Articles by Antonio C. Abaya (1) (2006)

Sleeping with the Communists
By Antonio C. AbayaFebruary 18,2006

The Arroyo government has given as the reason for the declaration of a state of national emergency a growing tactical alliance between young military officers and the Communist movement, in their common desire to force President Arroyo out of office.

I realize that among the liberals in the burgis community, it is fashionable to dismiss the communist bogeyman as a figment of someone’s imagination. Or that this concern is a throwback to the Cold War era, especially during the McCarthy witch hunts in the US of the 1950s, and should no longer be taken seriously half a century later.But in its Jan. 28 issue, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the favorite newspaper of those who seek to overthrow the government, confirmed such a tactical alliance in a front-page story headlined Left-Right alliance vs GMA confirmed.Reported the Inquirer: “Disgruntled officers of the AFP and the PNP are reaching out to people’s organizations to get support for their grievances,” Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casino told reporters….Casino said that as in the ouster of Presidents Marcos and Estrada in 1986 and 2001, the military’s withdrawal of support would be “crucial” to the removal of President Arroyo from power.“But their exact role in her ouster will be determined, to a large extent, by what the people’s movement can accept ,” Casino said.

This means – oh, you naïve warriors of the Magdalo – it will be the communist politburo, not you, who will decide what you can and cannot do in the struggle against President Arroyo. The same warning can be directed to the ideological naifs of the Black and Blue Movement, the Hyatt 10 and the likes of Tita Cory and Triccie and Bettina and Josie who have naively chosen to ally themselves with the communists in their efforts to unseat the embattled GMA.You – Magdalo idealists and burgis ideological naifs - will all be playing mere supporting roles.. The communists intend to play the central starring role because they want to dominate the subsequent ‘transition council,’ almost certainly the one being stitched together by Boy Morales, chief political lieutenant of Erap (who is the likely financier of all this as he was of the Oakwood Mutiny in July 2003) and co-founder in 1972 of the National Democratic Front (NDF), the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Even Joma Sison was supremely confident, in a recent message from Utrecht, that the Arroyo government would be replaced by this ‘transition council.’

Again, the liberals among the burgis will scoff at this interpretation, but the fact is that a communist insurgency is raging in this country with renewed vigor in 2006, and its goal remains the same as it was in 1949 and in 1969: the violent overthrow of the bourgeois democratic state and its replacement with a Marxist-Leninist “dictatorship of the proletariat,” in which the CPP of Joma Sison will be vested with monopoly of power. In other words, no opposition parties in Joma’s paradise state, let me remind Chiz, Peter Alan, Gilbert, Rolex, Devill, Frank, Digs, Kit, Herman, Manong Ernie, Jojo, JV etc.

The Arroyo government claims that Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim, head of the elite Scout Rangers regiment, tried to talk AFP chief-of-staff Lt. Gen. Generoso Senga into withdrawing support from President Arroyo before Black Friday. Instead Gen. Senga took Brigadier Lim into custody.

This is a credible claim. It has now come out, during the current brouhaha in Fort Bonifacio (as I write this), that Marine Col. Ariel Querubin, also under custody for suspected anti-government sentiments, had planned with Lim to take their men to the Friday EDSA rally, without arms, to announce their withdrawal of support from the Arroyo government. Not quite a coup d’etat, but still an overt attempt to collapse the incumbent government.

Now, I have no problem with soldiers and officers, as well as ordinary civilian folks, becoming disenchanted with their governments and walking out on those governments. That was how the people of Eastern Europe (East Germany, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Albania) got rid of their communist regimes in 1989, after 40-45 years, and peacefully too, except in Romania.

But in our present situation, the opposite is being attempted: to ultimately install a communist regime, through the ruse of a people power exercise, financed by a disgraced president who, more than anything else, wants to be restored to the presidency so that he can unilaterally clear his name of the plunder charges pending against him. The communists plan to ride on Erap’s popularity to transit from the ‘transition council’ into a majority position in the second Erap government.

One can forgive Erap for his ignorance, that he is prepared to be a willing dupe of the communists, but one is amazed that more educated burgis types like Tita Cory and Triccie and Bettina and Josie and the Black and Blue Movement are so blinded by their antipathy towards Ate Glo that they willingly ally themselves with the communists to achieve their common goal.Tita Cory seems to have forgotten that in 1987 she naively freed from detention, over the objections of the military, Joma Sison and other top communist prisoners, apparently on the wishy-washy prayer that if she were nice to the communists, the communists would be nice to her.Never happened, of course. As soon as Joma reached Europe, he and his NDF organization in Utrecht waged a disinformation campaign among Europe’s generally leftist media, bad-mouthing Cory Aquino to make her look unworthy of the Nobel Peace Prize for which she had been nominated. That’s how Tita Cory missed being the first Filipino Nobel laureate.

The ideological naifs in the Black and Blue Movement, the Hyatt 10, as well as Triccie and Bettina and Josie and others, should be reminded that they are innocent vestal virgins compared to the seasoned communist revolutionaries that they have naively chosen to sleep with, politically speaking.Everyone seems to be unaware that their communist friends are not out to establish a more perfect Jeffersonian democracy. They are out to establish a Maoist dictatorship, with no political opposition parties, no private enterprise, no private media or schools or banks or industries or agriculture, no freedom of the press, no freedom of assembly, no freedom of speech.

When hundreds of thousands of student demonstrators massed at Tienanmen Square in Beijing in June 1989, demanding more political freedoms, they were driven away by the armored personnel carriers of the People’s Liberation Army, their machine-guns blazing, killing hundreds of students. And two of the few worldwide who applauded that massacre were Joma Sison of the CPP and Crispin Beltran of the KMU.

The Communist Golden Rule is: Do not do unto Us what We will do unto You once We are in power.The Roman Catholic Church in China consecrates its bishops subject to the approval of Beijing, not the Vatican To this day, Beijing does not allow a mere meditation cult, the Falun Gong, to hold public meetings. It is afraid that such a mass organization might form the nucleus of a political opposition.

Fidel Castro does not allow elections in Cuba on the grounds that they are “divisive.” In the late, unlamented Soviet Union, elections were allowed but the ballots contained only the names of candidates from the Communist Party. A voter approved or disapproved the Communist candidate by marking the ballot with a check or an X.But those who wrote a disapproving X must drop that ballot in a box separate from the box for approving ballots, in full view of electoral officials. Since most citizens did not want to risk losing their jobs or apartments or food ration cards or school slots for their children, they willingly voted for the Communist candidates. That was how the Communist Party always won 99.5% or more of the votes in communist countries.

There is no reason to believe that Joma’s CPP would be any less brazen.Under the concept of “democratic centralism,” all debates over policies are “centralized” within the inner sanctums of the Communist Party. Outside of these inner sanctums, there must be only total agreement and compliance.Bettina, your thriving food business would not be allowed in a Maoist or Sovietized economy.

In the Soviet Union, all means of production – even small restaurants, shoe repair shops, tobacco kiosks and taxis – were owned and operated by the state. This was based on Marx’s theory of surplus value that equated profit-making with exploitation. The reasoning is that no one should be allowed to make a profit from the basic needs of others….in your case, Bettina, the need to eat.In the Soviet economy, not only were all enterprises owned and operated by the state, they also had to follow the quotas set by an incredibly mammoth Kafkaesque bureaucracy in Moscow, called Gosplan, that dictated, for example, how many meals every restaurant was supposed to serve each year and how much you were to charge for them, as well as where you were to source your ingredients and at what prices you were to buy them for.

Even schools, Triccie, all government-owned and operated, had quotas on how many students to accept and how many students to pass to the next level each year. This was all part of central planning in the socialist economy, which was organized largely to prevent anyone from making a profit from the needs of others.China under Deng Xiao-ping at least had the good sense to reintroduce capitalism and the profit motive, starting in 1979, at first only in the rural areas, later even in the cities. Unlike in the Soviet Union, entrepreneurs in Dengist China were allowed to operate and to hire a maximum of seven employees each, without being accused of exploitation. Later, this ceiling was raised to fifty employees per entrepreneur. And still later, the ceiling was removed entirely. That was how China became, in the memorable words of Ka Roger, “a stinking capitalist country,” which Maoist Joma would never allow in a Communist Philippines.

Filipino communists are the most vocal oppositors to a national ID card. But in the Soviet Union, as in all communist countries, all citizens were required to carry an internal passport called propiska. This document, subject to random checks by the milicja, contained the name, photo and address of the citizen. No one was allowed to spend more than 72 hours in another address, without the knowledge and permission of the milicja or neighborhood police, even if that new address was another apartment on the same floor in the same building. Big Brother had to know at all times where you were.In the end, of course, everything collapsed in 1989 and 1991, from the accumulated weight of Communism’s failures, after 40 to 45 years in Eastern Europe, 74 years in the Soviet Union.

Burgis ladies and Magdalo gentlemen, do you really want to help impose this colossal catastrophe on your children and grandchildren, just because you hate Gloria Arroyo?I could go on and on, but you get the picture, naïve burgis ladies and idealistic Magdalo warriors. Oh, you will protest, but our communist friends are not that kind of communist, especially that Teddy Casino. He is so cute! But how do you know that? What do you know about communist ideology and methodologies?

Cute Maoists are still Maoists.Haven’t you seen the film “The East is Red!”? It is full of cute Maoist Red Guards, male and female, all waging serious Maoist revolution.