Workers Manifesto for the New Millennium

Workers Manifesto for the New Millennium

by the Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino (PMP), an underground political party of the Filipino working class established January 30, 1999

From http://marxists.org/archive/lagman/works/globalization.htm

(This document was written by Filemon “Ka Popoy” Lagman when he was then secretary-general of the Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino [PMP], an underground revolutionary political party of the Filipino working class established January 30, 1999. It was published as a paid advertisement in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on January 30, 2000.)


A specter is haunting labor—the specter of Globalization.

Wage-workers in industrial and developing countries, skilled and unskilled laborers, manual and mental workers, urban and rural proletarians—all are ravaged by this global scourge with lost jobs and low pay, wage freeze and wage cuts, downsized and diminished benefits, factory closures and run-away shops, contractualization and casualization of labor, strike-breaking and union-busting.

As the sun rises on year 2000, labor cannot but ask: What does the future hold for the working class in the new millennium?

The prophets of Globalization talk of “free markets” and “free trade”. But how about freeing labor from wage-slavery?

Progress, they say, will ultimately trickle down. The point, however, is when? In every decade since the 1950’s, the working people produced more wealth than the total output of mankind since the dawn of civilization some 12,000 years ago. But the gap between the rich and the poor is wider and deeper than ever in history. Even in America, the richest of all nations, only one percent of its wealth is shared by 80 percent of its population.

Despite all the advances in social production, billions today still have no food on their tables, clothes on their backs and roofs over their heads. If this is the meaning of capitalist progress and civilization, how does it differ from a cannibal who has learned to use knife and fork? The last 100 years of capitalism has been a century of over-abundance for the owners of capital and utter deprivation for those who live only by the sale of their labor.

Using the yardstick of history, four centuries of capitalism is short compared to earlier social systems. But as soon as it emerged, its every progress has sparked epic class struggles. The last hundred years of capitalism eminently has been a history of wars and revolutions, of liberation struggles of oppressed nations against imperialist countries, and of class battles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Anti-capitalist revolutions broke out even as the rule of capital has yet to conquer the entire globe. At its peak, socialist states covered a quarter of the world’s area and a third of the human population.

The collapse of socialism in the last decades of the 20th century has emboldened the bourgeois elements of society to vilify it as a utopian dream. But what they pass off as the vindication of capitalism is merely their class bias showing. That communism inspired hundreds of millions to life and death struggle and Marxist revolutions were victorious in scores of countries is incontrovertible proof of their firm roots in material conditions and social realities.

The period of the two world wars ushered in the first wave of socialist revolutions. With hindsight and foresight, it was only a dress rehearsal for the real revolution that can now begin with the advent of the third world war—the global offensive of capital versus labor. The revolutionary proletariat will arise, like the phoenix from the ashes, stronger and wiser.

Globalization has inaugurated not a post-industrial society but the unadorned class rule of the international bourgeoisie and the insatiable pursuit of profit by monopoly capital. Class antagonisms have not been attenuated but on the contrary are heightened.

Proletarianization of the population proceeds as never before. Unarguably, the working class is the absolute majority in the world. The so-called services are being industrialized, that is put under the regime of mechanized production and social labor. The modern office is little different from the automated factory. In both, low pay, long hours and insecure jobs are the norm. Professions are transformed from independent livelihood into wage-labor. Mental workers are joining manual laborers in organizing unions to protect their interests as wage-slaves.

Globalization has unleashed not so much the creative power of capital as its destructive forces. The genie of finance capital has been liberated by the liberalization of trade and investment and has left a path of destruction in its wake. Intensified global competition is the anarchy of production multiplied and the crisis of overproduction internationalized.

Capitalism in the age of Globalization is hopelessly bound up in its innate contradictions brought to their peak. And the proletariat is inevitably impelled to revolt by the vicious attacks against their living standards and social rights.

Globalization by its very nature transforms the economic turmoil in one nation into a world crisis. It obliges the workers struggle in one country to become an international fight.

The world is witnessing the rebellion of the advanced forces of production against outmoded capitalist relations, the contradiction between the socialized forms of production and bourgeois private property exploding into crisis and revolution.

It is Marxism rather than capitalism that is passé. Marx was a visionary who saw far ahead of his time. What he described applies more to the Globalization of our era than the capitalism of his age. And what he foretold will only now truly come to be.

No doubt revolutionary movements which predict the fall of capitalism will be likened to religious sects which prophesize the end of the world. Let these conceited bourgeois pundits beware the lesson of history. The lords of capital will be no different from the slaveholders and landlords of yore who thought they would rule forever until the rising of the former working classes brought their delusions crashing upon their heads.

Let the capitalists celebrate the coming millennium with pomp and pretense for it will be their last. The bourgeois reich will not last a thousand years. Pax capitalista will not even survive the new century.

The first decade of the new millennium will be the eve of the socialist revolution in the era of Globalization.

The Battle in Seattle is the sign of the times. It comes on the heels of historic general strikes in France and South Korea, and in other advanced and backward countries. They are a portent of the brewing storm of working class revolution that will sweep imperialist Globalization to its grave.

The new millennium will see the titanic last battle between the forces of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The day of judgment is at hand and the armageddon of capitalism is near.

The workers have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!

Pagbabalik-Tanaw

Pagbabalik TanawSinulat ni Mona, dating manggagawa ng Temic na ngayon ay nasa New York na

mula sa: http://mulatkana.blogspot.com/2010/07/pagbabalik-tanaw.html
Thursday, July 8, 2010

Ilang taon na bang patay si Ka Popoy? Siyam, sampu? Ilang administrasyon na ba ang nakaraan, pero hanggang ngayon hindi pa rin nabibigyan ng katarungan ang kanyang pagkamatay. Tulad din ng napakadaming pinaslang dahil sa paglaban ng kanilang prinsipyo at paniniwala.

Sa tuwing makakabasa ako ng mga artikulo tungkol sa pinaslang na lider ng BMP, pakiramdam ko ba ay nagngangalit ang aking bagang. Hindi ko maipaliwanag ang galit na aking nararamdaman sa mga nagpatumba sa kanya. Napakarami kong akusasyong naririnig laban sa kanya noong siya ay nabubuhay pa. Mga akusasyon na wala namang mga batayan at konkretong ebidensiya. Mga samu't saring bintang. Mga urong na kaugaling Pilipino.

Sasabihin ng iba, bakit ba sobrang respeto ko ke Ka Popoy? Gusto ko itong sagutin sa artikulong ito. At sana ay mabasa ng mga galit at naghuhusga sa kanya. Noong panahon ng katindihan ng welga ng mga manggagawa ng TEMIC, at maglulunsad ng isang malaking mobilisasyon ay meron siya sa aming iminungkahi. Sa kabila ng aking pagkakaalam ng pagbaklas niya sa kabilang grupo, inatasan niya ako na makipag-usap sa ilang lider ng mga ito. "Isang hakbang upang pagkaisahin ang laban ng mga manggagawa".

Ibig sabihin, sa hakbang na iyon handa si Ka Popoy na kainin ang kanyang "pride", kapalit ng solidong pagsulong ng uring manggagawa. Palatandaan nang kalawakan ng isip, ng tunay na karakter ng isang tunay na lider ng masa. Ang paghingi namin ng tulong sa kabilang grupo ay maaaring isiping isang kahinaan naming mga welgista at ng grupong ng BMP sa panahon ng kagipitan. Bagama't napakatindi at hindi kayang pantayan ang ipinakitang pagkilos at pag aalsa ng mga manggagawa. Ngunit ipinakita ni Ka Popoy na ang laban ng uring manggagawa ay mas malaki at higit pa sa sarili at anumang hindi pagkakaunawaan.

Sa pakikipag-usap ko sa kabilang grupo, nagbigay sila ng kundisyon na tutulong lang kung hihiwalay kami o babaklas sa tulong ng Bukluran o BMP. Na noong panahon na iyon ay siyang nagbigay sa amin ng libreng serbisyong legal na walang kundisyon na kami ay magpapasailalim sa kanilang grupo.

Bumalik ako noon sa piket na laylay ang balikat. Pakiramdam ko ba ay iniwan ako ng isang kasintahan. Hindi ko maintindihan na ang problema ng uring manggagawa ay maisangtabi, dahil sa paksiyon, mga tsismis, galit at bintang. Sa isip ko parang wala dins iniba sa gobyerno. O ito ba ay kultura na wala talagang pagkakaisa ang mga Pilipino, na mga mistulang alimangong naghihilahan pababa at nagsisipitan.

Si Ka Popoy, nagkibit lang ng balikat. Hindi nga naman niya yun personal na kawalan. Kundi kawalan ng lahat ng inaaping uri. Ang sa kanya lang naman ay pagbabakasakaling interes para maibangon ang naghihingalong kalagayan ng mga manggagawa. Nagawa nga niyang halikan ang singsing sa kamay ni Kardinal Sin, sa harap ng pamunuan ng BMP at welgistang Temic. Sa layuning makuha ang simpatiya ng Kardinal para sa mga manggagawa. Sino kayang ateyista at rebolusyunaryo ang gagawa nito para sa kapakanan ng naaaping uri? Isang indikasyon ng kanyang karakter na "mas malaki ang laban ng manggagawa kaysa sa kanyang sarili."

Sa mga kilos-protesta ng mga welgista ng Temic, malimit makasabay ang kabilang grupo. Ang kanilang malahiganteng mobilisasyon. At nakakabingi ang kanilang sigaw at kantyaw ayon sa kanilang palagay laban kay Popoy. Nakatutok ang galit at bintang kay Popoy... mga insultong salita laban kay Popoy....na parang mas higit pa iyon sa pagbaboy at paglapastangan ng kapitalista sa karapatan naming mga welgista. Mas higit pa ba ang galit nila at bintang kaysa sa mahigit na isang libong manggagawa at ng aming mga nagugutom na pamilya?

Nakakalungkot. Matagal na pero parang itong sugat na hindi kayang hilumin ng panahon. Si Felimon Lagman para sa akin ay parang naging isang simbolo ng pagkakawatak watak ng bansa. Habang hindi nagkakaisa ang sambayanan, kaliwa, itaas man, kanan o gitna, hindi natin makakamit ang tunay na demokrasya. Katulad ng kasaysayan na kung saan ang Supremo ay ipinapatay mismo ng kapwa rebolusyunaryo. Kagaya din ni Ninoy na pinapaslang ng isang dayukdok na kababayan.

Hindi tayo ang magkakalaban. Hindi tayo ang dapat nag-iiringan at naghihilahan sa libingan. Mas higit na malaki ang problema ng sambayang naghahanap ng katarungan laban sa mapang-api at naghaharing uri.

Si Ka Popoy kung nasaan man siya, masasabi kong hindi nasayang ang kanyang buhay. Kung meron man siyang pagkukulang, natabunan na ito ng kanyang magiting na paninindigan sa paghanap ng katarungan para sa mga mahihirap. Sana sa mga nag-aakusa sa kanya, ilibing niyo na rin sa hukay ang inyong mga bintang at akusasyon na walang batayan.

"Ang tunay na magiting na lider o rebolusyunaryo ay humaharap sa kalaban ng may bayag. Walang takot kahit pa dumanak ang sariling dugo."

Foreword to the Book "Notes from the Underground"

FOREWORD

to the book "Ka Popoy: Notes From the Underground", which was launched on February 12, 2006 at UP Diliman

After Ka Popoy Lagman was felled by an assassin's bullet in February 2001, several texts lay unfinished in his computer at the underground house he was using at that time. The ideas left unfinished in those documents are lost forever to the revolutionary movement that he sacrificed his life for.

Still Ka Popoy's large body of extant writings that is yet to be collected may probably fill several volumes. From comprehensive critiques of the fundamental propositions of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to short agitational pieces meant for mass distribution, the job of gathering Ka Popoy's work is a fitting tribute to a working class hero who combined a passion for fighting with a talent in writing.

Whether the scholar who seeks to study the remarkable history of the revolutionary movement in the Philippines or the partisan who seeks to resolutely advance the class struggle of the workers for socialism, Ka Popoy's writings are a rich and interesting resource. Or even to the concerned Filipino who in this period of apathy amidst crisis yearns for inspiration from real-life idealists who fought in frontlines of the struggle to change society.

This is just an initial attempt to collect and publish Ka Popoy's writings for a popular audience. It may be necessary to forewarn the reader that his works are hard though not dull reading.

Ka Popoy's writings not just deal with serious subjects but are weapons in the life-and-death class war. it is frequently argumentative whose logic is woven taut and rigorous to arrive at airtight conclusions and analysis.

Amazingly however it is written in a style that is not stereotypical and attentively adapted to the consciousness of the workers and the poor. In fact, Ka Popoy's polemics border on the vulgar and uses the language of the streets to elicit passion from its intended audience. Arguably it is witty, barring the opinion of the targets of his sharp critique.

To understand Ka Popoy's text, it is absolutely necessary to place in its context. He himself has said not a few times that his ideas and beliefs have evolved and developed through time and experience.

Assembled in this first volume of Ka Popoy's collected works are the so-called counter-theses to the basic principles and organizational norms of the CPP.

Within the new revolutionary party - the Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino (PMP) that Ka Popoy headed in its founding in January 1999 - these documents are known as the Counter-Theses I and Counter-Theses II. Written in the period of the great split within the revolutionary movement, the counter-theses sought to deepen the critique of the CPP on basis of theory and tactics.

Among the two, probably more well known are the Counter-Theses I which was penned in February 1994. It has to be remembered that the debate within the CPP that was sparked by the infamous paper of Joma Sison called "Reaffirm Our Basic Principles and Rebuild the Party," matured into a schism on the basis more of organizational, even personal, issues. The Rejectionists who petitioned for a party congress to resolve the disputed Reaffirm paper were forced to break away because the party leadership brooked no opposition from within and were intolerant of inner-party debate.

Contrary to common knowledge, the split transpired without the benefit of debate along fundamental principles and ideological lines. It was the Counter-Theses I that first attempted to ground the split on the firm foundation of a Marxist-Leninist critique of the Stalinist-Maoist principles and practice of the CPP.

Thus The Counter-Theses I dealt with the questions of the analysis of Philippine society, the class line of the party program and the strategy of protracted guerilla war.

The first document of the Counter-Theses I demolished the orthodoxy of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial analysis of Philippine society that for the longest time was the dogma of activists since the period of the First Quarter Storm. Instead Ka Popoy argued on the basis of Marxist theory that Philippine society was indisputably capitalist though obviously backward. Or to use his own colorful description, "mongrel or mongoloid" because Philippine society is a "mixture of the worst features of two opposing modes of production" or "afflicted by an abnormality in its fetal stage of development."

In the next document, Ka Popoy critiqued the Maoist "mass line" of the CPP and called for a Leninist "class line" to be reflected in the basic program of the party. It put to task Joma for "obscuring and glossing over the struggle for socialism in his obsession for national democracy." In its platform and practice, the CPP acted as a revolutionary of the people rather than of the proletariat.

For Ka Popoy, the CPP's semi-feudal and semi-colonial analysis served simply as an alibi for the protracted war that was a vulgarized form of revolution. This he argued in the last document of the Counter-Theses I. Reviewing the history of the Chinese revolution, he proves that Joma's protracted war is a trying-hard copycat of Mao's strategy that was successful in the peculiar conditions of their society. And reexamining Marxist theory, he illustrates that reducing revolution into war is not just a gross distortion but also a fatal mistake. In his words, "We started a war in 1969 without a revolution. By 1986, because of this war strategy, we missed a revolution."

Continuing on the track of the first, the second set of Counter-Theses was composed in 1995. The documents usually called "Reoryentasyon" and "Reorganisasyon" called for correcting the compass of the work and role of the party during the democratic struggle. These two papers form one integral whole arguing the case for reorienting the party and reorganizing its work towards a correct exercise of the vanguard role of the working class in the struggle for democracy.

In the distorted practice of the CPP, it assumed the vanguard role in the democratic revolution by directly organizing the people - primarily the peasants in the countryside - and by directing the mass organizations in the struggle for "national democracy" thru secret party groups. Ka Popoy called this distortion as the sin of vanguardism.

In its stead he reasoned that the party indeed aspires for leadership over revolution but it is the working class itself and not its party that exercises the vanguard role in the people's struggle for democracy. The working class assumes this vanguard role through its frontline position in the actual struggles and by striking an alliance with other classes especially the peasantry in the common fight for democracy. It is the primordial task of the party to conscienticize and organize the workers so that they can exercise this vanguard role.

It follows then that the party instead of scattering itself among people, concentrate on organizing the class struggle of the workers - both in the formal and informal sector, in the cities and countryside. Towards this end, he contends that the party must cultivate the dynamism of workers organizations and its movement instead of secretly manipulating them.

Ka Popoy maintains that the party must remain underground in a situation of brittle bourgeois democracy as presently exists. And party group remain secret to evade surveillance of the enemy but not so much in the eyes of the masses for in fact communist elements guide them as the most dedicated activists and leaders.

In the last document of Counter-Theses II entitled "Islogan", Ka Popoy ridicules the CPP for brandishing an incorrect strategic slogan and having no tactical slogans to rally the workers and the people in the twist and turns of history. No wonder he states that the CPP was left behind by the rapid change in events during the twilight of the Marcos dictatorship and the post-EDSA regimes.

The paper "Islogan" is in fact unfinished for it should have ended with a proposal for a set of tactics and a tactical slogan for the tactical situation based on an analysis of the objective condition and subjective forces during the mid-1990s.

The limitation would be resolved in the founding platform and propositions of the PMP that Ka Popoy wrote in late 1998. The "negative formulations" of Counter-Thesis I and II in the period of the CPP split served as preparation and basis for the new "positive formulations" of the Theses and Program of the newly founded PMP.

Liham - May 28, 1994

LIHAM NG BAYANI
SA MGA KASAMA’T KAIBIGAN

(Ginunita ng mga kasama, kaibigan at kamag-anak ang ika-9 na taon ng pagkamatay ni Ka Popoy Lagman, bayani ng uring manggagawa, noong Pebrero 6, 2010. Bilang pagpupugay ng pahayagang Obrero sa kadakilaan ng bayani, inilathala rito ang isang sulat ni Ka Popoy sa mga kasama noong Mayo 28, 1994, dalawang araw matapos siyang madakip sa isang lugar sa Lunsod Quezon.)


May 28, 1994

Rebolusyonaryong pagbati sa lahat ng kasama't kaibigan,

Una sa lahat, humihingi ako ng paumanhin at pag-unawa sa aking pagkakabihag. Labis kong hinamon sa aking kapahangasan ang dambuhalang makinarya ng reaksyunaryong estado at minaliit ang pansariling kaligtasan.

Pero dapat makita na ginawa ko ito sa aking kagustuhang magampanan ang aking tungkulin anuman ang mga patibong ng kaaway. Alam na alam ko ang sinusuutan kong mga panganib. Pero may mga gawaing hindi makapaghihintay, mga tungkuling dapat gampanan. Hindi ako kagaya ng nagpapanggap na lider na nagpapasarap sa Utrecht habang ang mga kasama dito sa Pilipinas sa magkabilang panig - ay nangangahuli't nangangamatay.

Inaasahan ko sa inyong lahat na panatilihin ang diwang ito - na harapin ang lahat ng sakripisyo at peligro sa ikasusulong ng kapakanan ng masang anakpawis at sambayanang Pilipino habang pinag-iingatan ang sariling kaligtasan na siyang aking pagkukulang.

Nais ko ring tiyakin sa lahat na hawak man ako ng kamay n bakal ng kaaway, kailanman ay hindi nila mababali ang aking rebolusyonaryong paninindigan. Nagtagumpay man ang militar na ako'y bihagin, nananatiling malayang-malaya ang aking rebolusyonaryong diwa na nakayakap nang mahigpit sa ating simulain. Tinitiyak ko na hindi ko ipagpapalit ang aking prinsipyong pampulitika para lang sa personal na paglaya, bulukin man nila ako sa bilangguan o hatulan ng kamatayan.

Ngayon, higit kailanman, dapat patunayan na ang ating kilusan ay nakatindighindi sa paa ng naturingang mga lider kundi nakapader sa prinsipyo't simulain ng bawat isa sa atin. Ang kilusan ay susulong at magtatagumpay dahil ito'y tama't makatarungan, at ito'y hindi magagapi sa simpleng pagkakabihag ng sinuman - anuman ang katungkulan. Ang ating lakas ay nasa katumpakan ng ating ipinaglalaban. Tandaan natin ito, mga kasama!

Mabuhay kayong lahat!

Domeng