Friday, September 5, 2008
My Short Life as an Activist
I have not posted in this blog for months now but I still have my hopes that I will be able to inspire some people out there to start joining other members of the civil society in making a difference. The objective of this blog is actually simple. It does not offer any pretensions. Like the rest, I have no in-depth analysis of any ideology that my friends from the left movement have been religiously following or debating about for decades now.
In fact, I am a person who just happens to love intellectual people and at the same loves to do brainy stuff.
In my former position in a Coalition, I mostly do administrative tasks but learned a lot from the leaders of the movement. Its like everytime they opened their mouth, a treasure cove of information come out. And I devour on them, stick them in my head. Its just that I can be stubborn at times. I am not easily pursuaded. Maybe, am not really meant to be a part of any political bloc. I just want to share with others my passion in the work I do. I love being with people who think f other people and their country or even the world and do sacrifices for the sake of putting the world in order.
Being an activist is not an easy feat. Even I, I don't think I am worthy of calling myself one of them. I cannot say that I can give up the comforts I have in my life. Maybe, I just don't want to be pushed too hard and want to take my time understanding everything, ideology and all. I remember one comrade saying to me that I should be able to find and analyze for myself and not blindly follow idealogies. Specifically and ultimately, I want to understand, bridge and explain to people both from the social movements and those uninvolved how faith is not in any way contradicting to what most philosophers and ideologues are preaching and that it
is actually no different from what Christ taught the people of Israel.
Anyway going back to the objectives of this blog, I simply want people to be inspired and start acting on issues that affect them and the Philippines by offering some ways on how you and all of us can be involved in our different areas. Since, this is posted in the web, maybe people from other countries can duplicate such blogs, design them in their own needs and start encouraging people to become more concerned with what's happening around them.
Long ago, I never thought that I will be brought to where I am right now, to what I have become,
and to what I have believed in. In my short life as an activist, I traced back where did my conviction started. Why am I here? I was an aspiring journalist but all of a sudden I was brought
here. The drive to become a broadcaster shifted to another area....please read my article below and may this let you see or realized where your convictions lie.
************************
I believe that my life as an activist started out in one simple dream.
As part of our school’s curriculum particularly in the subject of Filipino, all third year students were required to read and learn one of the popular novels of Dr. Jose Rizal, the Noli Me Tangere. It was after reading the novel when my dream took over me. I was on my third year when I decided to become a writer/journalist like Rizal.
I was so sure of myself back then. I enrolled at Centro Escolar University with the course AB Mass Communication major in Broadcasting. It was also that same dream that inspired me to enroll in a Master in Journalism program at the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication.
At that time, I often heard people say that students taking up Mass Communication are mostly those undecided of what course to take and that it was a way of avoiding math subjects in college. However, I was proud to say that none of these were my reasons. I remember myself replying to those who asked with only one consistent answer, “Journalism, writing about the truth is the highest form of public service I can give to my country and to fellow Filipinos.”
This was how the novel captured me and planted the seeds of conviction within, without me noticing it. It also developed in me that kind of enthusiasm, passion and hunger for learning and constant self-evaluation and upgrading of my craft. Just as my Masters Program was never meant to become an abbreviation added to my name to increase my market value like many others do but instead I saw it as an opportunity for me to study and learn more.
All along, I thought that my dream will take me to where Korina Sanchez and all the popular broadcasters are right now, in front of the camera, reading the latest news.
Divine intervention, I believe, played a major role in the shift. Do not get me wrong, my dream did not shift. I still have that one dream inside me. What I am saying is that it brought to another setting. A setting which is far from the limelight, far from the glamour, more humbling and closer to people.
A classmate in the MA program, a priest, asked me to apply as a reservation officer at their Retreat House located in the heart of New Manila. I agreed, was accepted and worked for a year. At the end part of the year, their media ministry was to become an orphan because the project coordinator was leaving for Australia to take up her Masters degree. Since they knew what my background was which is in communication, they promoted me to that position.
I was glad to be back on track. It was exciting because I would be handling the research, hosting the film dialogues, award secretariat, training and module development and networking. I became trained to do all-around one-stop shop work, from messengerial to campaigning. I do all the aspects of work with very little supervision from the immediate supervisor which was a priest.
I thought it was just enough doing my work within the bounds of the ministry’s vision, mission and goals. One priest suggested that since the Order is very active in socio-political activities, might as well its employees attend forums, mobilizations and training on the issues of the country. And because I was the media program coordinator, all the more I need to be informed of what is happening in order to serve the needs of our constituents further.
I seriously followed the suggestion and with that my eyes became wide open, conscious to issues plaguing the country. I became more passionate and high-spirited and began to look for something more that will bring me closer on the grassroots level.
Since I was working then within the bounds of the Church, teaching critical mindedness through media, I knew that there were some limitations to my work in helping people understand the complex issues we have today. I can only be with them during the training, but after, I will not know if what I have taught will be developed and used for the common good of everyone.
My feet brought me to work for a Coalition that focuses on studying and campaigning on economic issues. Though the scope of my work was more on the administrative side with some occasional writing of speeches, articles and presentation for the President of our organization, I became more knowledgeable, understanding and adept on the discussions of the country’s economy. I can now see through the different political spectrum and somehow have firsthand observations and experiences on how to strategize and tacticize in engaging both with the government, other civil society organizations and hopefully the broader public, in the achievement of social justice for all.
So where did all these experiences lead me?
I can say, from that small dream I have, the experiences I gathered across time strengthened my faith which deeply rooted the seeds of conviction that eventually grew and produced fruits. My dream has brought me here. It did not allow me to achieve emptiness and be caught up in the prison cell of commercialization and consumerism of the mainstream media. But instead molded me to creatively use and discover alternatives where I can best serve the people through the fulfillment of my functions and through my writings.
My dream guided me right into the path of activism. It prompted me not only to write but move people to act accordingly, defending their rights. It led me to show that people like us, activists in the public’s lingo, are not the cause of disorder and conflict but it is the absence of “genuine” democracy within the system that causes the disarray and continuous poverty of the Filipino people.
Simply put, my dream led me to where God wants me to be which is with the people.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Call to POST your comments and reflection!
******************
Class Struggle and the Radicalizing “Middle Class”
Working class in a changing landscape
By James Matthew Miraflor and Emmanuel M. Hizon
“When political analysts ask, ‘Where are the middle forces, they who triumphed at the two Edsas [people power uprisings]?’ I am tempted to answer: At Starbucks, drinking an iced venti latte."
-Raul Pangalangan, Starbucks and the Class Struggle
Rationale
Now that another political uprising, on the tradition of EDSA, is slowly gaining ground, brought about by the aborted ZTE NBN deal implicating once more Mrs. Arroyo, the role of what had been dubbed as the “middle class” or the more politically correct term “middle force” in such an upheaval is again slowly entering social discourses. Regardless of how we define the nature and composition of such middle class, its potent capacity to introduce change is already assumed in many progressive and reform-oriented circles, so much so that formations such as the Black and White movement (B&W) explicitly labels itself as a group which has its purpose to organize the disgruntled members of the middle class in its effort to oust the “evil” Arroyo regime.
But how do we characterize the middle class and its members? Usually, they are described as the relatively well-off, well-dressed, wielding relative economic independence and the highly educated segment of society – in short, what the masa is necessarily not. As such, as if a distinct social specie in itself, the middle class as a political force is often contrasted to the more traditional proletarian and peasant class, or, with the worsening of economic destitution and unemployment, the urban poor.
How the forces of the democratic left should treat the middle class had long been subject of theoretical and strategy discourses since the NDF boycott of the 1984 snap elections, which paved the way for the 1986 EDSA people power revolution. Is the move of the left to tap into the potent force of the middle class in recent Philippine political uprisings a return to the pre-Leninist strategy of a bourgeoisie-led democratic revolution? Or is this recent “epiphany of the middle class” (to borrow from Mon Casiple) merely an over determination in the Althusserian sense, with a relatively autonomous and pent-up middle class temporarily taking the revolutionary role of a mal-developed working class, with the working class remaining to be the vanguard force of change in the end?
This brings us to a more urgent question: What is our exact definition and understanding of this particular group?
Defining the “MF”
As members of the democratic left, we hold Marxism not only as tool for social change but also equally, as a tool for social and political analysis. Our Marxist definition of social class is not based on lifestyle, money earned or simple social psychology, but rather on the relation of a specific social class on the means of production of a certain social structure.
It is not true that the left movement out rightly dismisses this group nor is its discourse gravely or consciously avoiding any debate, discussion on the role of the specific social grouping.
In fact, leftists of all shades and students of Marxism vigorously debate the exact composition of the middle class under contemporary capitalism.
Some sections calling themselves as “council communists” say this group is in fact a social class composed of intellectuals, technocrats, bureaucrats, and managers with its own “seizure of power” agenda. Others describe it as a "harmonizing class", a class that is part of the “executive committee for the common affairs of the ruling class” composed of the petit bourgeoisie, professionals and managers. On the other hand, some say, this group refers to the comfortable section of the broad working class population often branded as the affluent white-collar workers.
However, simply put, based on our perspectives coming from the Marxist tradition, the bourgeoisie/capitalists are those who own the means of production, who control economic production and promote wage labor. On the other hand, the working class is the social class that do not own the means of production, and earn their living by offering their bodies, services for the capitalists to extract surplus value in exchange for inadequate wages. The middle class is defined by exception as an intermediate social class between the two, or what we usually call as the petty bourgeoisie.
The petty bourgeoisie is defined as small propertied groups of individuals, which, while contrasted with the proletarian class in as much as they do not entirely rely on the sale of their labor-power, are also differentiated from the bourgeoisie or the capitalist class who own the means of production and buy the labor-power of others to earn profit. Mostly, this includes corporate managers, small property owners and small-scale entrepreneurs, who, while having a degree of control on their income by the virtue of their role in the process of production, are still entirely vulnerable to the dictates of the capitalist controllers of the forces of production.
Therefore, being branded as a member of the middle class is a matter of relation of the individual to commodity, a matter of social relations and a matter of the person’s position in the overall mode of production. You do not classify a person as middle class, for example, just because she or he is usually seen in plush coffee shops, at the Embassy Club or because she or he speaks coňo English. You do not de-class yourself from your true class origins and interests by simply speaking good English, by sheer lifestyle or chić fashion sense.
But unfortunately, the brand “middle class” became a colloquial term which seems to encompass exactly such, the (eloquent, straight) English-speaking minority in contrast with the majority capable at most only of crooked English. In that case, the term middle class is used as a substitute for middle-income – a very wrong substitution indeed.
So how do we characterize the “real Filipino middle class”? The Philippine petit-bourgeoisie in the traditional sense is not even that developed. Mostly coming from the displaced old elite, the real middle class is but a small sub-section of the perceived to be the middle class.
Why didn’t our real middle class grow in the first place? The reason can be traced to the failure of our redistribution strategy. Our agrarian reform program, for example, which is supposed to break feudalism and promote a new and strong middle class through establishing “owner-cultivatorship of economic-sized farms” instead, converted the feudal elite into a nascent capitalist elite, with land and agricultural labor as their base.
So was EDSA I and EDSA II people power uprising really led by the middle class? In practice, neither EDSA I nor EDSA II are middle class events. They were both powered by the working class, only that factions of the ruling class was able to hijack both: on the first instance because the progressive forces by-and-large boycotted it, with the leadership being stolen by the liberal-democratic faction of the elite; on the second instance because the progressive forces are not strong enough to maintain leadership up to the end.
Can it then be perhaps, in our particular case, there is really no third way, no specific middle strata, only an illusory social stratification imposed to us to keep the working class divided, to de-class them and in the end muddle their true class interests? With the “real” middle class defined, where do we fit in this particular group of people who are not necessarily corporate managers, small property owners and small-scale entrepreneurs but are labeled as middle class or middle force?
If we follow this line of thought, what is therefore presented to us is a social grouping wrongly called “middle class” that can either be seen as lesser than the average capitalists or better off than the average worker.
In this case, we go with the latter proposition.
Worker of a New-Type
In actuality, the slow yet determined radicalization of the “middle class” we are witnessing in this particular juncture is in fact the radicalization and participation of an important section of the working class itself. As a consequence of the growing services sector and gradual de-industrialization of the Philippine economy, we are, in fact, witnessing the rise of a new working class whose social definition is not limited to the industrial-factory characterization we in the progressive movement often romanticize.
What we are witnessing is the growing political action of
However, unlike their industrial counterparts, on their own, they wield substantial, albeit latent, political power. There are many reasons for this, but revealing only two will suffice.
First, it is perceived that a large chunk of our country’s revenue comes from such “middle-income” (which is, by and large, above average) “middle class” members, and ever increasingly so. Just look at the taxes levied against professionals, or the high income taxes burdening the highly paid skilled workers. They have the “right of claim” of the government, since they are responsible for a large part of its financing.
Consequently, it is for this reason that they are mostly latent at best as a political force partly because their social mobility aspiration is in loggerhead with their patriotic and progressive values. They are the most reluctant to decide between change and the status quo because they perceived themselves losing their current social status, of being proletarianized in the eventuality of joining a political upheaval. Nonetheless, with proper persuasion, they can become a formidable force for progress, political modernity or of conservatism.
The second source of their political power is their high degree of credibility and objectivity, which stems mainly because of their long exposure in the universities, academic circles and different layers of the government.
In a stratified society such as ours, the ruling class, which in this case is the capitalist class, is the natural subject of criticism. Thus, the rhetoric coming from the ruling capitalist class is received with little appreciation from the working class whose traditional base are the industrial workers. Their class interests are necessarily in contradiction with each other.
Thus, more often than not, this specific layer of the working class often described as middle force serves as the objective fulcrum of change or conservation – the determinant of political direction – because their rhetoric are not perceived as necessarily representative of either the ruling or oppressed class. This is the reason why “middle class support” is highly coveted by both opposing camps, for different purposes.
Either for the purpose of demobilizing their ranks, bending them to conservatism or radicalizing them.
Revolution of a New-Type
Truly, the middle force is proletariat. They may be wielding P180 worth of Starbucks coffee instead of the usual hammer which so symbolized the working class in all recorded history, but nonetheless, they are workers in their own right and are legitimate members of the proletarian movement.
With their entry also comes a plethora of new protest strategies they are introducing, owing much to their exposure to different and often non-traditional faces of production. In the time when the political struggle is more and more becoming a Gramscian battle for position, political blogging, cyber-activism, and other forms of anti-establishment communication which heavily utilize Third Wave technologies (Toffler) are gradually becoming indispensable as tools of mass propaganda to convince and organize.
These new forms of struggle must complement and even amplify existing efforts by the traditional industrial working class to undermine the capitalist state which foundations are anchored not only on political-economic apparatuses of repression but also on the ruling liberal-democratic consensus. The political struggle for democratic space must be complemented with a perception struggle for moral ascendancy, an arena where our “middle force proletariat” thrives.
At the end of the day, the struggle remains to be “proletariat” in its deepest sense – with the real forces behind of the societal system capturing control of the system itself. The traditional base of the working class that is the trade unions must welcome them not with doubt or hesitation but with pride and recognition. Ώ
With apologies to Randy David’s article “Greed in a Changing Landscape."
Monday, February 25, 2008
Statement of FDC
Tugon ng Kabataan Noon, Hamon sa Kabataan Ngayon!
Sunday, February 24, 2008
What is 'communal action'?
On Randy David's Public Lives Column on "Should bishops lead political actions?"
Change of Venue
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Step 1: How to act accordingly???!!!!
People Power Na! Patalsikin si Gloria!
To help you understand the current political developments, I will attach a copy of the PRIMER ON ZTE-NBN DEAL entitled, "ZTEwwwwwwww!" We hope to also have the Filipino version by Monday's time. I just have to understand how to post an attachment. Anyway, after reading the material, why not try to discuss it in your class, workplace and other areas possible. In your way, your helping civil society, little by little.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Civil Society Act Now!!!
Hope to see you all in action!!!