MIM Notes 188 June 15 1999

REVIEW: THE GOLF WAR
LAND TO THE MASSES, NOT DECADENT ASSES

by MIM

Filmmakers Jen Schradie and Matt DeVries set out to make a 
documentary which would convey the semi-feudal and semi-colonial 
conditions of the Philippines to First World audiences. With their 
recently released film "The Golf War," they succeeded. This 40-
minute documentary tells the story of Hacienda Looc, a small 
fishing and farming community near Manila, where luxury golf 
course developers and local officials are working together to 
drive peasants off of their ancestral land. 

The golf-course developers and the government claim that the golf 
courses will bring jobs and prosperity, but the peasants and 
fisherfolk from Hacienda Looc understand that the tourist-
dependent project will bring neither. According to Romy Capulong, 
the peasants' attorney:  "Land conversion, which the government 
and the capitalists call 'development,' destroys culture, destroys 
homes, communities, the environment, and doesn't really bring any 
benefits to our people."

Several people organizing against the golf courses were harassed 
and killed by the developers' armed goons. After this, the 
revolutionary New People's Army warned that if the killings 
continued, it would launch military actions against those 
responsible. The harassment and killings have since stopped.

Schradie and DeVries also managed to catch Tiger Woods and his dad 
while they were in the Philippines promoting golf. The 
juxtaposition of golf promoters' claims that golf can solve the 
problems of Filipinos and the reality of the situation at Hacienda 
Looc makes for some great satire. "Right now what we need is to 
liberate ourselves, fight a revolution," says one young guerrilla. 
"Not hold golf clubs or play golf."

While concentrating on this one particular story, "The Golf War" 
also provides insight into a major conflict in the Third World:  
Peasants versus landlords, u$-backed capitalists, and corrupt 
government officials. It also concretely illustrates why 
revolutionary armed struggle is necessary to defend and promote 
the interests of oppressed people. MIM recommends "The Golf War" 
and encourages people to work with MIM and the Revolutionary Anti-
Imperialist League to host screenings of the video throughout 
North America.

U$ culpability

The golf course development at Hacienda Looc is typical of the 
imperialist-led "development" schemes in Third World countries, 
which place foreign investors' needs above the needs of the 
majority of the people. The schemes replace rice fields with golf 
courses and toy factories and create problems like hunger, 
poverty, and unemployment.

Amerikan investors do not seem to own a significant part of the 
company carrying out golf-course development at Hacienda Looc, 
although the U$ Agency for International Development encouraged 
its conversion to a tourist trap. But u.$. firms do control 
enterprises worth more than $1.66 billion and account for over 
half of the foreign capital invested in the Philippines. 

More importantly, the u.$. actively supports a political and 
economic system which allows a few privileged Filipinos to get 
rich through corruption and exploitation. The dictator Marcos, 
Presidents Aquino, and Ramos all had the blessing of the U.$. at 
one time or another, and implemented pro-U.$. policies. They were 
also all members of the exploiting classes (Aquino, for example, 
was a large landholder), which make up less than 2% of the 
population of the Philippines. The united $tates chooses such 
isolated local puppets because ultimately they are dependent on 
the united $tates for their political power and therefore do not 
dare spurn Amerikan interests.

To give an example of the magnitude of the dependence of the 
Manila government on the united $tates:  U.$. aid accounts for 83% 
of the Armed Forces of the Philippines' budget.

Revolutionary struggle

Led by the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines, the New 
People's Army is waging Protracted People's War against the puppet 
government in Manila to win true independence for the Philippines 
and to replace capitalism with self-reliant socialism, which 
places the needs of the majority first, not the profit of a few. 
"Ultimately it would have to come down to armed struggle," says 
one NPA guerrilla interviewed in the video, "because that is the 
only way we can change the whole system, the whole structure. We 
have to seize political power from the ruling classes and not lead 
simply a legal or parliamentary struggle, because it would never 
be resolved by those means - as history has proven time and time 
again."



Notes: "The Golf War," anthill productions, 1999. "Support the 
National Democratic Front of the Philippines," a RAIL Pamphlet, 
available from MIM or RAIL for $1.