ON THE LATEST FROM THE FURIOUS CPP FABRICATION MACHINE : QC IMC

ON THE LATEST FROM THE FURIOUS CPP FABRICATION MACHINE

The fabrication by the CPP-NDF (Communist Party of the Philippines/National Democratic Front) and its friends of a purported letter of congratulations to Tony Blair for winning the British elections from Akbayan is the latest in a series of acts that, more than anything else, reveals more about the Maoist party's heightened state of psychological insecurity than about Akbayan.

The problem faced by the CPP is great: its closest allies and even many of its own cadres cannot swallow the breathtaking lies it is peddling--that Akbayan is a "front of the Philippine military," that it is an "agent of US imperialism," that it is an "accomplice" in the assassination of National Democratic activists. This frantic activity is geared to cover up a monumental mistake made by the party in publicly issuin g on December 7, 2004--on the internet no less--a hitlist of dead and living activists that included three of Akbayan's leaders.

Aside from making up the now infamous "Akbayan message of congratulations to Blair," the CPP-NDF fabrication machine recently cranked out another credibility-straining claim. In response to an article by Walden Bello detailing the role of Paul Wolfowitz, Bush's appointee to the World Bank, in the transition from Marcos to Aquino in 1986, New York-based writer Titos de Borja claims that Bello must bear the responsibility for the failure of the CPP leadership to adopt the appropriate strategy vis a vis the snap elections called by Marcos, which resu lted in the EDSA Uprising of February 1986 (see 'Rewriting History: Walden Bello and his Somersaults').

What is the basis for this astounding claim? De Borja traces this to Bello's release to the press of the highly confidential 1984 National Security Study Directive (NSSD), which he obtained from sources in the US State Department. The NSSD accurately laid out the strategy of electoral decompression followed by the US up to snap elections of 1986. It failed only to anticipate one thing: the EDSA Uprising. The EDSA Uprising was also not expected by the progressive movement, but unlike the US, which quickly abandoned its previous strategy of pushing a rapprochement between Marcos and his opponents in the Philippine elite, the CPP/NDF leadership was paralyzed by the turn of events.

Instead of hailing what was one of the Philippine movements biggest intelligence coups against the US, de Borja defies both history and logic to make Bellos obtaining and release of the NSSD the cause of Jose Maria Sison and the CPP/NDF's leadership's historic failure. Interestingly, in the process, he accords Bello a stature that Jose Maria Sison and others in the Maoist party say he does not deserve. Sison himself previously dismissed Bello as a CPP outsider and others in the party have characterized him as an "obscure and insignificant individual in the Philippine left."

But de Borja's contorted conclusion should not come as a surprise. The comrades are specialists in scapegoating. On another notorious event in the Maoist party's history, the gruesome anti-infiltration campaigns of 1981-88, the official line is a similar absurd claim that the murder of some 2000 CPP cadres was not the collective responsibility of the CPP leadership and Jose Maria Sison but of one person, Ric Reyes, who happened to disagree with Sison on other matters long after the campaigns concluded.

Claims like this belong not to serious political dialogue but to Ripley's Believe It or Not. They do nothing but discredit the CPP even in the eyes of its own cadres. They are so outrageous that even those who write them hide their names. For instance, Mr. de Borja feels compelled to hide behind the pseudonym "Felix Rivera." This is cowardly and violates the basic rule of political debate, which is that one must be held accountable for what he or she says. To their credit, Jose Maria Sison and NDF Spokesperson Fidel Agcaoili do not hide behind pseudonyms. They must teach their disciples to do the same.

We in Akbayan reiterate our position that we are willing to engage the CPP in political debate anytime. But please, no dirty tricks, no fabrications, and no writers cowering behind phantom names.

Akbayan Executive Committee
17 May 2005