Reply to open letter of Alejandro Lichauco

Prof. Jose Ma. Sison
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
Chief Political Consultant
September 12, 2004

Dear Ding,

Thank you for your open letter dated September 9, 2004 in your op-ed column in the ABS-CBN.news.com. I appreciate the serious patriotic intent and urgent tenor of the letter. Indeed, in this time of unprecedentedly grave crisis, we are all challenged to do what best we can do to overcome the lethal problems besetting our motherland.

I understand and respect your reasons for not responding to my request in 1995 to help the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in drafting a comprehensive agreement on social and economic reforms. Anyway, your writings have been important reference materials. What is important now is that you, the distinguished nationalist, are making a proposal to the NDFP.

I agree with you that imperialist globalism is the evil that all of us must abhor and combat. The myth of free market globalization has been used by the United States and its camp followers to prettify the rapacity of the monopoly capitalists. This is diametrically opposed to the people's demand for national liberation, nationalization of the economy and socio-economic reforms.

The purpose of the NDFP in negotiating with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) is not to compromise with or capitulate to the evil of foreign monopoly capitalism but to propagate the people s program for national liberation, democracy, development, social justice and peace. The NDFP avails of every possible way to broadcast this program.

I welcome your declaration that the time has come for you to make a proposal to the NDFP. As you say, the situation is a lot different now from 1995 and we should talk about now and the future as Filipinos racing against time.

You refer to mass hunger as a common adversary of the GRP and the NDFP. You also point to the looming collapse of the Western financial system as the most disturbing aspect of the situation. I agree with your critical view that the GRP is not prepared to deal with the problem like a first grade pupil not prepared with an exam in calculus.

Thus, you observe that the Filipino people might just have to take matters in their own hands and act as if there isn't any government except that which they can put up themselves. You urge that the people put up one soon if they are to avert what is an imminent catastrophe.

Let me point out that a people's democratic government already exists, consisting of the organs of democratic power established by the people and revolutionary forces in the countryside. It is basically a revolutionary government of the workers and peasants in opposition to the counterrevolutionary government of big compradors and landlords headed by the Macapagal-Arroyo reactionary ruling clique.

In peace negotiations with the GRP, the NDFP has been representing the broad masses of the Filipino people, the people's democratic government, the communist party, the people's army and the mass organizations. These revolutionary forces are resolutely and militantly fighting against US imperialism (the main cause of that mass hunger that you perceive as the common adversary) and the reactionary puppet classes of big compradors and landlords.

Truce and alliance between the NDFP and the GRP are realizable if these contending forces succeed in following up the GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law with comprehensive agreements on social, economic, political and constitutional reforms. These agreements can be reached only if the people and the patriotic and progressive forces can prevail over the US imperialists and their most rabid agents within the GRP.

You seem to have given up on the GRP because of the puppetry and corruption of its officials. The GRP-NDFP peace negotiations have come to a standstill because of US intrusions and interferences that the NDFP consider unacceptable. The GRP has shown complete incapacity to go along with the NDFP on asserting national sovereignty and independence against US interventions and obstructions in the peace negotiations.

By listing the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army and the NDFP chief political consultant as terrorists , the United States violates the national sovereignty and jurisdiction of the Filipino people over events in the Philippines. It also transgresses the safety and immunity guarantees for duly authorized persons in the peace negotiations. It has shown utter contempt for the civil and political rights of Filipinos and the Hernandez political offense doctrine pertaining to armed revolution.

The GRP has failed to oppose US encroachment upon the national sovereignty and jurisdiction of the Filipino people and has even applauded it. At this time of severe economic and financial crisis, the GRP does not seriously seek the alliance of the NDFP. It does not seek the support of the people but it imposes on them all the burdens of crisis, especially mass unemployment, peso depreciation, a heavier tax burden and austerity measures.

It continues to sink the country in underdevelopment, deficits and indebtedness. Being so bankrupt not only in economic and financial terms but also in political and moral terms, it follows the US dictat of neoliberal globalization and collaborates with the US in the worst crimes of terrorism, such as wars of aggression and the brutal repression of entire nations and peoples.

In general, the NDFP can easily agree with you that there is a need for a new government established by the people and serving them. But would the US and the current reactionary government allow such a new government to exist? Would both of them not use the coercive apparatuses of the state to suppress those forces trying to establish the new government?

As NDFP chief political consultant, I estimate that the NDFP would welcome your proposal for the establishment of a broad united front government through a Congress of the People, using the 1966 Program of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism as a starting point for deliberating on a program of government. I think that the NDFP would be open to considering the possibility of a broad-based government of national unity against the domination of foreign monopoly capitalism.

But I do not think that the NDFP will ever declare any indefinite ceasefire or truce prior to a clear program and solid foundation for a united front government that is much broader than the current worker-peasant government in the countryside. I think that the NDFP would be willing to explore the possibilities for such a government either through peace negotiations with the GRP or through an assembly of the patriotic and progressive forces of the people.

Louie Jalandoni and I would have no problem of returning to the Philippines permanently and calling on the patriotic and progressive sections of the bureaucracy and military of the GRP to cooperate with the broad united front government if in the first place the revolutionary forces and people recognize and accept that there is a program and organizational basis for such government. Maoists, nationalists, Christians, Muslims and other people can support such a government in their best possible common interest.

All the Filipino people of different philosophical persuasions, religious beliefs, social circumstances and ethno-linguistic background should take pride in living up to the revolutionary legacy of Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan and be able to unite on a program of establishing and developing a government that upholds the national sovereignty and independence of the Filipino people.

I agree with you that the program of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism in 1966 is still valid and relevant today. Such basic problems of the Filipino people as US monopoly capitalism, feudal and semifeudal exploitation and bureaucratic corruption, have persisted and have become aggravated. Thus, the MAN program is still a useful guide or reference material for all patriotic and progressive Filipinos.

It is fine that you invoke the memory of MAN. I continue to cherish how at best we, together with the late Senator Lorenzo Tanada, Renato Constantino, Dean Jose Lansang, Rogaciano Mercado, Felixberto Olalia, Ignacio Lacsina, Satur Ocampo and many other patriots and progressives, could formulate a program and work together to advance the national and democratic rights and interests of the Filipino people.###