The Inquirer editorial for today points to an ongoing debate where the police seem to be taking a more sensible line than the military. Perhaps this explains why Satur Ocampo insists on remaining in police custody. But the editorial itself cautions against making too much about the difference.
My column for today is Radical yet firmly legal. Please see my entry for today’s Inquirer Current for my view that the armed forces is arguing apples while the rest of society is arguing oranges. Among the flawed government assumptions: equating the CPP-NPA-NDF automatically with perfectly legal party lists.
Technorati Tags: military, philippines, politics, president
I dont think it’s fair to call the PKP/Huks ‘Stalinist,’ MLQ3.
MLQ,
Raul Gonzalez has the solution to your apples and oranges problem.
He said, “It is time to stop talking of extra-judicial killings…because what we have are unexplained killingsâ€Â.
Semantics lang pala.
Reminds of Angelo Reyes who was either COS or DND chief during the VFA hearings and he said something like, “Sovereignty? Semantics lang yan,”
Usec. Marius Corpus was asked by Pia Hontiveros of ANC if the government didn’t waste money rushing Satur Ocampo to Leyte only to return him to Manila when the court ordered Satur’s return.
Corpus said the government did not spend for Ocampo’s flight. It was paid out of the pocket of DILG sec. Ronaldo Puno.
There’s nothing wrong about a prisoner transfer, without a court order, being funded out of someone’s personal funds?
Jeg, i don’t think mlq3 meant it as a derogatory term. Technically the Huks *were* Stalinists as opposed to Joma’s CPP who are Maoists.
at their height, the huks belonged to an era when even mao was a stalinist.
MLQ3,
Apropos of your piece today is the following in the Manila Times. Should make for an interesting comment thread…
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/mar/13/yehey/opinion/20070313opi6.html
False charges of murder and robbery
are mere propaganda rubbish from Arroyo regime
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison , Chief political consultant National Democratic Front
So long as the Arroyo regime remains in power, there will be a constant flow of false charges of murder and robbery against me, whenever the New People’s Army inflicts death casualties and seizes arms and other military equipment in tactical offensives against the military and police forces in the Philippines.
Hundreds of such complaints have been filed against me by the Philippine military and police before government prosecutors and judges. These complaints amount to nothing but propaganda rubbish from the desperately isolated and brutal Arroyo regime. Quite a number of these cases have been either outrightly dismissed or archived by the relatively more sensible prosecutors and judges, with or without the representation of my lawyers, because of the sheer lack of evidence and the lack of jurisdiction over my person.
The recent internationally reported charge of multiple murder in Leyte against Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, myself and 52 others and the more recent charge of murder and robbery in Masbate are part of the hundreds of false charges made against me.
Under the direction of National Security Adviser NorÂÂberto Gonzales, the InteragenÂÂcy Legal Action Group is under orders to complete 1,500 false charges against me before the end of the May 2007 election. What a waste of public money for producing proÂÂpaganda trash!
The latest move of the Philippine National Police (PNP) is to propagandize its supposed request to the International Criminal Police Commission/Organization (Interpol) to issue “red notices†to seek the arrest of myself and the NDFP negotiating panel chairman Luis Jalandoni for the purpose of extradition to the Philippines on the basis of a valid judicial warrant. But there is no extradition treaty between the Netherlands and the Philippines!
I am used to false charges that come and go. These are cheaply fabricated by the Manila government. Remember that the 1998 charge of subversion against me was nullified by the repeal of the Antisubversion Law in 1992 and that the 1991 charge of multiple murder against me was dismissed by the Manila prosecutors in 1994 as something based on sheer speculation. In 1998 the secretary of justice of the Ramos government certified that there was no pending criminal charge against me. But since 2003 the Arroyo regime has the practice of fabricating false charges against me.
On my part, I am not at all worried by the false charges being made against me by the military and police minions of the Arroyo regime. I laugh off all of them. Below are the strong factual and legal grounds for my confidence.
First, the charges are so patently false, malicious and politically motivated.
Second, the whole world knows that the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the command of the NPA are in the Philippines and not in the Netherlands.
Third, I am protected by Article 3 and entirety of the European Convention on Human Rights and Refugee Convention.
Fourth, there is no extradition treaty between the Dutch and Philippine governments.
Fifth, under Philippine law itself, I am outside of the custody and jurisdiction of the Philippine government and cannot be arraigned and tried on any charge.
The Arroyo regime is trying to show off that it can put down its Filipino critics anywhere in the world. But it only succeeds in exposing its callous intolerance for my exercise of the freedom of speech and its contempt for fundamental democratic rights. It has ignored the findings and conclusions of fact-finding missions by human-rights organizations, international civic organizations, religious organizations and the UN special rapporteurs on various aspects of human rights.
The Arroyo regime is intensifying its campaign of vilification against me in a futile attempt to counter the impending Permanent People’s Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, from March 21 to 25, which shall try the case of the Filipino people against the Arroyo regime and its imperialist accomplices headed by the US, on the three major charges of human-rights violations, economic plunder and transgression of Philippine national sovereignty. The case has been filed by families of the victims of human-rights violations, human-rights organizations, BaÂÂyan and the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum, among others.
A posting on schumey’s blogsite raises a point : that The CPP/NPA are thugs — they are extortionists and that they have not won any elections or such sort that gives them the mandate to collect taxes. The CPP/NPA have not been voted into any position of anything via any elections.
UPn Student, i guess they have that in common with Gloria.
But you/schumey/ManuBuencamino has Jamby Madrigal, Cayetano, Satur and others who had been voted in to represent you in the current GMA-led government.
DJB can speak for himself, but neither I nor any of my clan have any representation inside the CPP/NPA tax-collection organization.
Reminds me of that battlecry: “No taxation without representation!!!”
got my phone bill today… guess what me FREE!
kalendaryong me mukha ni Pagdanganan… isa nanamang pagwawaldas nang pondo nang Pilipinas..
Yan ang magandang sample nang terrorism.
A crap by any other name would still stink the same way. Stalinist, Maoist, Marxist-Leninist, they are all Communists, the antithesis of democracy in all its forms.
Instead of uplifting the masses as they usually promise, they exploit them for their own ends and suppress every bit of freedom that only a democratic society can offer in order to perpetuate itself. As long as they are not in power, the communists will demonize existing governmental order, and the men and women manning its barricades, until the country is ripe for picking and enslavement.
I asked this question before and the answer has to be purely in the realm of speculation.
What will China have been had Chiang Kai Shek prevailed over Mao? I am sure some folks will say “warlords… worse!” Yet one has to look to Taipan which became the mini-China under Chiang Kai Shek. Now just imagine today’s Mainland China with a per-capita income and riffraff freedoms of Taipan of today, and one has to shudder.
at their height, the huks belonged to an era when even mao was a stalinist.
I look at Stalinism as a style of governance rather than a political ideology such as Maoism. (Therefore, Mao was a Stalinist Maoist.) But in your column, you contrasted the Maoist CPP with the ‘Stalinist’ PKP, thereby contrasting an ideology with a style of governance. Since neither the CPP nor the PKP had been handed the reins of government, we don’t know if they’ll be Stalinists if they manage to do so. I have a friend who is (or was–havent seen him in 5 years) Maoist and his father was with the PKP, and he said his father described the PKP as Marxist-Leninist.
Jeg, you make a good point, but i suppose Stalinist at that time serves as a short hand for Lee Kuan Yew today. After all, Stalin’s Soviet Union was the Singapore of the 30’s and the early 50’s.
I did not vote for any of the above in the past. In 2004, i voted for GMA, Loren and her Senate slate (except Kiko). However, my vote has been rendered moot and academic because of the cheating, so your slogan of “No taxation without representation” is technically true of GMA as it is of the CPP/NPA.
I guess you meant ‘Taiwan’. Here’s what Alice Amsden’s “The Rise of The ‘Rest'” says:
“The good quality and relatively low-cost labour force, combined with experienced textile entrpreneurs who had fled from mainland China in 1949, constituted a very strong base for Taiwanese industry”
It turns out that Mao’s revolution in 1949 helped create two economic miracles, first by implementing social equality in mainland China which allowed Deng to implement his market-oriented reforms, and second, by dislocating the warlords, which allowed them to channel their resources to productive industry.
In the realm of speculation, if we take away the land and disarm our current warlords and drive them all to Negros maybe they will do as well their Nationalist Chinese counterparts in Taiwan.
had gen chiang kai shek prevailed, japan could have done a germany type of comeback with its own hitler. china would have then provided the land of the rising sun with factories and manpower to launch a “save face” campaign which is more important to them than dear life itself. it is either that or the world would have seen the rise of japanese technological advancement at a much earlier time.
warlords around chiang kai shek and sun yat sen were puppets of the japanese government, controlled via the kimpetai.
the japs were not military geniuses and yet they swept through asia with the same efficiency that the nazis had. though they did not possess that famed german precision, their sleepers, on the other hand, have already been placed in strategic positions all across the east decades before the bombing of pearl harbor. it was a long investment that paid off in due time, making belligerent occupation surprisingly quick and easy for a country of bow-legged rice farmers.
the infestation of governments was deep and wide. a chiang kai shek led china would have served as a japanese mega sweat shop.
bogchimash… You are wrong to state that Chiang would have served as a Japanese puppet. Chiang’s military/political career vis-a-vis Communists and Japan was confusing, but in the end, when rising tide of Chinese nationalism and the cessation of warfare against the communists propelled Chiang Kai-shek in the pinnacle of his political career, it was Chiang who led China in the Second Sino-Japanese War,
And to be noted: the Chinese warlords were vanquished by the time that Mao and Chiang were bloodying up Mainland China as they battled for supremacy. The warlords were a non-factor when Mao took Mainland China down its path (and Chiang took Taiwan down its path). Now that I read the history books again, my conclusion is that the Chiang-Kai-Shek path was the better for being less bloody (no sweet-smell of death movement termed “The Great Leap Forward” or “Cultural Revolution”) and more an economic success.
UPn Student, the Chinese warlords who were aligned with Chiang were unpopular because many of them sided with the Japanese which is why the Chinese populace supported the Communists who were consistent in fighting the invaders, which also accounts for their final victory in 1949.
I agree that economic path that Chiang Kai Shek took in Taiwan was better than what happened in the mainland. Note that it included a healthy dose of Land Reform which was a prerequisite to the economic takeoff of the island. I agree with your assessment of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. It would have been better if Deng’s reforms were implemented in 1958 (instead of 1978), but Maoists are anything if not dogmatic.
Nevertheless, whether in Mainland China or in Taiwan, the formula for economic success was similar, address social and economic inequities first (by eliminating warlords and introducing land reform in the case of Taiwan or collectivization in the case of China) and then introduce market-oriented reforms under close supervision by the government.
When Chiang went on bloodlust mode to unify China, the warlords were thought to have been wiped out. Many disbanded thier armies but some actually just laid low. Patiently these warlords waited for the coming of the Japanese whose operatives helped them oppose the unification efforts. That wait finally ended when the Japanese blew up a train in Manchuria and blamed it on China. The Japanese invaded and it emboldened these warlords to openly defy the unification efforts once more. Side by side with the Japanese, these warlords fought Chiang who, at that time, was in tactical alliance with Mao.
As history would have it, Harry S. Truman dropped 2 A-bombs on 2 Japanese cities. The war in the Pacific ended. Japan withdrew its army from all fronts. Mao and Chiang went back to fighting each other.
Seeing that the peasantry was on Mao’s side, Chiang became deperate and allied himself with the pro-Japan warlords. Had he prevailed, the warlords would be China’s Berroya, Matillano, Mendoza, Esperon, Ermita, Tabako, Lumibao etc etc. They will get the juiciest posts, ushering in a new age of Japanese control of China.
I agree though that it is unthinkable for Chiang to openly bow to the Japanese whom he bitterly fought. As what I have intimated in my first post regarding this topic, it will be the warlords around him who will be selling out.
bogchimash… What does not add up is that Japan was totally vanquished, unconditional surrender — which translates into Japan not being allowed by the United States to control China via any puppet.
Had Chiang prevailed over Mao, the more likely scenario will be that the US-of-A would have had a greater influence over China’s future (first as a counterweight to Russian communism, then as a business partner).
Before anyone shudder at the thought of Mainland China turning into a Philippines…. just as likely that even with US-of-A meddling, the Chinese (with Buddhist and Confucian traditions)would be as Taiwan is today.
UPn Student, that would depend on the role and prominence of warlords in Chiang’s society and whether or not Land Reform would have been implemented in mainland China just as it has been in Taiwan (and Korea).
How will the U.S. prevent surreptitious Japanese control of China if Chiang, who was surrounded by pro-Japan warlords, had won over the Chairman? The OSS was just about to or has just been converted into the CIA. In Chinese affairs, no foreign country has deeper penetration than the Japanese’s Kempei Tai. Although Japan lost in the war, the network remained. Only the Imperial Army was pulled out.
The Japanese technological advancement is a testament to the fact that the Kepei Tai susbsisted beyond the war years.
“at their height, the huks belonged to an era when even mao was a stalinist.”
And which era was that, pray tell…?
(please don’t say “the cold war”)
passerby, the period prior to stalin’s death.