Athens Meeting 8-10 October 2004, Contribution of Philippine CP-1930 to International Meeting Communist and Workers' Parties

From Solidarity Net

Dear Comrades:

The Philippine Communist Party (Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, or PKP-1930) thanks the Communist Party of Greece (CPG) for the CPG's great sacrifices in hosting this Meeting, and in maintaining its very important initiative of convening annual International Meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties.

This year's theme of Resistance Against Imperialist Aggressiveness, and the Strengthening of Fronts of Struggles and of Alternatives, is very appropriate. Communist and Workers' Parties are truly duty-bound to organize and mobilize the masses - particularly the working classes - in fighting imperialist aggressiveness anywhere in the world, through various ways to demonstrate that there are better alternatives to the imperialist system of war and exploitation. The alternatives of course are the different routes to socialism for the capitalist countries, and the different routes to the transitional stage of national democracy for the neocolonial countries.

In the Philippines, we have a very reactionary government which is an original member of the 'Coalition of the Greedy,' and which supported the imperialist war against Iraq in the mercenary hope of profiting from the post-invasion restructuring by imperialism of the Iraqi economy. Our people's resistance against the sending of Filipino troops to Iraq was enormous, and the Arroyo government was forced to withdraw the Filipino troops from Iraq last July. That troop withdrawal was not only due to the threat by the Iraqi resistance to behead a Filipino truck driver who was kidnapped by them in Iraq, but also because of the widespread call by our people for such troop withdrawal. Our Party had a modest role in propagating among our people that demand for troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Events have already exposed all the lies that Bush and Blair made in justifying their invasion of Iraq, and this exposure gave greater credibility to our call for an end to Philippine participation in the imperialist occupation of Iraq. Along with this call, we also launched a campaign to boycott US and UK products and businesses in the Philippines, and this boycott is gaining ground among many mass organizations.

The impotence of the United Nations in the face of the imperialist aggression against Iraq, as well as the shameful role of the Philippine representative to the UN – who was even elected president of the Security Council with US support, in order to defend US positions in that body – has laid the ground for the strengthening in our country of the Campaign for A More Democratic United Nations (CAMDUN). This campaign aims to repose real power upon the General Assembly, to expand the composition of the Security Council, to remove the veto power of permanent members of the Security Council, and to give the International Court of Justice – particularly its International Criminal Court – real teeth in trying the crimes against humanity that have been spawned by the recent imperialist wars against Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and elsewhere.

Aside from the resistance against the imperialist wars of aggression, another important front is the launching of struggles against the economic crisis which is a result of the imperialist stranglehold over our economy. The imperialist drive for greater exploitation and profits from a neo-colony such as the Philippines is driving greater masses of our people to dire poverty, and even to hunger and desperation. In this situation, we must direct the anger of the impoverished masses against imperialism and the neo-colonial system being maintained in our country.

The Arroyo government in our country has already admitted that the foreign debt of the Philippines may no longer be payable by next year. The increase in the prices of imported fuel oils, and the devaluation of the Philippine Peso vis-a-vis the US dollar and other leading currencies, is making the continued payment of the foreign debt untenable. The foreign debt of the Philippines is now around $57-Billion, or more than double the figure two decades ago when the Marcos regime was ousted.

The Philippine government itself has a total public debt of $40-Billion, almost half of which is owed to foreign creditors, and the rest owed to local creditors and bond-holders. Of this total public debt, a little over $10-Billion will mature (i.e., will become due and payable) next year, with $5.8-Billion of this demandable by foreign creditors.

It should be stressed however that most of the government's foreign debt is due to the behest loans taken out from foreign creditors by cronies of successive administrations, all of which were covered by sovereign guarantees by the Philippine government. When the private businesses of the cronies folded up, their foreign debts were automatically transferred to the government, and their repayment was shackled upon the shoulders of the Filipino masses.

Despite the fact that the continued repayment of the foreign debt is untenable, the Arroyo regime has been assuring the World Bank, the IMF, the Asian Development Bank, and the consortia of imperialist creditors that her government will continue to pay through recycled borrowings, through heavier taxation of the Filipino people, and through the selling off of government land and other resources. Even while tariffs on imported goods are being reduced upon the dictates of the World Trade Organization, internal taxes are being raised.

Public lands and institutions – including hospitals and grains warehouses needed for social services and food security for the people – are to be sold off under various privatization schemes. Trust funds (or social security pension plans) administered by the government are also set to be transferred to the private sector, and are expected to be plundered by transnational corporations and banks. Fuel oil, electricity, water, communication and transportation services are to be levied higher taxes. For the first time in our history, people will have to pay 'legal fees' when filing criminal cases against suspected wrongdoers (including grafters in government), thereby making a mockery of the constitutional guarantee of free access to the courts of justice.

All these plans for further privatization and deregulation, and for higher taxation to pay for the foreign debt, are being met with greater resistance by our people, particularly the organized masses. New fronts are being developed in demanding the repudiation of the foreign debt, a large part of which was acquired through schemes tainted with graft and corruption. This foreign debt, which first ballooned during the dark days of the Marcos military dictatorship, cannot and should not be paid. It is an immoral debt and a profound human rights issue. The campaign for a foreign debt default is a front of anti-imperialist struggle that we have to broaden and strengthen in our country.

However, a more pressing campaign that we have to nurture in our country is the campaign to prevent a return to martial rule. If the present Arroyo regime would appear to US imperialism to be unreliable already in performing the task of caretaker for imperialist interests in our country, then the US imperialists may opt to use the Philippine military in ousting Arroyo. It is the same military which launched a coup against Marcos, and later deposed another president, Estrada (Arroyo's immediate predecessor), and the military's loyalty to US imperialism is conditioned by their dependence on US military hardware, training and vital communication facilities.

Already, the special agents of imperialism in our country – the Islamic fundamentalists who are fomenting secession, and the Maoists who are pursuing the illusion of an armed takeover of the cities from the countryside – are stepping up their terrorist activities through bombings and assassinations. While these terrorist activities have never really been a threat to imperialist interests, the terrorist strength is being exaggerated by US military advisers who have been conducting the so-called 'anti-terrorist' trainings for the Armed Forces of the Philippines. An 'Anti-Terrorism' Law, patterned after the US 'Patriot Act', is also being pushed by US imperialism through the Philippine Congress (parliament).

Being hidden is the fact that it was the CIA which nurtured Islamic fundamentalism in the Philippines at the time (in the 1980s) when the CIA needed foreign mercenaries to sow terrorism against the Soviet-backed national-democratic government in Afghanistan. Also being hidden is the fact that it was also the CIA which spawned the maoist movement in our country and elsewhere in the late 1960s in order to divide the progressive movement and to help justify the declaration of martial law in our country. The maoists in our country, led by a clique based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, have even organized an international maoist movement (the so-called 'International League of Peoples' Struggles') in order to foment adventurism and splittist activities within progressive movements in other countries.

We have to inform you about the murderous and terrorist nature of the maoist group in our country, because a number of our leaders and cadres have been murdered by this group.

Not all the foreign parties and organizations which have lent support to the so-called 'International League of Peoples' Struggles' may realize the maoist control over this league, and some well-meaning foreign solidarity groups may simply want to have the goody-goody feeling of supporting some struggle in the Third World such as in the Philippines. But certainly, there are those who only want to play out their own adventurist fantasies by supporting a maoist insurgency in our country, driven by some condescending desire to interfere in the internal affairs of the anti-imperialist movement in our country. And certainly, it is a shame if some of the resources contributed by some anti-imperialist groups abroad have been used by the Maoists in killing our comrades and the leaders of some other anti-imperialist mass organizations in our country.

Dear comrades:

In our campaign to help prevent a return to a military dictatorship in our country, we are projecting the need to defend civil and other democratic rights, at the same time that we are attacking the reactionary policies of the present regime, as well as the terrorist activities of the maoists and Islamic fundamentalists who are playing a role which is in line with the imperialist plans for the perpetuation of its control over our country.

With greater militancy, and by gathering wider support from our people, we are hoping to frustrate the imperialist plans to install a new military dictatorship over our country, which plan is aimed at forestalling the growing anti-imperialist sentiment among our long-suffering people.

While we pledge to continue the struggle against US imperialist interventionism in our country, and against the US plan to reestablish US military bases in our country, we also pledge that our Party will continue our internationalist duty of propagating greater support within our country for the main currents of the world revolution - the defense of those countries which are steadfastly maintaining a socialist path of development, the prevention of the so-called 'balkanization' of the former USSR, support for all efforts for the reestablishment of the socialist system in the former socialist community, support for communist and workers' struggles in capitalist countries, and support for national-liberation and national-democratic struggles in occupied and neo-colonial countries.

Again, we wish to thank the Communist Party of Greece for their continued initiative in hosting annual International Meetings of Communist and Workers' Parties, and for the warm hospitality accorded to all the delegates here.

Thank you for your kind attention.



--PEDRO P. BAGUISA is General Secretary, Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930).