This is the Power I referred to earlier – a living, communal constellation of complex, intelligent, fair-minded civic interests most days rendered indecipherable and at times inaccessible by mass media’s atomizing officiating of hegemony passed off as reality. As if only mobilization and manifestation of struggle were, for the moment at least, really capable of displacing the reactionary capture and expropriation of peoples’ collective will. – Jonathan Beller, Labor Day Manifestation

An estimated 20,000 Filipinos trooped to the streets of Manila on Labor Day to demand a nationwide wage hike and to protest against government inaction on massive unemployment and poverty.

Some friends from law school and I took a day from our summer break to go on a road trip east of Metro Manila to the western towns of Rizal. Our first stop was the town of Rodriguez, just half an hour’s drive from Quezon City, to frolic in the waters of the the abandoned Wawa Dam and its reservoir. Situated upstream from Marikina River, Wawa Dam is an American colonial-era infrastructure nestled at the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains flanked by two majestic natural limestone walls covered in lush foliage. It used to supply water to Manila until the building of the Angat Dam in Bulacan. By legend, it was the infamous Bernardo Carpio who caused the separation of the limestone mountain which stood right where the dam is, as he was breaking free from bondage, and thus resulted in the flow of water creating the river that leads to Marikina.

We proceeded to Antipolo, further upland into Rizal where we paid a visit to Antipolo Church, a famous pilgrimage site, and to some waterfalls made infamous by a popular folk song, Hinulugang Taktak. The falls, however, have all but lost its traditional charm, and nowhere is it near its folk song glory, having turned into a massive catch basin for detergent and other sewerage from residents upstream. Before heading out of Antipolo, we dropped by the ‘pasalubong center’ to sample some local rice cakes to take home.

We were supposed to drive further east to the town of Tanay to end our day trip in the waterfalls of Daranak and Batlag, but my classmates didn’t think it was a good idea, as it was getting dark late in the afternoon.

As an alternative, we proceeded south of Antipolo to a town along the banks of Laguna Lake, Angono, famous for its artisan families. We ended our trip with some drinks at Nemiranda’s Arthouse’s restaurant.

As long as workers have to deal with capitalists on an individual basis they remain veritable slaves who must work continuously to profit another in order to obtain a crust of bread, who must for ever remain docile and inarticulate hired servants. But when the workers state their demands jointly and refuse to submit to the money-bags, they cease to be slaves, they become human beings, they begin to demand that their labour should not only serve to enrich a handful of idlers, but should also enable those who work to live like human beings.

From On strikes by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

If that were the case, then they should agree with the idea that the primary solution, then, to the persistent poverty that cripples majority of Filipinos is a nationwide psychological self-help and motivation seminar and the mass castration and ligation of couples nationwide. But clearly, that is absurd as it is naive.

Poor millions of Filipinos are but lazy they are certainly not. They are neither a class of irresponsible offspring-makers as some insultingly try to portray them to be. God knows how many Filipinos work tirelessly in the fields and in the factories and workplaces in the country and overseas from sun-up to sundown and yet their lives do not improve. (For if you are looking for the laziest people in the planet, you need not look further than the corner offices of men and women who take no part in production but acquire the wealth of collective labor). Certainly, the hand to mouth existence of millions is not a mere consequence of individualized and separate circumstances of their God-forsaken lives, as some religious conservatives insist (and thus the solution is simply–prayer). The poverty of any one Filipino family is a condition that they share with millions of others across the archipelago, not because of some common trait of indolence or libido, but because we are all subject to the same political and economic rules of the status quo. Indeed, larger political and economic forces are behind their shared misery.

So, to my idealistic friends, who remain hopeful but misguided by the onslaught of a cacophony of bourgeois solutions to poverty: perpetual charity work, seminars, scholarship drives, outreach missions, “fun runs” just won’t do. The challenge is to unite with the different sectors of society to collectively confront the political and economic roots of this centuries-long calamity.

LINKS:
* Charity is a virtue?

Those who maliciously link present Chinese government to Filipino leftists are being dishonest. They should know very well that China abandoned its socialist project after the Cultural Revolution in the late 70′s and how the Chinese government has disowned and condemned local communists and persecuted leftists and activists in their own backyard.

If they’re looking for counterparts of Chinese leaders now, they only need to look among the revisionists and roaders and right-wingers among their colleagues. Chinese “communists” even claimed maintaining good relations with the trapo mainstream parties in the Philippines.

These people should likewise make up their minds. In same breath they challenge us to follow China’s capitalist reforms and yet accuse us of being on the payroll of the Chinese “communists.” Nothing but malicious bullshit from those out to malign the persistent relevance of the Philippine Left.

LINKS:
* BAYAN: Assert Philippine sovereignty against China’s incursions and US intervention!
* ‘ZERO’ TIES WITH CPP: Chinese communist party says it has disowned local rebels
* Philippine Left condemns China incursions in Scarborough Shoal, says China capitalist country
* Ang China, US, Scarborough at Balikatan

“For his political beliefs and self-less ministry, Jesus was falsely charged with rebellion, tried in the face of the hypocritical mob of the Sanhedrin and Pharisees, abandoned by a reactionary governor, detained, tortured, and murdered. His death was meant to silence the growing discontent and squash the growing clamor for change and liberation from the clutches of Roman imperialism.

The Holy Week is more than the commemoration of the Paschal mystery of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, but a reliving of the struggles of Christ in opposing the greedy and oppressive schemes of those who are in power. It highlights the suffering of those who dared to raise the voice, combat the injustice and who devoted their lives in the self-less service of the people. Jesus’ death was a consequence of his fight in the struggle for justice and emancipation. To the faithful, to the disciples and apostles, he had said “those who wish to come after me must take up the cross and follow me.”

From Lessons of the Lenten season: emulate Jesus in the struggle for freedom by Christians for National Liberation – Southern Mindanao.

February 5, 2012. “Conflicts of Law” is an annual inter-law school sports-fest staged by the Association of Law Schools of the Philippines-NCR. This year’s games are hosted by DLSU College of Law Student Government. I was only able to cover the table tennis games and swimming heats.

“In the end, the question is not which party to side with, but how the Philippines can best protect its territorial integrity. It is not in our interest to play a willing part in US military maneuverings in the region. If there is a perception that China is bullying us, the solution is not to run for help to a bigger bully. Diplomacy within the framework of mutually beneficial relations with our neighbors in the region should be our utmost weapon. Clearly, the best foreign policy is one that is anchored on the assertion of national sovereignty and not one that relies on a Big Brother to protect the country’s interests.”

From US agenda in Asia and the risks that Aquino is courting by Arnold Padilla. [Emphasis mine]