Strategies for change: Welgang Bayan, Kudeta at Eleksyon

[Last of 3-part series]

IN MY LAST POSTING, I wrote about the three forces who represent change in today’s condition. They are the masa who are composed of the laboring masses (the workers, farmers, the urban poor and rural poor), the nationalist soldiers (a.k.a. ‘military rebels’), and the sections of the middle classes which have been sliding down the pyramid of the class structure. The masa are not marginalized in terms of number; in fact, they constitute the majority of the population. Despite this, they are the politically and economically marginalized and disadvantaged sectors of society.

The three forces hanker for change in society. Their most politicized representatives have advanced different types of strategies to pursue changes in society. To realize these changes, they have to wrestle with the practical, but difficult, issue of capturing power from the hands of their class adversaries – the dominating sectors which kept them in perpetual misery and subjugation.

Struggle of the laboring masses

For the laboring masses, the struggle means forming unions and associations to defend their rights and advanced their welfare in society. During political convulsions, these oppressed groups can resort to earth-shaking actions, such as industrial strike, wildcat strikes, transport paralysis, demonstrations, street barricades and even people’s power mobilizations to bring down dictatorial and corrupt governments. Historically at its peak, the resistance of the laboring masses takes the form of widespread people’s uprisings which develop into armed resistance. This is what is usually pictured in our mind as the sweep of the revolution.

The radicalized masses of students and teachers have also used specific forms of struggle to air grievances and to protest against the system – through boycotts, street marchers, and at different junctures, takeover of school institutions. Who can forget the Diliman Commune, when the UP students, faculty and unions seized the state university for two weeks and armed only with pillboxes and Molotovs trounced the fully-equipped police and military attempting to crush the Commune?

Welgang bayan

During the height of the resistance against the Marcos dictatorship, apart from the guerrilla war in the rural areas, the struggle in the urban areas had taken the form of what activists called as “welgang bayan”. This is a combination of workers’ and jeepney drivers’ strikes, barricades and massive mobilization of people in the streets. The Edsa people’s power uprisings, which were characterized by people trooping to the Edsa camps (Edsa 1) and the Edsa shrine (Edsa 2 & 3), would pale in comparison with the welgang-bayan type of actions had the latter fully developed as a strategy of resistance.

Given that the two Edsas have failed to deliver meaningful changes in society, the agenda for social change have again taken the front seat. More and more people are realizing that a regime change, or the mere prospect of changing the president by another trapo, does not mean change at all. I am confident that the next street eruption will not be like the Edsa-type, but will be more likely to be a widespread welgang-bayan type of militant actions.

Kudeta or mutiny?

The military rebels, on the other hand, have used the strategy of military rebellion or mutiny to overthrow their superiors in the military and in the civilian government. These rebellions have swept a number of countries in Latin America, leading to the formation of military-led governments. These type of actions have not been successful in the Philippines – the army rebellion during Edsa 1 had to be buttressed by people’s power to survive; the succeeding series of rebellion (against the Edsa regimes of Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos) had all failed.

However, some military rebels’ groups still put forward the strategy of coup d’etat cum uprising to draw in the entire military forces in the revolutionary project that will have the support of the masses. But while a coup d’etat might be the easiest way to break away from the present regime, the experiences of the military rebels themselves have shown them that a coup merely plays into the hands of the military hierarchy.

Ultimately, the only recourse left for the nationalist soldiers (as opposed to the anti-nationalist elite) would be to break away from the hierarchy and the chain of commands and develop their groups as alternative centers of military force that merge with the rebelling masses.

Election

The middle classes have not been seen as a revolutionary force. They are at most composed of forces who want to institute reforms in society. In this sense, they are the ones opening to the strategy of elections as the way to seek reforms in society. No wonder the emerging organizations of the middle classes today are spearheading the fight for “good government” and “good governance”.

However, we can orient ourselves to the lower sections of the middle classes who are also becoming radicalized by their continuing slide to the laboring sections. Their participation in the 2010 election can be turned into non-traditional forms, which means not only voting for non-trapo candidates during the election, but joining the mobilization in the streets and assisting the struggles of the basic sectors and the radicalized soldiers.

Strategies, rather than strategy

It is in this sense that it is hard to talk about a single strategy for change in today’s situation. Even the three major forces which aspire for systemic change and radical reforms in society are brandishing different variants of strategy that fit their class formation and political orientation – welgang bayan, mutiny and non-traditional elections.

I believe, however, that the three forces can come together to share each other’s struggles in order to develop a potent force that will have more chances of success in the immediate future. What is needed, however, is a political center that can combine all these strategies into a coherent plan that will advance the desired objective of dismantling trapo rule and installing the masa in power. #