MAY 1, 2001 is a great day to observe the 3rd year of founding of the RPMP as the world salutes the laboring masses who create the great wealth and technology of modern society. This anniversary celebration comes at a time when the working class struggle in the country braces for the impact of the coming May 14 elections. The RPMP is confronted with the challenge of leading the attainment of maximum gains in this electoral exercise to further advance the democratic interest of the laboring masses.
The present electoral contest depicts a particular intense struggle for dominance between two local bourgeois factions because of the January EDSA event where the GMA section of the local bourgeoisie seized power from the duly-elected Estrada Administration through massed-up people and military support. While the newly-installed GMA-Ramos faction is fighting hard to consolidate its control and dominance, the deposed Estrada faction is bent on maintaining and strengthening its holds on the state machinery.
This fight permeates the efforts of the local bourgeois elite and their different political parties and allies to win over the support of the working masses that compose the bulk of the electorate. The call to defeat “traditional politicians” and remove corruption in government is being invoked even by candidates who were notoriously linked with corruption cases in the past in trying to present themselves as “the” alternative.
The continuing squabble of the local bourgeois factions for dominance under conditions of an upcoming local elections is shaping much the policies and conduct of the present government towards the different issues confronting the present struggle of the working class in the country.
Inutile against the economic woes of the country brought about by globalization that they have ardently promoted as the solution to the country’s economic backwardness and poverty, the false promise of economic salvation in deposing the Erap Administration has gone up in smoke. The public’s attention is now deviated on the issue of charging the former president with the heinous crime of economic plunder and corruption. This is capitalized on so that the administration candidates can gain headway against the opposition candidates.
At the same time, there is so much grandstanding on the peace talks with the CPP-NPA and the MILF while no concrete and real actions are taken on the concluded Confidence Building based Peace Agreement between the RPMP-RPA-ABB and the past administration. The issue of pursuing a just and lasting peace gained political prominence in the recent past as state repression and the violence of poverty worsened armed conflict and terror effect on civilians in Mindanao. The peace process undertaken with the RPMP-RPA-ABB at a time when an all-out war was waged against the Moro insurgents served the purpose of the state to make a showcase of its carrot and stick tactics in handling armed unrest in the past. Making token commitments in public on what was agreed with the RPMP-RPA-ABB and aiming to reach a peace settlement with the CPP-NPA in a matter of months smacks of insincerity and continuing disregard of the root causes of armed unrest.
Under conditions of a non-revolutionary period, the RPMP and the political and armed forces it leads have resolutely pursued the advancement of the tasks under the transitional democratic and antiimperialist program for socialism. While undertaking painstaking organizing, education and mobilization work among the industrial, intellectual, service and agricultural workers and the rest of the urban and rural poor, the peace process as an unarmed means of maximizing political victories of its armed strength was pursued. Friendship and alliances were established as efforts were undertaken to broaden the support for the struggle of the working masses.
More than ever, the masses of the working people must strive hard to assert for their voice and rights in government as an indispensable step in changing the position of power between the workers and the bourgeois elite towards the attainment of working-class based democracy. In the face of the formidable resources that the bourgeoisie have at their disposal, the intellectual and service workers and the regular and seasonal agricultural workers in the rural areas have their own strength in unified action to push for their electoral agenda. They must rally around the Party List candidates to win more seats for genuine representatives of the working class from the various sectors. At the same time, alliances must be forged with friendly and sincere candidates who support the legitimate demands that would favor the attainment of concrete gains and improve the well-being of the working masses.
Gains in the present electoral contest must be maximized towards building the independent strength of the working class in governance. Vigilance must be exercised against bourgeois efforts to make the organized masses mere appendage to their political parties. Bearing in mind the debates within the left, the RPMP must strive to continuously study, define its own tactics and educate and organize the broadest masses in order to exercise utmost initiative in providing Marxist-Leninist leadership to the working class movement.
The continuous and intensifying mass protests worldwide against evils of free trade under globalization is an inspiration in advancing the working class struggle against the worldwide onslaught of capital on the working masses. From Seattle in the United States, to Thailand, to France in Europe and then recently in Quebec Canada, the international meetings of the big monopoly capitalists intended to set rules in free trade have been met with militant protests.
Capitalism is continuing to wreak havoc on humanity as the masses of the working people all over the world are subjected to intensified capitalist exploitation and oppression in its desperation to survive its inevitable crisis testified by the Japan’s unsolved economic recession and the United States recent economic slowdown. Its profit-motivated production is making urgent the problem of environmental destruction as the world’s limited resources are continuously and recklessly exploited in the race for super profits.
The working masses who created the wealth of modern society but deprived of their full rights can only be duly honored today by advancing further the cause of socialism. This can be done by pushing for concrete gains in the struggles for the urgent and present-day working class demands for just wages and better working and living conditions together with gender equality, children’s rights, and environment protection in solidarity with all the workers of other countries. Victories in the electoral front as well as in other fronts of struggle must serve to advance these demands towards the attainment of social justice and genuine progress in society.
LONG LIVE THE WORKING MASSES IN THE WHOLE WORLD!
LONG LIVE THE RPMP!
ADVANCE THE DEMOCRATIC AND ANTIIMPERIALIST STRUGGLE TOWARDS SOCIALISM !