Globalize dignity, solidarity and the struggle


Excerpts from a speech given by Cesar T. Taguba at the People of 
Color Against Imperialist Globalization conference, 24 June 2000.


ITAL Cesar Taguba was a member of the underground, revolutionary 
national democratic movement in the Philippines from 1972 until 
his capture 1974. The u.$. backed Marcos dictatorship imprisoned 
and tortured him for three and a half years. Currently he is a 
member of the aboveground, legal national democratic movement. He 
is the coordinator of BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance) International 
- Europe. END


We are meeting at a time when more than 1,500 US troops and 2,000 
of their counterparts in the puppet Armed Forces of the 
Philippines (AFP) are conducting sea and land war exercises in the 
Philippines. Few months ago, another war exercise involving 5,000 
US troops took place, sparking nationwide protests actions. The 
deployment of US troops and war equipment is made possible by the 
one-sided Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which the puppet Estrada 
government, upon US pressure, approved last year. The VFA violates 
our constitution and territorial integrity, It is an affront to 
our national sovereignty and is a threat to peace in the 
Philippines and the entire Asia-Pacific region...

The privatization of state assets in energy, transportation/ 
communication, banks, hospitals, schools, etc., deregulation of 
the banking and financial system, liberalization of trade and 
investments, place the entire country under the mercy of foreign 
corporations The US$57bn foreign debt and the imposed neoliberal 
development model have closed the possibility for national 
industrialization and genuine land reform. From 1970-1998 the 
Philippines paid US$275bn in debt servicing. The Philippine 
national budget in 1999 allocates 32% for debt servicing; 2% to 
health; 1.5% to land reform; 14% to education and 13.1% to the 
military and the police. There is no program for a thoroughgoing 
land reform, or to develop the manufacturing much more so the 
industrial sector. From 1996-1997, more than 2,000 firms closed, 
causing retrenchment of more than 250,000 workers.

The social and human cost of imperialist domination are 
staggering. Unemployment and underemployment are increasing. The 
daily legislated minimum wage is around US$4 while it takes about 
US$ll to sustain a family of six. Workers' right to strike and 
unionize are prohibited especially in the export processing zones. 
Prime agricultural lands are being converted into residential and 
tourist facilities. Landgrabbing by foreign agricultural 
corporations and the militarization of the countryside drive the 
peasantry into deeper misery and poverty. Out of every 10 tillers 
of the land, 8 are landless. Seventy per cent of the entire 
population of 79 million lives below the poverty line. Every day 
1,227 children die of pneumonia, 217 of diarrhea, 28 of tetanus 
and 15 of renal diseases. There is a sharp rise of forced 
prostitution, sex trafficking of women and children. The Labor 
Export Policy (LEP) is designed to deploy Filipino construction, 
domestic and service workers to ease unemployment and as source of 
dollar earnings. Around 7 million Filipinos work and live abroad 
in order to economically survive.

The Philippines is a bourgeois republic under the joint rule of 
the comprador big bourgeoisie and the big landlords. Neo-
colonialism and condition of semi-feudalism consigns the 
Philippines into a pre- industrial, agrarian, backward, debt-
ridden, import-dependent and export-oriented country. 

The history and character of the Philippine society make it 
imperative to launch a national democracy movement of a new type, 
against US imperialism, bureaucrat capitalism and feudalism. This 
movement seeks to unite the Filipino people for genuine 
independence. It seeks to satisfy the demand of the peasantry for 
liberation from the clutches of landlordism. The proletarian-led 
movement, which combines armed and unarmed legal struggle survived 
and outlasted the Marcos fascist dictatorship, and the US-
instigated "total war" of the Aquino, Ramos and now the anti-
people and antinational Estrada regime. This movement is self-
reliant and is deeply rooted among the toiling masses of workers 
and the peasantry. The movement is national in scope with more 
than 95 guerrilla fronts in all major islands.

A significant part of our struggle is to combat petty bourgeois 
ideas and influence from within and without. There is the 
deceptive idea that imperialism is benign and reformable and that, 
there is no alternative to imperialist globalization; that class 
analysis and revolutionary class struggle is passe; that 
imperialism is a positive force as it brings industrialization to 
the countries of the 3rd world. We have to contend and struggle 
against psuedo-revolutionaries who peddle revisionist ideas and 
the advocates of pacifism and reformism, aimed at de-mobilizing 
the people and against the national democratic movement. We have 
to neutralize the pernicious influence of thousands of foreign- 
funded NGOs whose loyalty is to their donors and not the people. 
They propagate the illusion that the tripartite partnership of the 
state, big business and the NGOs will create a civil society 
beneficial to all. We have to actively combat attempts at pitting 
the workers in the advanced capitalists countries against those in 
the 3rd world. 

The Filipino people are determined to win their national 
democratic revolution. Their victory is their contribution to the 
growth in strength of revolutionary and socialist forces the world 
over. They need international solidarity to complement their self-
reliant struggle against US imperialism and the domestic 
reactionaries...



ITAL As an example of the breadth and depth of the worldwide 
struggle against imperialism, Taguba noted the people's wars and 
armed uprisings raging in the Philippines, India, Peru, Turkey, 
and many other countries. He quoted from the Communique of the 
International Seminar on Mao and People's War, held in December 
1999 (reprinted in MIM Notes 180, 15 February 2000). END



"[T]he people's war and the revolutionary uprisings constitute the 
most advanced detachment of the struggle against the 'New World 
Order.' Objectively, they are inflicting severe blows against 
imperialism, are showing that the people's resistance cannot be 
suppressed, and are strengthening the self-confidence of the 
masses... They answer the central question of revolution, which is 
the seizure of political power."