For a BAYAN/PLM Government of the Masses!

Workers! Comrades! Compatriots!

The nation is under threat! The administration of President Bongbong Marcos, bandit chieftain for the U.S. imperialists in the country, presents a clear and present danger to the Filipino masses.

Everybody knows that Marcos, the Dutertes and their cronies in Congress are robbing us blind and nobody has been thrown in jail. The catastrophic failure of the government’s much-hyped flood control program claimed over 300 lives this year, displaced 4.8 million Filipinos, and wiped out ₱6.76 billion worth in property and livelihood. The bourgeoisie’s syndicated looting of public infrastructure funds is rooted in the privatization and denationalization policies imposed on the country by the World Bank-IMF and the U.S. imperialists after the defeat of the revolutionary upsurge sparked by the February 1986 EDSA Popular Uprising.

As outrage over corruption and the high cost-of-living exploded into street protests and clashes with the police on the September 21 anniversary of the 1972 imposition of martial law by President Bongbong Marcos’s dictator-father, the liberal opposition Trillion Peso March and their leftist hangers-on held back the anti-corruption struggle to the impotent parliamentary methods acceptable to the Makati Business Club and the Church hierarchy. Liberals like Tindig Pilipinas, the Akbayan Party and top leaders of FFW, TUCP and SENTRO are intent on shielding American lackey Marcos so the right-wing Dutertista opposition does not come to power. Thus they plead so pathetically for Marcos to clean up his act. This was starkly revealed in the lead up to the EDSA Trillion Peso March when liberal and social democrat leaders stopped leftist militants from raising anti-Marcos signs at a media conference. In a public statement shortly after, Makabayan’s ACT party list Rep. Antonio Tinio said they are not calling for the resignation of Marcos.

The left’s association with the liberal opposition discredits it in the eyes of the broad masses, who are fed up with the imperialist extortion administered by the Marcos gang and its liberal bloc partners. Sympathy among the masses for the right-wing nationalist MAISUG and Gen Z populists like Congressmeow Barzaga is growing because of their reputation as the only forces that oppose national humiliation and seriously fight to kick out the Marcos gang.

Our Urgent Tasks and Platform

As the various forces of the far left, the liberal opposition and the populist right-wing prepare for the demonstration on Bonifacio Day, now more than ever is the question posed: Who will run the country? The Marcos government is determined to crack down in order to hang on to power with U.S. support. He is tightening screws on democratic rights with officials issuing a stream of verbal threats, subpoenas and gag orders against the campus press and dissenters, real and imagined. The Dutertista faction is marshalling allies to bring Marcos down and reinstate their own brand of corrupt leadership. There is widespread fear of a military coup, which can only mean a repeat of Marcos Sr.’s brutal martial law regime.

Nobody in the Philippine left has a clear answer what to do. We welcome the call by PLM and the National Democrats for Bongbong Marcos, Sara Duterte & Co. to resign in favor of a “Transition People’s Council/People’s Transition Council.” But this does not answer the question: What kind of government do the workers and oppressed masses of this country need? A transition council with the liberals is useless because such “allies” will simply bow down to the pressure of the imperialists and seek an accommodation with Marcos and the oligarchs. There needs to be a socialist, working-class alternative for national liberation.

We call on the National Democrats of BAYAN and the Partido Lakas ng Masa to fight for a Government of the Masses! Yes, it is possible to win. If BAYAN and PLM take the lead in the struggle against the Marcos regime and his imperialist masters, they will become a magnet for the aspirations of the masses and can drive a wedge between the Duterte right-wing populists and their mass base of support. This will require a fight within the NatDems and PLM against those elements who cling to the bourgeois liberals and their conciliators, who think the political dynasties in Congress will legislate themselves out of existence.

If both BAYAN and PLM are authentic heirs of Andres Bonifacio, Teresa Magbanua, Macario Sakay and Crisanto Evangelista, as their leaderships claim, then they will lead the working masses in the struggle for power to resolve the burning national and democratic demands. As basis for this struggle, we propose the following platform:

• Down with Marcos and the entire oligarchy! For a BAYAN/PLM government of the masses!
• Overturn privatization! Expropriate the imperialists and the oligarchs! Cancel the imperialist debt!
• For national liberation! Break the U.S.-Philippine military alliance! Smash EDCA and VFA! U.S. troops and bases out!

If you agree with these ideas, take action! Circulate and discuss the leaflet in your party, union and mass organization! Challenge your leaders to build the anti-imperialist, anti-Marcos workers opposition NOW!