used by Washington. Aid from the World Bank soared from $24.3 million in 1973 to $208 million in 1975. As a whole, World Bank aid during the period 1946-73 stood at $301.1 million. For the period 1973-78 it should be about $1, 337 thousand million. (These figures were cited by Juan Crisostomo in Ampo, third quarter of 1976.) Foreign capital is flowing in rapidly. In 1965 the share of foreign capital in total investment was 28%, according to government statistical services. At the end of the first quarter of 1975 that figure had risen to 58%. During the first quarter of 1976 foreign investments in the Philippines officially totalled $573.84 million, of which $236.90 million was of American origin and $151.72 million of Japanese origin. (Far Eastern Economic Review Asia Yearbook, 1977.) In fact, the United States and Japan are competing for the
PHILIPPINES wealth of the country. Although the former is still dominant on the whole (in the key sectors of oil, mines, rubber, banks, agribusiness, and automobile assembly), Japanese capital has often gained the upper hand in the manufacturing sector, and Tokyo has become Manilla's top trade partner (accounting for 31.8% of Philippine trade in 1975, compared with 24% for the United States). The major export products remain sugar, copper, coconut oil, wood, copra by-products, bananas, clothing, and textile yarn fabrics. International financial bodies (IMF, International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Asian Development Bank) have spurred the country to growing debt. The foreign debt was $600 million in 1965 and rose to $4,500 million in June 1976. In addition, the government budget ran a 1, 126 million peso deficit from January to September 1976, whereas it had had a 48 million peso surplus during the comparable period of 1975. Marcos has handsomely paid off those who have supported him. The position of military officers in Philippine society has been appreciably altered. The army has rapidly expanded from 60,000 men to 275,000 (including the three branches of the armed forces and the gendarmerie, but not the militias). The military budget has risen to 15% of the national budget. The officers, many of whom come from the llocos region, as does Marcos, have been granted access to the boards of directors of the so-called nationalized firms. Even military pay itself assures them a privileged status. At the end of January 1976 military pay was increased 15-80% (depending on rank); a soldier makes three times as much as a skilled worker. The formation of a vast nationalized sector concurrent with the mounting strengthening and centralization of the state guarantees the extension of the bureaucracy and technocracy. The creation of a national oil company (the Philippines Oil Company) offers the big international firms an additional entry; they are now prospecting the Philippine oil fields. About sixty so-called nationalized enterprises have been created during the past three years. Their functions go hand in hand with the state and economic administration. The secretary of defense officially acts as managing director of about twenty of these firms. Marcos has thus succeeded in establishing a political void around himself and in paralyzing the oppositions. But he has paid for this by his inability to guarantee his own succession. The division of the insurgent movements: the MNLF The division of the insurgent movements has aided Marcos in paring the oppositions down. In fact, it appears that there has never been any serious convergence between the Communists and the Muslims, although Ang Bayan (The People), the journal of the Communist Party of the Philippines, claims that there are coordinated actions between the CPP guerrillas and those of the MNLF. (See M. Barang, Le Monde Diplomatique, March 1976.) 26
The Philippine archipelago includes 7,000 mountainous islands and has a tropical climate. The total area is about 300,000 square kilometers (115, 700 square miles), about the same size as Italy. But two-thirds of these islands are uninhabited. Ten islands account for 95% of the inhabited land, and most of the population of 42.5 million is concentrated on these islands. The Communist and Muslim guerrilla forces are geographically isolated from each other. The former are active essentially in the norther islands, especially in Luzon, where the capital is located. The Muslim populations, on the other hand, inhabit the souther islands, such as Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago. The people of these southern islands have a long tradition of resistance going back to the period of Spanish rule. During past decades they have been faced with a slow colonization of their territory by Christians from the northern islands, a trend which was accelerated when Marcos came to power in 1965. The Muslims have now become minorities in many areas in which they were broad majorities as recently as the end of the second world war. Intercommunal conflicts have broken out, with the "llaga" Christian militias fighting against the Muslim "Red Shirts" and "Barracudas. " Since the proclamation of martial law, however, the struggle of the Muslims of the Moro National Liberation Front has tended to become a struggle against the regime more than a struggle against the Christians. The MNLF was forme by a handful of radicalized students of the University of the Philippines grouped around Nur Misauri, the present president of the MNLF, who was a leader of the Maoist student movement Kabataan Makabayan (Patriotic Youth Movement) in western Mindanao during the late 1960s. The decision to launch an armed struggle against the regime was made during Marcos's second term. The history of the Philippine insurrectionary movements remains little known, as is the case with most of the movements of this region. But it appears that the impetus needed to extend the guerrilla movement was provided by the return of two groups of cadres (of 90 and 300 militants) who had been trained and armed abroad. This insurrectionary movement achieved great success, and the Bangsa Moro Army (BMA - Moro Liberation Army), the armed wing of the MNLF, soon included 15,000 to 20,000 troops. But the political level of recruitment remained very low, a weakness that was unable to be corrected because of the lack of ideological education within the MNLF. This recruitment was carried out through the vehicle of semiclandestine religious organizations known as Ansar al-Islam (Helpers of Islam). (On this point see M. Barang, in the 6-12 February 1977 issue of the Nation Review, published in Australia.) The weight of the traditional Muslim authorities within these organizations (ulemas, imams, and sultans) remained very great. The movement consequently turned out to be ill prepared to deal with the combined offensives and maneuvers of Marcos. The latter has able to alternate large-scale raiding operations - conducted with medium and heavy weapons, at great cost to the government army - with periods of con-
fused negotiations accompanied by alluring offers to defectors. Under these conditions some of the guerrillas became mere bandits, while others went over to the government, and still others simply withdrew from the guerrilla zones temporarily. Some cadres of the MNLF have recognized this, stating: "The government has made gains recently; not all the guerrillas who have gone over are mere bandits in disguise; some are insufficiently motivated fighters (the movement had recruited more or less anybody) and there are others who simply need a breathing spell before taking to the hills again. Be that as it may, the most determined fighters are continuing the struggle. They can rely on the active complicity of hundreds of thousands of sympathizers." (Quoted by Barang, Le Monde Diplomatique, March 1976.) The traditional chiefs of the Muslim community have obviously tended to defend their own interests. The MNLF has progressively watered down its position, agreeing during the Islamic conference of Kuala Lumpur in 1974 to abandon the perspective of independence in favor of that of autonomy. On December 24, 1976, it was learned that a cease-fire accord had been signed in Tripoli between the MNLF and Marcos, under the guidance of Muammar Qadhaffi. But the autonomy proposed by Marcos at that time was quite diluted. Marcos took advantage of the weight that had been recently acquired by the Christian population of the thirteen southern provinces claimed by the MNLF to organize a referendum on autonomy in April 1977. The negative vote carried. The MNLF had called for a boycott of this referendum, a call which was generally heeded in the Muslim regions. The break was thus consumated. The MNLF then hardened its position again. During the last Islamic conference Nur Misauri announced that his movement was ready to take up the struggle again: "We are henceforth resolved to return to our initial objective, which was total independence. ... Since today it is necessary to take up the fight again and since an extremely high price will have to be paid to put an end to oppression, it may as well be a fight for independence. " (Le Monde, May 31, 1977) Nevertheless, the cease-fire has continued practically unbroken. It appears that important changes have occurred within the MNLF apparatus, the old traditional chiefs giving way before a younger and more radical generation including such people as Nur Misauri (the 36-year-old external leader) and Abul Alonto (29 years old, the major leader within the Philippines). But the movement is becoming ever more clearly anticommunist and is struggling for "Islamic socialism. " The MNLF is excessively dependent on foreign aid supplied by Arab states (especially Libya and Saudi Arabia) and by Malaysia. Most of the MNLF's military aid comes from the Malaysian province of Sabah, a Muslim area located on the northern part of the island of Borneo, just south of the Philippines. This is also where the training camps are organized. The man on whom the continuation of this aid depended was Tun Mustapha, who faced important difficulties in the state of Sabah beginning with the end of 1975 and was defeated by the opposition. One of the consequences of this has been that the MNLF guerrillas seem to be short on ammunition and have had to give up their most important military operations. The Maoist movement The reactionary weight of the Arab states within the MNLF must be considerable. It is also possible that the CPP may have some members in the Muslim front. CPP president José Maria Sison (also known as Amado Guerrero) has issued unity appeals in the party's journal, Ang Bayan. For example: "We remain steadfast in our support for the Moro people's struggle for national self-determination. In recognizing their right to national self-determination, we necessarily recognize their right to secede from the present reactionary state that has for so long oppressed them as a nation. (Quoted by Rodney Tasher in the Far Eastern Economic Review, June 17, 1977) But it is not likely that the CPP can rapidly counterbalance the influence of "Islamic socialism." The majority of the pro-Moscow Communists, who are not very numerous, have rallied to a Marcos solution in the framework of the diplomatic rapprochement now under way between the USSR and the Philippines. On the other hand, the spectacular opening of diplomatic relations with Peking in June 1975 did not put an end to the Maoist guerrilla struggle. The formation of the Communist Party of the Philippines goes back to December 26, 1968. The party was born of a split, apparently led by some students and teachers, from the pro-Moscow Partido Komunista Philipinas (PKP -Philippine Cummunist Party). The latter had long been based on the revolt of the landless peasants of Hukbalahap. Sison (Amado Guerrero), the present leader of the PCP, was active in the PKP during the early 1960s. He comes from the province of llocos Sur in the northern part of the Luzon islands, was an English student at the University of the Philippines and a political science teacher at Manilla High School. Along with Nur Misauri, he was a leader of the Kabataan Makabayan. The New People's Army (NPA) was founded on March 29, 1969, in the province of Tarlac (Luzon). The regions of the central part of Luzon, which are rice plains, provide one of the essential mass bases of the PCP, while in the mountains the guerrillas have found a propitious terrain and have apparently won the sympathy of the mountain tribes. The NPA has progressively extended its arena of activity from Tarlac in 1968 to the province of Isabela in 1969 to the south of the Luzon islands in 1970 (where it remains active in the province of Quezon in spite of reverses in the provinces of Camarines Sur and Sorozon) to the non-Muslim provinces of Mindanao in 1971 and to other regions shortly after, particularly in the Visayan archipelago and in the northern and southern Samars. (See the above-cited article of Rodney Tasher.) Western publications now credit the NPA with about 2,000 cadres, while the PCP claims it is much larger. The urban influence of the Maoist movement also seems to be significant in the University, among the squatters, and in some factories. Since the proclamation of martial law the Maoist movement seems to have been able to recruit
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PHILIPPINES many militants from Christian movements which often have solid bases in the working class. It formulates its orientation in the classical terms of Maoist ideology, calling for a bloc of four classes (workers, peasants, urban petty-bourgeoisie, and national bourgeoisie), for the encirclement of the cities from the countryside, for priority to organizational and political work among the military, and for the creation of a united front among the three oppositions: the Maoist insurrection, the Muslims, and the radical Christian currents. (See Barang, Le Monde Diplomatique, March 1976.) Limits of the Marcos regime In spite of the weaknesses of the popular opposition movements, Marcos has not succeeded in interrupting their apparent advance (in the case of the PCP and the Christian currents) or in breaking them (in the case of the Muslims). But the regime is also facing other difficulties and contradictions. It has built up resentment among many layers linked to the bourgeoisie (great families, the church, whose prerogatives have been attacked, etc.). Its stability depends on support from the army and is directly related to its capacity to strangle social movements on a lasting basis. But the reforms of the "new society" have not at all eliminated extreme poverty. The defense of the interests of. foreign investors prevents any appreciable improvement in working conditions and living standards for the urban or rural proletariat. Complete unemployment at the end of 1975 was estimated at 3.6% of the work force of 14, 286, 000 and underemployment at 16% at least. (Far Eastern Economic Review Asia Yearbook, 1977.) The cost of living has risen 160% since 1970, and according to some estimates underemployment actually affects a third of the work force. The government has decided to subsidize some products of basic necessity, but in many cases purchasing power remains below the vital minimum. The minimum wage in Manilla was raised from 8 to 10 pesos a day in 1976 (9 pesos in the provinces). But a study published by the World Bank in October of that year noted that "in January 1975 the daily cost of food and essential necessities for a family of five persons was 29.9 pesos a day. " (G. Halby, AfriqueAsie, February 21, 1977.) What about the agrarian reform? The reform has probably had temporary and localized effects, particularly where the government had good reasons for gaining the support of the population, for instance in the island of Luzon, the bases of the revolt of the "Huks" at the end of the 1940s and the beginning of the 1950s. In fact, dissidence continues there, twenty years after the insurrection was broken by Ramon Magasaysay. But the limits of this reform have emerged quickly. It was ordered from above, the peasants remaining at the mercy of the administration. It does not concern rice-growing land of more than 7 hectares, nor the plantations of coconuts, sugar cane, or rubber trees, nor the American fruit companies. Some 900,000 peasants were supposed to have been affected by the reform, but there are nearly 3 million landless peasants in the country. Moreover, land has to be 28 bought by the peasants, at high prices, with payment to be completed in fifteen years. Many peasants cannot pay. In fact, a maximum of 500,000 peasants would be affected by the reform if it were significantly speeded up. Otherwise the present situation will drag on for twenty years. The cooperative movement that was supposed to go along with the reform seems to have remained a dead letter. In reality, the agrarian reform has tended to generate a new layer of privileged peasants on whom the regime can rely. It has strengthened the power of the village chiefs. It also seeks to spur the landlords to invest in industrial sectors and to raise cash crops. It amounts to a classic attempt at a capitalist "green revolution. " It is intended to accelerate the extension of capitalist relations in agriculture, with the accompanying massive poverty. Thus, the regime cannot hope to build itself a real popular base, in spite of its populist pretensions. Hence the vigor of the repressive policy. Marcos himself has admitted that 50,000 people were arrested during the first three and a half years of martial law. In September 1976 Amnesty International released the results of an inquiry it had conducted in the regime's prisons, which revealed that of 107 prisoners questioned 71 complained of torture. Arbitrariness was the rule. And the testimony of Mrs. Trinidad Herrera, a spokeswoman for the people who live in the slums (she was releases after an international campaign), had great impact internationally. To such a point that during a press conference held several weeks ago Marcos had to promise to prohibit the use of torture and to dissolve the special military tribunals formed after the proclamation of martial law. The legislation against the working class did not prevent the outbreak in November 1976 of a massive and victorious strike in La Tondena distillery, nor the consecutive explosion of various social movements. Under these conditions, the increasingly anachronistic and shocking ostentation of a regime that claims to be fighting corruption threatens to build up an ever more inflammable mixture. And the internal clique struggles of the regime, the social tension fueled by poverty, the continuation of the insurrectionary movements, and the resentment of many bourgeois and petty-bourgeois layers in the absence of rapid economic development may suddenly combine to bring down Marcos and his outrageously nepotistic regime. July 23, 1977 correction An error unfortunately crept into the statistics on labor costs per hour given in the article "Swedish Bourgeois Government Eroding, " published in the last issue of INPRECOR (No. 9 new series, 23 June 1977). The last sentence on page 14 should read: "This contention was supported by statistics showing that average labor cost per hour during the recession years 1975-76 had increased to 40.6 kroner by the beginning of 1977, which meant that Sweden had overtaken all other countries, even West Germany (30.9 kroner) and the United States (32.3 kroner)."