The stakes for the Makabayan bloc are high, the consequences of a Duterte restoration more frightening. It’s a fight not only for relevance, but survival.
It’s a coalition with the most unlikely partners.
The Makabayan bloc, the most prominent face of the legal Left, has been having a field day lately doing tag teams with House allies of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. They share little in common, ideologically or politically. Just a few years ago, they sat on opposite aisles, often at each other’s throats.
The coalition is loose, unwieldy, and tactical. But it has two clear objectives: unmask the Duterte legacy of drug war deaths and erode Vice President Sara Duterte’s chances of winning the presidency in 2028.
For the Left, the opportunity to skewer the Dutertes is sweet payback.
After an oh-so-brief dalliance with former president Rodrigo Duterte, the Left, both the legal and the underground formations, found itself battered and hunted by the police and military. They were vilified by Duterte himself and hounded by the reg-tagging officials of the government’s anti-insurgency task force. They lost their top cadres in a bloody pogrom, and relentless military operations have all but decimated the ranks of the underground Left’s armed component.
So, yes, the chance to inflict psychic pain on Duterte father and daughter was an enticing proposition. The fact that they are in bed with the political loyalists of a Marcos was a minor detail.
The Left and its coalition allies have a lot at stake in their all-out offensive against the Vice President and her father. But the stakes for the Makabayan bloc are higher, the consequences of a Duterte restoration more frightening. It’s a fight not only for relevance, but survival.
New, unfamiliar terrain
Over 50 years ago, a wave of student protests rattled the administration of former president Ferdinand Marcos, the incumbent president’s father. In January 1970, leftist demonstrators even managed to breach the gates of Malacañang before they were dispersed by presidential guards. During martial law, the Left waged an unrelenting campaign to oust Marcos primarily through armed resistance.
The restoration of democracy after the February 1986 EDSA Revolution, and the democratic space it offered, yielded a new arena of struggle unfamiliar to the Left.
It failed to immediately get a firm grip of new realities, adjust its political strategy, and maneuver to enlarge its constituency. They were also riven by internal bickering, which led to its fragmentation.
The dominant Left faction later decided to take part in national elections, labeled as electoral or parliamentary struggle, by fielding progressive candidates for the Senate, none of whom won. Their foray into the party list elections was more successful.
Not just a wrecking crew
The Left has also been unlucky when it comes to backing presidential candidates.
Now, Marxists are not supposed to believe in luck. Rather, they base their decisions on reading objective conditions the way old ladies read tea leaves. Still, analyzing objective conditions demand a flexible framework and a keen sense of practical politics, both of which the Left seems to have little of. Their analytical framework and worldview remained static, the slogans trapped in the past (“Down with the US-insert-surname-of sitting president-here Regime!”). They were as dated as Joma Sison’s student ID number.
Their alliance with former president Joseph Estrada was short lived (The former actor-politician was ousted from power by his vice president, Gloria Mapacagal-Arroyo). They backed the failed candidacy of Manny Villar, and in 2016, tried to do a political three-way by first backing former vice president Jojo Binay and then senator Grace Poe, only to cast their lot with then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. We all know what happened next.
Today, the Makabayan bloc has fewer seats in the House, but the fire in their bellies remain undiminished. This is what they bring to the table, and why their interventions possess great value to the administration and its House allies.
The value they add also opens the opportunity to bring social issues into focus. For the Makabayan bloc, the urgent task is to go beyond the role of wrecking crew against the Dutertes and offer pro-people alternatives.
They can leverage their role as unflinching critics of the Dutertes to secure approval of pro-people and progressive bills. With the reduced presence and potency of the armed Left, the parliamentary arena might emerge as the more viable primary space for struggle. – Rappler.com
Joey Salgado is a former journalist, and a government and political communications practitioner. He served as spokesperson for former vice president Jejomar Binay.
