Bulatlatan
Written by: Ka Rosa Fahne;
Published: Bulatlatan, May 27, 2010;
Source: Bulatlatan snapshot at the Internet Archive;
Markup: Simoun Magsalin.
I have to congratulate Ka Rosendo on his no-holds barred article. It didn’t skirt the issues. I couldn’t make sense of what went wrong with our electoral tactics, even that of Prof. Joma Sison’s post-mortem analysis that was originally featured in Bulatlat.
The PRWC and Bulatlat websites refused to produce an honest appraisal of our electoral tactics. It amazes me how Prof. Sison could make a loss sound like a win. Look at this Bulatlat interview, which Bulatlatan has also re-posted in its website:
“Makabayan and the progressive party list groups…got far more votes than any of the pseudo-progressive grouplets. Makabayan got nearly ten per cent of the actual nationwide voters for each of its two senatorial candidates, Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza. And all together the progressive party list groups also got nearly ten per cent.” A loss is a loss is a loss.
If we have to pay the numbers game, however, the pseudo-progressives grouplets that Prof. Sison chided came much ahead than the national democratic candidates. The socdem, clerico-fascist Risa Hontiveros fared a lot better at the 13th spot compared to Liza and Satur’s at 25th and 26th in the Senate race. And while at that, the Akbayan grouplet composed of clerico-fascists and Party renegades landed 4th, ahead of Gabriela at the 5th slot and Bayan Muna at 7th.
Sison added that “Makabayan and the progressive party list groups proved themselves outstanding in putting forward the national and democratic demands of the people.” It that was the case with the numbers game, how were the clerico-fascists able to garner more votes? Were they credible than our candidates?
No, according to Prof. Sison. Says he: “I believe that Makabayan and the progressive party list groups had more than 10 percent of the electorate, if not for the vote shaving by the pre-programmers.” Cheating, in other words.
Added Sison: “There are indications that Noynoy Aquino was able to take incredibly big leads over Estrada and Villar because of pre-programming of the vote count. This is the biggest possible form of cheating and the most difficult to prove in contrast to the anomalous shading of the ovals before and during the elections in specific localities. The automated electoral system does not prevent the cheating tactics of the past but in fact allows cheating in a bigger and faster way.”
But that is pure speculation, and smacks of the poor excuses that losing candidates explained why they lose in the elections. Sure, worms are coming out of the woodwork, and the masses are questioning the integrity of the PCOS machines and the compact flash cards. But I might ask, who is in a better position to cheat?
Wouldn’t it be the pro-Arroyo Comelec commissioners, who owe their positions to the fascist puppet Arroyo? Prof. Sison has, in his dotage, probably forgotten the “Hello Garci” scandal. Besides I find it implausible that the anti-Arroyo Makati Business Club could match the resources provided by the US-dictated Arroyo regime to its bet, Gilbert Teodoro, assuming of course for the sake of argument that “Villaroyo” was a crude smear campaign against the bureaucrat capitalist Manny Villar. But Sison presented no proof that Villar was his own man.
One only has to judge the pre-election threads in various social networking sites how much confusion our tactical alliance with Manny Villar and the Marcos clique has caused among our national democratic forces even in white areas and it seems even in the countryside. And now Bulatlat and Jose Maria Sison are still hellbent on sowing more confusion among our ranks by washing their hands clean of their roles in wasting Party funds on a failed and clearly reformist enterprise.
Perhaps as Ka Rosendo pointed out, being away from the homeland, has addled the brains of our esteemed professor. He is in his senior years, and should retire altogether. He and Bulatlat are loose cannonballs, and are proving to be invaluable assets to our class enemies by creating ideological confusion and political conservatism. As the great Lenin would advise to advance the revolutionary struggle for national freedom and democracy, “Better fewer but better.”
Ka Rosa Fahne