The New Horizon

17/08/2021

Kasabay ng pagdiriwang ng Buwan ng Wikang Pambansa at pag-alaala ng Sigaw ng Pugad Lawin, inihahandog ng All UP Academic Employees Union Cebu ang bagong episode ng "Ang Unyon ug Ang Katawhan Lecture Series" na may temang "Wika at/ng Pakikibaka, Mula Kolonyalismo Hanggang Pasismo."

Para sa mga interesado, p**i fill up ang registration form (https://forms.gle/6JTrJhAnzqtxsdFx7) para makatanggap ng detalye ng Zoom meeting.

30/08/2020

THE MILITARIZATION OF THE DUTERTE ADMINISTRATION AND THE FUTURE OF CIVILIAN SUPREMACY

Patrick Gerard Torres

The response to the COVID pandemic highlighted something that has been gradually becoming obvious: Duterte’s reliance on the military.[i] By 2018, many cabinet members had been sacked for allegations of corruption or as casualties of Duterte’s changing alignments and priorities, notably the nominees from the Left, who were dropped after Duterte changed his mind on peace talks with the communists. A year after his election, the Duterte administration had appointed 59 former AFP and PNP officers to the Cabinet and other agencies,[ii] surpassing the Arroyo presidency who had held the record for most active and retired officers appointed.

Initially, the military kept its distance from Duterte, declining to take an active role in his drug war and quietly standing up to Chinese incursions.[iii] But once Duterte ended peace talks with the communists, he gave the military its blank check to go after them through the National Task Force To End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

Duterte justified his reliance on the military and retired officers by comparing them with “bureaucrats” who debate with him instead of just obeying his orders. “Talagang dedebatehin ka sa mga gagong ‘yan. Kung may ipagawa ka, kung ano pang idagdag na pangpahirap. Instead of just looking for a way to tailor-fit or to dovetail the project, marami ang ano (The fools will really debate with you. If you have them to do something, they will add something to make it more difficult. Instead of just looking for a way to tailor-fit or to dovetail the project, they have so many things to say.),” he is quoted as saying. [iv]

That President Duterte, already known for his authoritarian style, has no patience for talkative subordinates is no longer a surprise. But what is not immediately obvious are the implications of calling on the military to perform civilian functions. Duterte’s militarization of governance can actually endanger civilian authority and institutions well after he leaves office. The historical record of civil-military relations tells us this much.

Militarizing Policy and Politicizing the Military

Political scientist Raymundo Quilop observed that the reliance on the military in governance creates an environment conducive to expanding its political involvement.[v] Quilop found that this stems from two factors. First, political players keep on trying to bring the military into the equation of the political game, either to support the incumbent administration or to join the opposition. Second, is the inability of the government machinery to put an end to armed insurgency. The first factor, induces segments of the military to be involved in national politics while the second leads the military to assume more and more the responsibilities of local government in their attempt to “win hearts and minds.”

These factors have been present throughout Philippine history in varying degrees[vi] but they were most pronounced and institutionalized during the period between 1972 when Marcos declared Martial Law until he was ousted in 1986.[vii] Presidents and other politicians from Quezon onwards exploited patronage ties with the military for political gain but it was only Marcos who directly employed the military to suppress opposition politicians and to combat two insurgencies, the Moro struggle in Mindanao and the communists when he declared Martial Law.

In implementing Martial Law, the military tried civilian dissidents in military tribunals, controlled local police forces under the Integrated National Police (INP), administered critical public utilities, communication, transportation services, and industries, and its officers served on media censorship boards.[viii] Though Marcos formally terminated Martial Law in 1981, the military’s increased civil role survived. Indeed, the immediate trigger for the Edsa Revolution was the discovery of a planned coup by disgruntled officers of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement (RAM) and a faction of the military loyal to defense minister Enrile.

The young officers of RAM, ranked between captain and colonel, found their advancement blocked by the preference of Ver, a graduate of the Reserve Officers Training Course (ROTC), for fellow reserve integrees over PMA graduates in promotion.[ix] They were also frustrated by the lack of progress in the counter-insurgency campaigns which continued to fester because of the Marcos regime’s corruption. Having wielded immense powers as the administrators, interrogators, and torturers of Martial law, it wasn’t difficult for them to conclude that they had to take power themselves. As historian Alfred McCoy put it: “By breaking their superiors through psychological manipulation, these officers gained a sense of their society’s plasticity, fostering an illusion that they could break and remake the social order at will. Through their years of torturing priests and professors for Marcos, these officers learned the daring to attack Marcos himself.”[x]

The People Power Revolution, however, put the civilian Cory Aquino in the presidency instead. With her husband having endured years of military detention before being shot dead by soldiers, she kept her distance from Enrile and his group of erstwhile military rebels. The RAM group, meanwhile, felt that the civilian government would not have gained power without the mutinous soldiers but were now reaping the spoils of victory while they were forced to the sidelines.[xi]

With a new government in place, the military was now expected to return to barracks but twenty years as the pillar of the dictatorship made that difficult. Offended by Aquino’s peace overtures to the Moro and communist armed groups and the investigations of human rights violations committed by the military convinced RAM, led by Gr**go Honasan, that the government had been infiltrated by communists. A series of coup attempts, some led by Marcos loyalists and others led by RAM, to oust the Aquino administration ensued.

Aquino turned to loyal elements of the military led by her AFP chief of staff and later defense secretary Fidel Ramos to defend herself from coup plotters. Ironically, she also drew closer to the AFP’s fervent anti-communism by dismissing her Cabinet secretaries deemed leftist by the military and terminating the peace talks with the communists.

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

This pattern of civil-military relations would recur in later administrations. The Arroyo administration was swept to Malacañang by the 2nd Edsa revolt where the withdrawal of support by Gen. Angelo Reyes and the rest of the top brass was decisive. Faced with political instability, she depended on the armed forces for her political survival. Under her administration, the AFP was given a wide berth in its counterinsurgency operations even as it spun off to extrajudicial killings and repression legal activists.[xii] As previously mentioned, Arroyo also appointed a large number of retired officers into her administration. The expansive role of the military and the never-ending counterinsurgency operations politicized a new generation of young officers. A fusion of old plotters such as Honasan and the Magdalo group would result in two coup attempts against Arroyo.

Under Duterte, these trends have intensified. The military’s influential role can be seen with the manner in which the government relied on lockdowns and population control in the response to COVID. Obviously, the fact that the chief implementer of the response and the heads of key agencies involved are retired generals is the primary reason we have this sort of response. The effect on the economy caused consternation with Economic Planning secretary Ernesto Pernia who resigned citing “differences in development philosophy.[xiii] The passage of the military endorsed Anti-Terror Law over significant opposition from business groups and civil society also highlights the military’s clout in policymaking relative to civilian interests. The military as a distinct institution has its own norms that may be suited for defending the State from its enemies but is antithetical when transplanted to democratic policymaking which requires dissent and popular accountability. A politicized military with its hands on the levers of power will become an unelected elite that looks at opposition the only way it is trained to: as enemies of the State. With no one but themselves to tell them who these enemies are, they might still point their guns at insurgents or they might decide civilian

Patrick Gerard Torres is the current Executive Director of the Central Visayas Farmers Development Center. He was a lecturer of political science at the University of San Carlos and at the University of the Philippines Cebu.

Artwork by Jen Rosatase Hagonoy

Article available at https://tothenewhorizon.wordpress.com/2020/08/30/the-militarization-of-the-duterte-administration-and-the-future-of-civilian-supremacy/

[i] Ranada, Pia. 2018. “In 2018, Duterte turns to military for (almost) everything.” Rappler. December 12. Accessed July 14, 2020. https://rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/duterte-turns-to-philippine-military-yearend-2018.

[ii] Zamora, Fe, and Philip C. Tubeza. 2017. “Duterte hires 59 former AFP, PNP men to Cabinet, agencies.” Inquirer. June 27. Accessed July 21, 2020. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/908958/duterte-hires-59-former-afp-pnp-men-to-cabinet-agencies.

[iii] Gloria, Glenda. 2020. “[OPINION] The Philippine military and its hypocrisy.” Rappler. June 9. Accessed July 25, 2020. https://rappler.com/voices/thought-leaders/opinion-philippine-military-hypocrisy-counter-insurgency.

[iv] (Ranada, In 2018, Duterte turns to military for (almost) everything 2018).

[v] Quilop, Raymundo Jose G. 2010. “Keeping the Philippines Military Out of Politics: Challenges and Prospects.” In The Politics of Change in the Philippines, by Yuko Kasuya and Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, 262-283. Quezon City: Anvil.

[vi] Berlin, Donald L. 2008. Before Gr**go: History of the Philippine Military 1830 to 1972. Pasig City: Anvil.

[vii] (Quilop 2010)

[viii] (Berlin 2008)

[ix] McCoy, Alfred W. 1999. Closer Than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy. New Haven: Yale University Press.

[x] Ibid. p. 190-191

[xi] Yabes, Criselda. 2009. The Boys From The Barracks: The Philippine Military After Edsa. Pasig City: Anvil.

[xii] Gloria, Glenda. 2020. “War With the NPA, War Without End.” Rappler. February 19. Accessed June 2, 2020 . https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/252770-archives-war-with-npa-without-end.

[xiii] Valencia, Czeriza. 2020. “Pernia breaks silence on resignation .” Philippine Star. April 20. Accessed June 2, 2020. https://www.philstar.com/business/2020/04/20/2008357/pernia-breaks-silence-resignation.

28/08/2020

ARTICLE | 28 August 2020

E. SAN JUAN JR. AND ANTI-IMPERIALIST CULTURAL CRITIQUE: A REVIEW OF KENNETH E. BAUZON’S CAPITALISM, THE AMERICAN EMPIRE AND NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION (2019)

By Karlo Mikhail Mongaya

________________________________________

E. San Juan Jr. is a leading Filipino Marxist scholar, literary critic and poet. His life-long work focused on elaborating radical traditions in Philippine literature, exposing imperialist mechanisms in the realm of culture and ideology, and asserting the importance of Filipino popular struggles for national liberation.

San Juan’s political awakening happened to the backdrop of McCarthyist witch hunts and rise of the national democratic movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He has since continued to be politically engaged, involving himself in internationalist solidarity work in the United States from the time of dictatorial rule under Ferdinand Marcos up to the present (Mongaya 2019).

Given the diverse range of topics covered by San Juan, one might find it hard to find an anchor when beginning the study of his writings. San Juan published dozens of books: from straightforward investigations on the Filipino national question to experimentations in poetic avant-garde and sophisticated literary criticism for more specialist readers.

Kenneth E. Bauzon’s Capitalism, The American Empire and Neoliberal Globalization: Themes and Annotations from Selected Works of E. San Juan Jr. (2019) provides readers an excellent introduction to San Juan’s thought. As the title suggests, Bauzon’s book ties together the main themes in San Juan’s voluminous works to illuminate an anti-imperialist cultural critique.

Imperialism is defined by V.I. Lenin (2010) as capitalism’s monopoly stage that began at the end of the 19th Century as big capitalist classes attained monopolistic control in the core industrial countries. Standing on the back of earlier phases of European colonial conquest and plunder, imperialism fully realized the formation of a world-system driving accumulation at the capitalist core through the extraction of economic value produced in global peripheries. While this is fervently denied not just by apologists of the status quo but even by some avowed Marxists (Harvey 2017), the persistence of imperialism as understood in Leninist terms continues to be contended by critical scholars and militant movements across the world (Amin 2019; Cope 2019; Foster 2019; Patnaik 2017; Smith 2016).

Bauzon ties together San Juan’s diverse interests under one unifying thread of addressing the cultural and ideological dimensions of imperialism without divorcing these from its politico-economic basis in the “superexploitation by powerful states or firms in one location visited upon weaker states/peoples/firms in another place” (Clelland 2016, p. 1,029). Bauzon brings to the fore San Juan’s emphasis on national liberation against imperialism as the way to “suture the fragments of colonized lives in popular-democratic mobilization and so create the historic agency for change” (Bauzon 2019, p.19).

A striking feature of Bauzon’s book is the use of passages from San Juan’s works as the starting point for Bauzon’s own annotations that “highlight episodes in the rise of the American empire in the Pacific, particularly in the Philippines, that usually get ignored or papered over by mainstream historians” (Ibid, p.18). This in turn serves

the broader purpose of drawing links between capitalism as a system of accumulation of value, the American empire as the preeminent state that ensures the persistence of this system amidst potential competing systems, and the contemporary neoliberal globalization, as a reincarnation of classical colonialism, invested with all the accoutrements essential to conquer the commons for private profit (pp.18-19).

The use of annotations, Bauzon (pp.xii-xiii) explains, is inspired by Jose Rizal’s annotations of Antonio Morga’s Sucesos De Las Islas Filipinas (Historical Events of the Philippine Islands). If Rizal’s 1889 annotations of Morga’s 1609 book corrected colonial discourse from a Filipino viewpoint, Bauzon’s annotations serves to enrich an anti-imperialist account of historical events that San Juan’s writings bring up.

In this way, Bauzon recuperates the historical materialist method to literary and cultural studies championed by San Juan as corrective for idealist approaches that sees human society as currently structured to be the only conceivable world. By breaking away from the dominant ideology of capitalism as the “end of history” that has been fashionable since the 1990s, the book clears the way for thinking new horizons for the oppressed peoples of the world.

Bauzon, a professor of Political Science at St. Joseph’s College in New York City who attained his Ph.D. from Duke University, hence provides a significant contribution to the production of critical perspectives on the Philippine and Third World politics and culture.

The first two chapters begins with passages from San Juan’s works that asserts materialist critique’s “grasp of the social totality in its historical development” (San Juan 2007a) and characteristic as a “self-reflexive” process wherein the analyst is also “examined as part of the critique of the conflict of class ideologies” (San Juan 2007b). These are utilized to jumpstart discussion of “the dual legacy of the Enlightenment” of bringing progress to the capitalist centers in Europe and North America and stagnation in the colonized and semi-colonized peripheries.

Here Bauzon (2019, pp.26-29) cites San Juan’s interventions highlighting Marx’s rejection of a Eurocentric view of history that a transition to socialism can be made only by workers in advanced industrialized countries. Marx later in his life, especially in his correspondence with Russian populist revolutionaries (See Shanin 1983), accepted the possibility of revolutions emerging in peripheral countries ravaged by colonial and feudal oppression.

The next three chapters of Capitalism, The American Empire and Neoliberal Globalization then presents a compelling account of the birth of US imperialism on the backs of slavery and genocide in its own backyard and abroad, with an emphasis on the brutality and duplicity that accompanied the American colonial conquest of the Philippine Islands.

Bauzon surveys the ideological justifications mobilized for the US war of conquest and disproves claims of American exceptionalism as hypocritical. He recounts the betrayal of Emilio Aguinaldo by two-faced US imperialists, their deception of the Moro Sultanates in the pacification of Muslim Mindanao, and the way American scholarship shaped representations of Filipinos as incapable of self-governance to rationalize colonial rule.

San Juan is credited by Bauzon (Ibid p.110) for drawing attention to the racial dimension of the US pacification through the deployment of Black American soldiers in the Philippines. San Juan’s underscoring of the story of David Fagen, a Black American captain who defected to the side of the Filipino revolutionaries, excavates the hitherto forgotten act of anti-imperialist internationalism between two peoples under the yoke of American national oppression.

For Bauzon, San Juan’s writings on the Philippine-American War is important for featuring the anti-colonial character of the Filipino resistance to US occupation, underlining the genocidal character of the US imperialist project, and analysing this period as the “foundational stage of the modern development of surveillance and what has been described in military literature as ‘low intensity warfare’” (Ibid pp.115-116).

The final two chapters of Bauzon’s book jumps forward to more recent decades to elucidate the institutional structures of imperialism’s contemporary neoliberal articulation that intensifies the market logic of profit accumulation amidst capitalist crisis by taking back whatever rights were won by workers and oppressed peoples through collective action both in the capitalist cores and peripheries in the past century.

While all these have been told before, Bauzon’s reframing of these themes from an avowedly historical materialist perspective through an engagement with San Juan’s critical work and a focus on the Philippine experience makes such a retelling relevant. As we grapple with the coronavirus pandemic, the book’s central argument on the necessity of contesting a rotten system based on accumulation and environmental plunder on a world scale for the benefit of the ruling classes in the imperialist cores is indeed more significant than ever.

*****

Karlo Mikhail I. Mongaya teaches Philippines Studies courses at the Departamento ng Filipino at Panitikan ng Pilipinas, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City. His M.A. thesis is on revolutionary journalism and its articulation of an anti-imperialist nationalism at the height of the anti-Marcos struggle from 1982-1985. He is a regular contributor for Global Voices and a member of the Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy.

_______________________________

References

Amin, Samir. 2019. “The New Imperialist Structure.” Monthly Review 71 (3): 32–45.

Clelland, Donald A. 2016. Global Value Transfers and Imperialism. In Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, Eds. Immanuel Ness and Zak Cope, pp.1,028-1,040. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Cope, Zak. 2019. The Wealth of (Some) Nations: Imperialism and the Mechanics of Value Transfer. London: Pluto Press.

Foster, John Bellamy. 2019. “Late Imperialism: Fifty Years after Harry Magdoff’s The Age of Imperialism.” Monthly Review 71 (3): 1–19.

Harvey, David. 2017. A Commentary on A Theory of Imperialism. In A Theory of Imperialism, Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik, pp.154-172. New York: Columbia University Press.

Lenin, V.I. 2010. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism A Popular Outline. London: Penguin Books.

Mongaya, Karlo Mikhail. 2018. Wala: Mga Tula (2018): E. San Juan Jr.’s postconceptual interventions. Philippine Humanities Review 20(1): 45-48.

Ness, Immanuel and Zak Cope Eds. 2016. Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Patnaik, Utsa and Prabhat Patnaik. 2017. A Theory of Imperialism. New York: Columbia University Press.

San Juan, E. Jr. 2007a. In the Wake of Terror: Class, Race, Nation, Ethnicity in the Postmodern World. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.

San Juan, E. Jr. 2007b. US Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Shanin, Teodor. 1983. Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and the Peripheries of Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review.

Smith, John. 2016. Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis. London: Monthly Review.

Art by Vincent Pepito

You may also view download this article at https://tothenewhorizon.wordpress.com/2020/08/28/e-san-juan-jr-and-anti-imperialist-cultural-critique-a-review-of-kenneth-e-bauzons-capitalism-the-american-empire-and-neoliberal-globalization-2019/

28/08/2020

E. SAN JUAN JR. AND ANTI-IMPERIALIST CULTURAL CRITIQUE: A REVIEW OF KENNETH E. BAUZON’S CAPITALISM, THE AMERICAN EMPIRE AND NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION (2019)

By Karlo Mikhail Mongaya

Karlo Mikhail Mongaya E. San Juan Jr. is a leading Filipino Marxist scholar, literary critic and poet. His life-long work focused on elaborating radical traditions in Philippine literature, exposin…

23/07/2020

Join us in our next episode of “Ang Unyong ug ang Katawhan” Lecture Series. With the intensifying political repression reminiscent of the Marcos’ Martial Law Years and reinforced by historical revisionism, the danger of forgetting from our collective memory the hard lessons of history is real and present. Dr. Marie Rose Arong and the panel of reactors will help us discern the value of remembering especially in these challenging times.

PM us for those who are interested to join via zoom. We will also be streaming this live through our fb page.

30/06/2020

ARTICLE | JUNE 30, 2020

BEYOND THE NEW HORIZON IS A RAINBOW: ON THE STRUGGLES AND RADICALIZATION OF THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY
Jenlian Hagonoy

When we first think about Pride, we tend to associate it with the LGBTQ+ community and the month of June. During its annual celebration, we notice that brands owned by transnational corporations immediately release product lines that merely show token statements splashed with colors taken from the pride flag for the sake of “solidarity” and visibility. However, beyond the community’s surface level of recognition today, the people – straight or homosexual alike – must unearth its history, the roots of their oppression, and finally, the radicalization of the LGBTQ+ community in their fight for liberation today.

The oppression of the LGBTQ+ is said to be “one of the oldest evils of mankind”. The other oppression that lasted longer, alongside it, is probably that of women. For us to trace the beginnings of homosexual oppression, we must first talk briefly about the oppression of women. Marxist scholars posited that women’s inferiority is an effect on the growth of the social surplus product thus the emergence of the exploiters and the exploited. Class division was established in societies and it leads to the overthrowing of women from their former high status [1]. Imposing monogamy — for women alone — provided how rich men’s property can be possessed only by children whose own father was certain they were his. Women were then seen as nothing more than producers of heirs, further subjugated by a new society that has made it impossible for them to acquire wealth and equality. Furthermore, Friedrich Engels analyzed the oppression of women from a materialist point of view in his book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State [2]. The Pairing Family is described essentially as women’s commodification in the sense as “capturing” and “purchasing” of women. The patriarchs regulate the sexuality of women which they also regulate the heritage, just as they gain control over land and property. This creates a double standard between men and women and the latter are seen as properties to the former they are tied to.

Another takeaway is that women played a prominent role in a society that was matrilineal during the hunter-gatherer era, when economic management, food and tools, and children’s upbringing were kept at the community level. Nevertheless, Engels’ book didn’t go uncriticized. For one, Spanish feminist Celia Amorós argued that the risk involved in this gap is the “certain naturalism” which entails social disdain for women’s tasks, similar to the forms of domestic work that capitalism “privatized”. [3]. On the other hand, Ernest Mandel contends that the division of labor, before the development of the class, had initially emerged from the need to confine women to certain social roles to maintain the reproductive capacity of society. [4]. Women were thus limited to certain social practices and made an object of economic avarice. These critiques still keep the debate on while waiting for more anthropological observations.

It is necessary to note that capitalism creates material conditions for men and women to live independent sexual lives, but at the same time, it aims to foist on society’s heterosexual standards to ensure that the economic, ideological and sexual orders are maintained. Therefore, the oppression and discrimination of the LGBTQ+ arise from the necessity and inevitability of depicting the patriarchal family as a by-product of the oppression of women. This means to say that both these oppressions can be interlinked to the struggle for national democracy and liberation.

The world has witnessed countless movements in the fight against oppression, especially the struggle against sexual orientation-based discrimination. These massive scale movements have already established their respective mass bases and these protests can be prospects for not just passing reforms but the revolution per se. One of the most well-known gay liberation movements in history is the Stonewall Riots that happened in Manhattan, New York on 28 June 1969. [5]. This was brought by the worsening police brutality through series of raiding q***r safe spaces, arresting, and beating gay people thus came together with the masses and fought back the repressive police forces. Decades have passed by, uprisings did not decline but rather, these LGBTQ+ movements evolved and became inclusive over time. Some of these movements already inculcated revolutionary means and broadened their alliances to the other marginalized sectors and the working class. At this point, they have profoundly understood that advancing the struggle for LGBTQ+ liberation is also a matter of class struggle and by knowing this, the overthrow of capitalism completely eradicates the oppression of LGBTQ+ people as it takes out every last vestige of discrimination and its roots.

Now, this is why we have to be wary (and raise collectively our eyebrows) the moment these transnational corporations (e.g. Google, Amazon, Nestlé, H&M) release series of products and statements that supposedly show solidarity to the LGBTQ+ community especially during Pride month. It’s absurd to think, but more so appalling, how they sell these products spot on the first day of Pride but have never raised their worker’s wages for decades which is labor exploitation. [6]. They have called this “rainbow capitalism” which is the synthesis of capitalism, consumer economy, and sexual preference which are characterized by g**s/lesbians—middle class and urban gay men in particular—as target audiences, prospective consumers, or affluent buyers. [7]. This is to say that these brands releasing LGBTQ+ related products are more of a marketing strategy than a statement or standing up for their rights.

In our present time, countries around the world have passed legislation supporting marriage equality, anti-discrimination laws, and gender-neutral bathrooms just to name a few. This is of course through the efforts of gay activism and allies of the community who also advocate for LGBTQ+ equal rights. These movements are now also supported by various institutions, government officials, and organizations that don’t necessarily belong in the political spectrum of the Left. But while our task is to gather many alliances as possible in the struggle, what we have to always put in mind is that not everyone, especially from these bourgeoisie-ruled institutions, is our “ally”. Take, for example, Justin Trudeau and Barack Obama. Some people call them progressives and model leaders just because they’ve shown support and/or enacted laws for the LGBTQ+ sector, however, these are the same people who also enabled fascism, military interventions in Latin America and the Middle East, and enforcing neoliberal policies. Trudeau approved a strenuously disputed proposal to expand the pipeline in providing hopes for a weakening energy industry but this angered environmental groups and the indigenous peoples who strongly opposed the project for this is a threat to their ancestral lands and destructive to the environment. [8]. On the other hand, Obama deported over 1.18 million immigrant children during his first three years in office alone, Donald Trump has deported fewer than 800,000 [9] (this is not about the “choose a lesser evil” narrative as there is no such thing. Both US presidents have committed the worst atrocities on mankind). He also intensified sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, not to mention worsened the crisis in the Middle East by ordering airstrikes just like in Yemen. [10].

In Philippine context, the chances of inclusivity and LGBTQ+ representation in the political arena have finally seen the light of the day when Rep. Geraldine Roman became the first-ever elected transgender woman in Congress. She is an advocate and one of the principal authors of the Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression (SOGIE) bill or also known as the Anti-Discrimination Bill that aims for the protection of the LGBTQ+ community against gender violence and discrimination, especially when g**s and trans women are not allowed, among other activities, to enter public spaces. It wasn’t created to trample on other people’s freedom of expression or religion. Though she had been vocal on this legislation since she included this in her campaign platforms, her sudden allyship with a known misogynist and homophobic that is Duterte already proves that even members of the LGBTQ+ can be class traitors too. To compromise the radical and decades-long struggle of the community by submitting yourself to your political interest and opportunism is a betrayal, not just to the LGTBQ+ but to the masses as well.

The reactionaries and liberals are hypocrites for they also oppress the marginalized through imperialist plundering and enabling dictatorships which is to say, they have harmed not just the LGBTQ+ but millions of innocent lives. But for us to counter this especially on becoming an ally, we have to sharpen our class analysis and never forget our mass line otherwise, there is a possibility that we might succumb to the reactionary perspective. This does not imply, however, that we shouldn’t participate in civil rights since we are struggling for total recognition of the LGBTQ+ especially on equal rights, at the same time, let’s also be aware on which camp we belong in this class struggle.

Here in the Philippines, the first Pride march took place on 26 June 1994, which is also the very first in Asia. This was led by the Progressive Organization of G**s in the Philippines (ProGay Philippines) and Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). This was in commemoration of the 22nd anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. Despite calling the Philippines an “LGBTQ+ friendly” country, the worsening conditions, and stale acceptance of the LGBTQ+ here were enough reasons for them to make Pride a militant struggle. In the statement by a militant LGBTQ+ group, Kapedarasyon, they said, “Barely subsisting under the mercy of massive unemployment, total landlessness and labor exploitation through job contractualization, the Filipino LGBTQ+s suffer, a hundredfold worse than the rest of the marginalized sectors, in a society ran through the whims and caprices of landlords, thieves, and conspirators, around the beck and call of foreign domination.” [11]. This also led to the tragic death of Jennifer Laude, a transgender woman, in the hands of a US military man who was here because of the Visiting Forces Agreement which is vehemently opposed by different organizations as this is a clear manifestation of US imperialism.

Today, we resonate the same battle cry and plight of those who came before us. For a community that has contributed a lot to our culture, people are treating them unfairly. While the LGBTQ+ community is still facing bigotry and prejudices, the pandemic has also taken a toll on them. This year’s Pride is entirely different however, the passionate struggle for the emancipation of the LGBTQ+ must remain steadfast amid the difficulties in living in the “new normal”. The arrest of Pride 20 is a manifestation that the q***r liberation is getting stronger and the fascistic US-Duterte regime is now cowering in fear because of the people’s power. With that, the LGBTQ+ community must stand against any tyrannical forces with unwavering resiliency. The moment we have successfully brought down fascist regimes that continuously oppress the LGBTQ+ sector, capitalism, imperialism, macho-feudal patriarchy, and bigotry will soon be nothing but in heaps of ashes.

The LGBTQ+, along with the marginalized sectors, will usher us toward national democracy and genuine liberation, for beyond the sky in the east that will soon bleed red, beyond the new horizon, is a rainbow.

[1] Marxists Internet Archive. “A Revolutionary Strategy for Gay Liberation”. Documents of the Democratic Socialist Party. May 1992.

[2] Engels, Friedrich. “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”, 1902.

[3] Cecilia Amorós, “Origins of the Family, Origins of a Misunderstanding”, Toward a Criticism of Patriarchal Reason, Barcelona, Anthropos, 1991.

[4] Mandel, Ernest. “An introduction to Marxist economic theory”, Mexico, 1969.

[5] History Channel. “Stonewall Riots”. History.com.https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/the-stonewall-riots(Accessed June 2020).

[6] Guilbert, Kieran. “H&M accused of failing to ensure fair wages for global factory workers”. Reuters.https://www.reuters.com/article/us-workers-garment-abuse/hm-accused-of-failing-to-ensure-fair-wages-for-global-factory-workers-idUSKCN1M41GR (Accessed June 2020).

[7] Ye, Junzuan. “Pink Capitalism: Perspectives and Implications for Cultural Management”, Prospectiva i Anàlisi de Projectes CulturalsI, no.2 (2018).

[8] The Guardian. “Trudeau approves contentious Trans Mountain pipeline expansion” theguardian.com. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/18/canada-trans-mountain-pipeline-expansion-approved-trudeau(Accessed June 2020).

[9] Hauslohner, Abigail. “The Trump administration’s immigration jails are packed, but deportations are lower than in Obama era”. Washington Post, November 18, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/the-trump-administrations-immigration-jails-are-packed-but-deportations-are-lower-than-in-obama-era/2019/11/17/27ad0e44-f057-11e9-89eb-ec56cd414732_story.html (Accessed June 2020).

[10] Jessica Purkis and Jack Serle. “Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than Bush”, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. January 17, 2017. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2017-01-17/obamas-covert-drone-war-in-numbers-ten-times-more-strikes-than-bush (Accessed June 2020).

[11] Kapederasyon. “Statement of Kapederasyon, a militant LGBT organization in the Philippines, on the commemoration of the 22nd year of Filipino LGBT Pride”. Medium. June 25, 2016. https://medium.com//pride-is-struggle-against-hate-lgbt-pride-in-the-philippines-twenty-two-years-past-stonewall-e69983811917 (Accessed on June 2020).

See more at: https://tothenewhorizon.wordpress.com/2020/06/30/beyond-the-new-horizon-is-a-rainbow-on-the-struggles-and-radicalization-of-the-lgbtq-community/

Art by Vincent Pepito