THEY'RE COMMUNISTS, NOT MAKABAYAN OR PROGRESSIVE

At the height of the Cold War in the 1970s, Jose Maria Sison, his cadres in the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), their handpicked union leaders and their radical allies among the students of the University of the Philippines in Diliman and those from colleges and universities in downtown Manila collectively called themselves “progressives.” That way, they gave the public the impression that they were advocating a “change” in government.

Underhandedly and conveniently, they concealed that the “change” they sought was to replace the constitutional government with a communist politburo headed by Sison, which will take orders from their red overlords from Peking (now Beijing).

The “progressives” enticed many college students to join the Kabataang Makabayan, which created unrest in university campuses and organized political rallies, which became an excuse for cutting classes for many. Those from the working class were urged to join radical unions. Other potential communist sympathizers were recruited outright to train under the New People’s Army (NPA),

In contrast, the “progressives” called their enemies “reactionaries,” a term which suggests that all the latter ever did was criticize anyone who threatened the status quo.

The communist juggernaut was effectively derailed when President Ferdinand Marcos placed the entire country under martial law in 1972. Sison and NPA head Bernabe Buscayno were locked up in a military stockade. Red commanders fell to the military one by one. Communist cadres fled to the mountains and became bandits who extorted “revolutionary taxes” from just about any countryside businessman or industry they could harass.

Because martial law stopped the reds on their tracks, members of what is left of the communist movement in the Philippines hated President

Marcos and would exploit every opportunity to demonize him and his having resorted to martial law.

The international communist movement also weakened when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989. That milestone event freed Eastern Europe from its nearly 50-year old communist yoke.

Over in the Philippines, thousands of young Filipinos were sacrificed on the altar of communism, all enticed by red leaders to die for a godless ideology.

Sadly, while the local communist movement was on the verge of oblivion, President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino resurrected the godless ideology from the dead.

First, Aquino released Sison and his trusted sidekicks from detention. Once freed, they reorganized the armed struggle against the constitutional government obtaining in the Philippines. When the going got tough in Manila, Sison and his cabal fled to The Netherlands, where they currently live a luxurious life in exile, paid for by “revolutionary taxes” remitted to them by their cadres still operating in the countryside.

Next, Aquino’s handpicked underlings in the

1986 Constitutional Commission (an unelected group that includes Aquino family lackeys like

Hilario Davide Jr., Christian Monsod and Jose

Luis Gascon) drafted the 1987 Constitution which allows partylist representation.

That experiment on partylist representation proved to be a bad move. Local communists saw the partylist system as an opportunity to seize seats in Congress, from which to fight and undermine the government, and at government expense at that. The CPP and the NPA, together with the communist National Democratic Front, are to raise the campaign funds. Their strategy is to register enough “parties” in the partylist system and divide whatever votes the communist movement is able to generate nationwide among their “parties.” That way, they are able to get as many partylist seats as their votes will allow. Sectors they infiltrated include, among others, the youth, women, teachers and migrant workers. These sectors are assisted by non-elected red “cause-oriented” groups bearing nationalistic-sounding acronyms.

Communists today no longer call themselves “progressives” because the term mocks their miserable failure to make the Philippines a communist state in 1972. Those among them in Congress call themselves the socalled “makabayan” bloc, which is a euphemism for their communist sympathies.

While their moniker suggests they are nationalists, their record in Congress shows that their main goal is to oppose, undermine and embarrass the administration of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte in every way possible.

It’s time these guys are called what they really are, namely, left-leaning, radicals, Reds or more particularly, communists.

“While their moniker suggests they are nationalists, their record in Congress shows that their main goal is to oppose, undermine and embarrass the administration. “Sadly,

while the local communist movement was on the verge of oblivion, President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino resurrected the godless ideology from the dead.