By BenCyrus G. Ellorin
The contest between the top two pre-election survey leaders in the Presidential race has the trappings of the age-old conflict between the progressive/militant National Democrats and the moderate Social Democrats.
While the Social Democrats (SD) in the Philippines do not have a centralized leadership, the National Democrats (ND) has both the legal and underground leaderships through legal mass organizations like the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and the underground Communist Party of the Philippines respectively.
The fundamental difference between the legal ND and the underground ND is that legal ND believes in democratic elections while the underground do not subscribe to electoral process and consider armed struggle as the primary and only decisive means to effect social change.
The SDs over time has evolved in different spheres and expressions. Although the Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (PDSP) is the political arm of the movement, it remains a heterogeneous group of people, without a central leadership but united in the belief in the need for social change through the dismantling of economic and political inequalities.
One of PDSP’s founder Norberto Gonzalez has several stints in the government, from National Security Adviser to his present post, the Secretary of National Defense.
The National Democrats or NDs on the other hand suffered a bitter split in the 1990s over ideological differences and strategies on winning the national democratic struggle. After a rectification movement in the 1990s, the mainstream NDs, then known as the “ReAffirmists or RAs” had recovered and had starting in 2001 joined the Party List system via the Bayan Muna Party List. In 2004, they have expanded to have Anakpawis to represent the peasants, Kilusang Mayo Uno to represent the workers and Gabriela to represent the women.
In 2007, they have expanded to the youth sector with Kabataan. Others Party List groups allied with the NDs are Migrante, Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and KaTribu for the indigenous people.
Some of those who split from the BAYAN coalition or the “Rejectionists or RJs” have coalesced with a sector of the SocDems, carrying popular democracy as their common political line and formed groups like Akbayan which is also prominent in the Party List system. Others formed Party List groups like the Bukluran ng Mangagawang Pilipino and Partido Mangagawa on top of their political organizing work in the workers, youth, farmers, women and other marginalized sector.
Today, there are still remnants of that bitter debate even in the legal front like when Akbayan’s Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel and Bayan Muna’s Teodoro Casino trading barbs in the halls of Congress over differences in position over the national agrarian reform policy. Akbayan and the SocDems have pushed for the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER) while the ND bloc in the House of Representatives batted for the GARB or Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill.
The debate of the SocDems and the NatDems have also found manifestation in the conflict, mudslinging and debates between the top two contenders for the Presidency which incidentally are the two oldest political parties in the country, the Nacionalista Party and the Liberal Party.
The NP was founded in 1907 primarily to call for political independence. Thus its motto of Bayan Higit sa Lahat. After World War 2 and after the US gave the Philippines its independence in 1946, a faction of the NP bolted and created the Liberal Party.
This year, the NP and the LP, two of the oldest and biggest political parties historically are again locked in a close battle for the Presidency with NP’s Sen. Manny Villar and LP’s Noynoy Aquino.
Before the filing of Certificates of Candidacies in November 2009, there were speculations that the NDs which was then planning to field senatorial candidates through Makabayan would join the LP. I had said then that it would be a far off possibility. I had speculated that the SocDem faction in the LP represented by the so called Civil Society bloc and groups like Akbayan are deeply embedded and would block the entry of Makabayan candidates Satur Ocampo, Liza Maza and Teodoro Casino in the LP slate. Only the Tanadas, known nationalists seem to be friendly with the NDs among the LPs. (Casino begged off from the senatorial race and instead opted to run his last term as the number 1 nominee of Bayan Muna.)
Villar’s NP became the logical choice of the NDs, but certain kinks like the inclusion Bongbong Marcos in the NP slate became obstacles, which as we all know is already history.
Many credit Villar’s leadership and class origin as the deciding factor in the NP-ND coalition (through Makabayan). Although Villar by strict Marxist-Maoist standard is a class enemy of the poor, his not being a scion of the big feudal landlord and big bourgeois comprador classes is more acceptable to the NDs, I think.
By joining the electoral process and in an unprecedented move, aligning itself with a dominant political party, many believe, especially those advocating for peaceful resolution of conflicts, that this development is in the right direction. “Mainstreamed,” they can bring the issues and struggles of the poor Filipinos within the national government structure and not just reduced to the margins of politics, in the parliament of the streets. Critics however say that this move of Makabayan is a sell-out of their struggle.
The influence of the SocDems in the LP in this election is viewed by many as a revision of the Philippine Social Democrat’s goal of reducing economic inequalities which is the cause of economic and political inequality that feeds on political elitism. Its standard bearer Noynoy Aquino, a scion of the powerful Cojuanco-Aquino political dynasty is an epitome of the marriage of the taipan-dominated big bourgeois comprador and the old feudal landlord classes.
Whichever fence one is in the May 2010 elections however, the integration of political ideologies in mainstream political processes is very positive. The inclusive nature of this growth in Philippine politics is a step in the right direction as it funnels the energies of these vital political actors to one of the principal pillars of a republican and democratic state: ELECTIONS.
The writer is a community organizer, environmentalist and peace advocate based in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines. Comments can be sent to bency.ellorin@gmail.com
(First published on MindaNews.)