China challenged

BEYOND rhetoric, beyond propaganda. That’s what China had been challenged to go in addressing the urgent Philippine need to find the correct path to development.

The occasion was the media forum conducted by the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute Inc. (ACPSSII) at the Cityland Megaplaza on Jan. 27, 2024. ACPSSII President Herman Tiu Laurel had invited me to the event for one particular purpose: to clarify my predilection to describe Philippine foreign relations in the context of geopolitics as “pro-China.” It seems responsible elements from the Chinese-Filipino community would rather say “friendly relations with China” as the more appropriate description.

I had asked Ka Mentong, by which Mr. Laurel is dearly called, “Which is of higher degree and therefore has the greater value, ‘pro’ or ‘friendly?’” “Pro,” he said.

“That’s it,” I told him. “That’s what I am. I’ve been that way since way back when. I will never change.”

By Karl Marx’s historical materialism, the Philippines (no such name yet when the Spanish conquistadors came to the archipelago in 1571) had gone past the primitive communal system and was already into the slave system when Spain began its colonization of the islands. The slave states, known then as barangays, were constituted into encomiendas, units of territories formed to facilitate the otherwise cumbersome colonial administration.

By such a method, Spain actually accomplished, albeit unwittingly, two significant developments. One, the disparate barangays enjoying not a degree of centralism among themselves came under one single administration. And two, Spain’s feudal system by dint of the colonial rule necessarily was transplanted into the colony, thereby assimilating the entire archipelago into the world-dominant feudal system centered in Europe. For more than 300 years, this setup prevailed, with the encomiendas becoming the forerunners of what until today have been known as the provinces of the Philippines.

Then came the industrial revolution, again in Europe, beginning in the mid-18th century. Production of goods widely through agriculture and hand-driven methodology was replaced by a process using modern machine technology. Not only did this suffice the needs of a burgeoning European population but had opened up markets for manufactured goods elsewhere.

In the Philippines, the effect was tremendous. The encomiendas were transformed into haciendas, each specializing in production of crops as raw materials for the European capitalistic industries: abaca for hemp; coconut for oil; sugarcane for sugar; tobacco for cigar and cigarettes; you name it, the Philippines had it.

Quite significantly, without meaning it but as a matter of course, the country had transitioned one more time to a higher stage of social setup (first from slave system to feudalism, and then from feudalism to capitalism) not because of intrinsic internal factors but as an unavoidable consequence of external developments.

A basic tenet of Marxist dialectical materialism is that the development of a thing is conditioned by its internal characteristics. This means that what the Philippines is today determines what development the country will take. During our early days of study of Marxism, our instructor had a penchant for illustrating this principle of internal characteristics of a thing by citing two examples, an egg and a stone. You heat up an egg, it hatches into a chick. Do the same to the stone, it doesn’t hatch, why? Because it is not in the internal characteristics of the stone to hatch into a chick.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi boldly reminded Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo that the Philippines stands at a crossroads. It is an apt description of the decision Philippine leaders must take in defining its bilateral relations with China to set those relations on the correct course. But had Minister Wang ever realized that the crossroads he was reminding Secretary Manalo about was not just the otherwise harmonious Chinese-Filipino friendship that had been muddled by US interference but also the labyrinthine, meandering paths opening up for the Philippines to take, for better or for worse.

By Marxist dialectics, the next best development for the Philippines to take should be socialism. Such socialism could come from nowhere else than China. But with the Philippine-China friendship having soured up on account of US-instigated tension in the South China Sea, the normal course for bringing to the Philippines the economic benefits of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative has been drastically blocked.

From Ka Mentong’s veritable reprise of Ambassador Huang Xilian dissertations at the New Year party for media on Jan. 17, 2024, it was revealed that of the 10 nations comprising the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), only the Philippines has not partaken of Xi Jinping’s vision of “a community of shared future for mankind.”

Quite sad, indeed, that while that vision has already brought development to two-thirds of the world, many of them even at quite far distances from China, to its closest neighbor Philippines, the blessings, reckoned against what are potentially achievable, are practically nil.

Why is this so?

The obvious reason is that President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has turned out to be too close to the United States for comfort, giving concessions that are blatantly damaging to the camaraderie between China and the Philippines during the previous Duterte administration. Topping those concessions was the grant to America of four additional military bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement. This has particularly riled China, those bases (two in Cagayan, one in Isabela and another one in Palawan) being evidently made to target mainland China and China’s forward military bases in the South China Sea.

At the same time, with the sudden twists in domestic politics wherein the House of Representatives, particularly Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, who is said to be working in cahoots with Bongbong, is reported to be behind the Pirma (People’s Initiative for Reform Modernization and Action) move for a people’s initiative aimed at turning the form of government from presidential to parliamentary. If allowed, this would result in the abolition of the Senate installing the speaker as prime minister, with Bongbong being retained as a figurehead.

In his prayer rally in Davao last week, former president Rodrigo Duterte’s foul-mouthing exploded, calling Bongbong “bangag” and warning that if the people’s initiative pushes through, he would call out the military to exercise its role as protector of the Constitution.

“Election is a cleansing process,” he declared at the Davao rally, pointing out that it should never be violated.

How nicely said, we are tempted to add, let alone the fact that in the violation of the Constitution in the People Power Revolt in 1986, the parents of Duterte had been among the dearest beneficiaries.

That having been said, we now direct this discussion to the main point. The Philippines must transition to socialism. It is not only a mandate of history but a necessary requisite for solving the poverty of the Filipino people. Only under socialism has China already lifted more than 800 million of its 1.4 billion population from poverty. Under socialism, it should be a lot easier to free poor Filipino people from poverty. But how does China bring socialism to Filipinos under the current chaos the Philippines is suffering?

Truth to tell, the question is not for the Philippines to answer. In much the same way that it was not for China to answer when posed to it at the start of its journey to socialism in the 1920s when the Communist Party of China, with just 20 members at the time, was told by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to simply integrate with the Kuomintang, which the CPSU supported for carrying the brunt of the struggle against the Japanese aggression beginning in 1938.

In the Philippines today, there exists no genuine nationalist party resisting the neocolonialist aggression of the United States, hence nothing to pass on the beacon of nationalist struggle in the Philippine setting. For the Philippines to transition to socialism, China, being the historically mandated carrier of the socialist torch, must bring the light of that torch to the Philippines on its own accord.

I was seized with fervor and much emotion as, at the ACPSSII forum, I hurled the final challenge to China: The Philippines is a small, powerless nation, like a bamboo pliant and sways wherever the powerful United States swings. Your policy of noninterference in another country’s internal affairs is brilliant rhetoric but must falter in the grim reality of big world power play. The Philippines has been under the yoke of US imperialism for ages. Its effort for the good life can only amount to so much. Beyond that it must rest its chances at progress solely in the beneficent graces of China.

Pray tell, how can a small Philippines aspire for socialism without a reliable communist party and a dedicated people’s army. Semblances of such a party and army have gone ideologically derelict and degenerated into bare gangs of extortionists and hoodlums, victimizing not just the mighty but also the lowly working masses.

Years ago, I had the courage to ask: “Can one be pro-Filipino without being pro-China?”

Today, I dare answer, “No.” As I put it in my book, “China the Way, the Truth and the Life.” To folks seeking my dedication in copies of the book, I write this one single note: “Here’s to the only way to Philippine prosperity.”

At the ACPSSII forum, I posed the final challenge to China: “Don’t shirk your historically ordained responsibility of bringing prosperity to the Philippines.”