Opinion: Wenceslao: Duterte and the Left

Opinion piece posted to the Sun Star-Cebu (May 3): Wenceslao: Duterte and the Left (By  Bong O. Wenceslao)

I PROMISED months ago not to write about the revolutionary Left out of respect for those who are still “serving the people.” I realized I had written negative articles about them, especially on the conduct of electoral alliances, that I may have alienated myself from my old friends. So I largely skipped analyzing the Left’s moves in this election to the extent that I became ignorant of the alliances it is keeping with presidential candidates in the May 9 polls.

But that was before I read on Facebook a post quoting a line from retired judge Meinrado Paredes’s speech during a recent forum wherein a group called the Alliance Against Tyranny, Incompetence and Greed or Astig was formed. Paredes said:

"This is my challenge to the left and to my former comrades. If you support Duterte and Sison and extra-judicial and enforced disappearances, atubangon ta mo. You are traitors to the cause of human rights. To the followers of Duterte, do not entertain the illusion that the coalition government between Duterte and Sison is good for the growth of the masses.”

That Paredes dare had me surfing Google for updates about the Left and its moves in the current electoral struggle. I ended up watching a video clip of a conversation on Skype between PDP-Laban standard bearer Rodrigo Duterte and the Netherlands-based Jose Ma. Sison or Joma, founding chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), after the release on April 25 of of five police officers who were nabbed by the New People’s Army (NPA), the military arm of the CPP.

Has the Left forged an alliance with Duterte? It seems likely, if one considers Joma’s talk with Duterte alone. So what happens to Partido Galing at Puso’s standard bearer Grace Poe, who has forged an alliance with the militant Makabayan coalition, which has fielded Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares as its candidate for senator in the May 9 polls?

But again, Duterte talking with Joma does not mean the Left is already aligning itself with the Duterte candidacy. For one, the Left does not believe in what it calls “bourgeois elections,” which means that it does not bring the weight of its entire organization in supporting a presidential candidate. Secondly, I don’t think Joma still heads the CPP. If he still does, then his voice is only one in a party that practices collective decision-making.

Even then, Joma giving out statements propping up the Duterte candidacy could sow confusion within the Left and among its allies. Wouldn’t Poe question Makabayan’s sincerity in forging an alliance with her? But that is not even the important question.
Why Joma would align himself with Duterte, who is everything a progressive candidate is not, is. Forging an alliance with Duterte would violate the principles that a nationalist and democratic movement holds dear.

When I heard last year that Makabayan forged an alliance with Poe, I wrote positively about it noting that not only is Poe a popular bet, she is not an all-out trapo (traditional politician) yet. But I would not be as positive with a Duterte-Left alliance. Even now, I am hearing harsh criticisms against the Left because of the impression it is allied with Duterte--one of them being Paredes. That diminishes some progressive people’s respect of the Left.

For several elections now, the Left has been making one bad decision after another. Its moves in the current polls do not seem to be an improvement.

http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/opinion/2016/05/04/wenceslao-duterte-and-left-471541