By Max Lane
Following the massive May Day demonstration in Manila, when more than 100,000 workers demonstrated in a series of rallies, the Filipino left faces a serious challenge in an imminent resort to violence by one of its sections.
The Philippines Daily Inquirer reported on May 2 that the provisional executive committee of the Manila branch of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), loyal to Jose Maria Sison, had announced that a team of armed partisans were currently hunting down Feliman Lagman, also known as Carlos Forte.
Forte is the secretary of the Manila Rizal Committee (MRC) (Autonomous) of the CPP, which has broken away from the Sison leadership calling for a rethinking of the CPP's policies, a rejection of Stalinism, and democratisation within the party. The MRC forces are part of a broad democratic opposition within the ranks of the CPP.
The fielding of an armed group to "arrest" Forte follows an announcement two weeks ago by CPP spokesperson Gregorio Rosal that the CPP's "people's court" would soon deliver verdicts against three of its critics and leaders of other left currents in the democratic opposition: Romulo Kintanar, Ricardo Reyes and Arturo Tabara.
According to a press statement by the Sison CPP, Lagman, once arrested, will be tried by a "people's court" for his alleged "litany of crimes". The extremist nature of the statement, which claimed that the "revolutionary proletariat rejoices at the decision of the party to put on trial the traitors of the revolution", has raised fears on the left of an assassination attempt against Lagman and other figures associated with the democratic opposition.
Fears have also increased of a possible attack against Tony Cabardo, a leader of Sanlakas, a legal organisation with a mass base of more than 100,000. Seventy thousand workers, urban poor and students belonging to member organisations of SANLAKAS attended the largest of the May Day rallies.
From the Netherlands, Sison has accused Cabardo of being involved in a plot to assassinate him. This charge, which is generally rejected as baseless by others on the left and which Cabardo has denied publicly, has raised fears that the CPP leadership maybe be preparing action against Cabardo also.
Both Cabardo and leaders from the socialist organisation MAKABAYAN have issued statements condemning the threat of "arrest" against Lagman and other leftist leaders. They have pointed out that the threats open up more possibilities of intervention and intrigue by the Filipino military. Already on May 5, the military were able to arrest six key leaders of the Sison leadership. MAKABAYAN, while maintaining its critical stance towards Sison's recent initiatives, immediately called for their release.
Both the Sison group and the MRC forces have armed units which have been deployed in the past primarily against the repressive campaigns of the armed forces and the private armies of the Filipino landowning class. The possibility that these armed units might clash should the CPP-Sison team actually attempt to "arrest" Lagman or other left leaders has raised tensions in Manila.n