Am I Putting Lives at Risk?
Filipino activist Ivan Phell Enrile ojects to my recent post on his affiliation to the Communist Party of the Philippines "front" ANAKBAYAN.
Here is the full text of his post, with some comments by me.
good day!
i've just read your comment.
let me just clarify that anakbayan, a LEGAL, OPEN MASS ORGANIZATION, was founded on November 30, 1998 not 1990. ANAKBAYAN advocates the politics of national democracy: a politics which can be described in three adjectives: anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, and anti-fascist (given the fact that the existing Philippine social formation is semi-feudal(native feudalism now linked to the needs and imperatives of foreign monopoly-capital) and semi-colonial (under the indirect control and domination of US imperialism.
New Zeal Using Marxist jargon like that does not help your credibility, Ivan.
Our organization seeks to unite all Filipino youth, whatever their political tendencies and ideological leanings may be, if they do recognize that the Philippines and its people, in order to attain genuine democracy, progress and peace, should take up the task of emancipating itself from the fetters of neo-colonial rule, feudal exploitation and fascist repression guising under the mask of formal "bourgeois-liberal" institutions and processes. ANAKBAYAN operates within the bounds of legal forms of struggle and political contestations, dispersing its forces among the Filipino youth wherever they can be found: factories, urban poor communities, schools, rural areas, etc. In short wherever there exist exploitation and oppression among Filipino youth, there is ANAKBAYAN.
New Zeal Getting worse.
Our affiliation with WFDY (I still need to verify that information) even if it may be true, does not immediately implicate us as communists. Again, we unite with individuals, organizations and leaders on the basis of the above-stated principles.
Unfortunately, the Manila government in Malacanang is very much insecure that any signs and quivers of protest and organizing it readily brands as "communist". The meaning of "communism" in the Philippines and I think even abroad has become pejorative already that even national democracy which is supposed to be a politics that reaches out to the most variegated and popular groupings, sectors and classes is being branded as "communist" (whatever their definition of the term may be).
New Zeal As I provided you the link that proved ANAKBAYAN's affiliation to the World Federation of Democratic Youth, I don't know how you remain in doubt. WFDY has been a communist front for 50 years. Most affiliates even use the word "communist" in their name. Your affiliation to WFDY does imply the communist nature of your organisation as virtually every other WFDY affiliate is OPENLY communist. Here it is again, from Wikipedia this time.
So Ivan, please do not try to pull the wool over my eyes.
Our government labels our organization as communist because it would like to restrict any acts of activity that will cast doubt upon its validity and its claim of being authentically representative to the democratic will of the people (the bourgeois-humanist illusion of the state being transcendent of classes, identities and interests).
There is no doubt that part of the reactionary Macapagal-Arroyo regimes grand effort to curtail the civil and democratic rights of the people to freely organize and dissent is to ostracize and label progressive, legal, and let me delineate, UNARMED organizations like ANAKBAYAN as communist to justify the ongoing series of extra-judicial killings of our members and leaders.
New Zeal There could be another reason why your government names your organisation as "communist"-because it is communist. ANAKBAYAN is also close to the League of Filipino Students, The KMU, KMP, NDF and several other Communist Party of the Philippines fronts.
This is not debatable, but well documented fact, easily confirmed with a little research.
I do not claim to be a huge authority on the Filipino left, but I have many contacts who know the subject well. One narrowly escaped assassination by an NPA "sparrow" squad some years ago. I do know enough, however to recognise your proclamations of innocence as disingenuous at best.
It is very much unfortunate and disappointing that you Mr. Loudon would buy this stale cold-war propaganda of the government who happens to have no respect for the universal and absolute right of every human person to freely express their own opinions and espouse systems of thought and beliefs without any repression. I can not believe that you even have to go to the extent of searching my name in google to obtaibn information about me, my affiliations, the school where I study and then publish it on the net after making the pronouncement that the organization of which I am a member of is a "communist Front"
You could have just argued against the merits and demerits of my blog post. Now I fear for my life. Who knows, the military may just be around the corner, waiting for my appearance. Who knows, I may be the next victim of GMA's vigilante death squads.
I hope we could just debate on the truth value and points of our arguments and line rather than resort to ad hominems, brandings, and regurgitated black propagandas.
Thank you very much.
I. P. Enrile
New Zeal Again, disingenuous. Regarding your life being in danger, why would you sign an internet petition, announcing your affiliation to ANAKBAYAN if that would put your life in danger?
Do you not think the Armed Forces Philippines have computers or can access the Internet?
If the left is correct and the AFP has spies on campus, I'm sure your affiliation is already well known to them.
Your government has already labelled ANAKBAYAN a "communist front", a fact you have confirmed above. Why then would you openly affiliate to the organisation in a forum as public as the internet?
What you have face Ivan is the fact that your organisation is supporting the Communist Party of the Philippines/New Peoples Army who are responsible for several thousand deaths-including civilians, AFP, "rebel" communists and several hundred of their own cadre.
If you wish to align yourself to such criminals, by all means do so, but don't deny me my right to point out the facts.
I admire your bravery Ivan, I really do. By being active as you are, you run risks that most NZ activists would never dream of.
However much you may disagree with your country's government-as I disagree with mine-it doesn't justify supporting terrorists and murderers. I support your right to free speech Ivan, but not your right to support killers.
If you want to play with the "big boys" Ivan, don't come crying if you get your name in print.
Next up, regular commenter, Cameron of the Free Papua Movement also takes me to task.
Trev Mr I P Enrile has a good point. Some of your blog posts could seriously put some people's lives at risk (such as this one and the one where you accussed a refugee of being Shining Path). As you can appreciate the Arroyo government and the military in the Philippines aren't particularly fond of human rights. Over the last few years many unionists and dissidents have been shot.
It seems the threat of the NPA is just used to crack down on legitimate dissent. Don't let your hatred of communism lead you to support repression of innocent people.
New Zeal Cameron, this is incorrect, for the reasons given above. I don't doubt that Ivan's life might one day be at risk, if he maintains his current affiliations. The choice is in his hands. He doesn't have to support communists.
Regarding the other post you refer to. Edgardo Alarcon Leon was a Peruvian student who was arrested and accused of taking part in a Sendero Luminoso bomb attack that killed three people.
After a long incarceration he was freed by the courts and made his way, as a refugee to New Zealand. Once here he joined a pro Sendero Luminoso organisation, "Radical Society" at Canterbury University and also probably at Auckland University.
He has since spent some time in Peru, from where he criticised his government on the internet.
I accused Mr Leon of nothing. I gathered publicly available information and pieced it together. I thought this was "free speech". Am I mistaken, or is free speech only to be used for the left and not against it?
Edgardo Leon abused the hospitality of this country by openly supporting a Maoist/terrorist organisation.
Ivan Phell Enrile, came onto my blog and wrote what I would frankly describe as propaganda.
Both deserve to be held accountable.
In many ways admire people like Ivan Phell Enrile and Edgardo Alarcon Leon. They take big risks for what they believe in. Unfortunately, what they believe in is evil and results in much death and destruction.
I suggest if either objects to being named, they should change their allegiances to something more positive and try to make amends for the damage they have done.
Here is the full text of his post, with some comments by me.
good day!
i've just read your comment.
let me just clarify that anakbayan, a LEGAL, OPEN MASS ORGANIZATION, was founded on November 30, 1998 not 1990. ANAKBAYAN advocates the politics of national democracy: a politics which can be described in three adjectives: anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, and anti-fascist (given the fact that the existing Philippine social formation is semi-feudal(native feudalism now linked to the needs and imperatives of foreign monopoly-capital) and semi-colonial (under the indirect control and domination of US imperialism.
New Zeal Using Marxist jargon like that does not help your credibility, Ivan.
Our organization seeks to unite all Filipino youth, whatever their political tendencies and ideological leanings may be, if they do recognize that the Philippines and its people, in order to attain genuine democracy, progress and peace, should take up the task of emancipating itself from the fetters of neo-colonial rule, feudal exploitation and fascist repression guising under the mask of formal "bourgeois-liberal" institutions and processes. ANAKBAYAN operates within the bounds of legal forms of struggle and political contestations, dispersing its forces among the Filipino youth wherever they can be found: factories, urban poor communities, schools, rural areas, etc. In short wherever there exist exploitation and oppression among Filipino youth, there is ANAKBAYAN.
New Zeal Getting worse.
Our affiliation with WFDY (I still need to verify that information) even if it may be true, does not immediately implicate us as communists. Again, we unite with individuals, organizations and leaders on the basis of the above-stated principles.
Unfortunately, the Manila government in Malacanang is very much insecure that any signs and quivers of protest and organizing it readily brands as "communist". The meaning of "communism" in the Philippines and I think even abroad has become pejorative already that even national democracy which is supposed to be a politics that reaches out to the most variegated and popular groupings, sectors and classes is being branded as "communist" (whatever their definition of the term may be).
New Zeal As I provided you the link that proved ANAKBAYAN's affiliation to the World Federation of Democratic Youth, I don't know how you remain in doubt. WFDY has been a communist front for 50 years. Most affiliates even use the word "communist" in their name. Your affiliation to WFDY does imply the communist nature of your organisation as virtually every other WFDY affiliate is OPENLY communist. Here it is again, from Wikipedia this time.
So Ivan, please do not try to pull the wool over my eyes.
Our government labels our organization as communist because it would like to restrict any acts of activity that will cast doubt upon its validity and its claim of being authentically representative to the democratic will of the people (the bourgeois-humanist illusion of the state being transcendent of classes, identities and interests).
There is no doubt that part of the reactionary Macapagal-Arroyo regimes grand effort to curtail the civil and democratic rights of the people to freely organize and dissent is to ostracize and label progressive, legal, and let me delineate, UNARMED organizations like ANAKBAYAN as communist to justify the ongoing series of extra-judicial killings of our members and leaders.
New Zeal There could be another reason why your government names your organisation as "communist"-because it is communist. ANAKBAYAN is also close to the League of Filipino Students, The KMU, KMP, NDF and several other Communist Party of the Philippines fronts.
This is not debatable, but well documented fact, easily confirmed with a little research.
I do not claim to be a huge authority on the Filipino left, but I have many contacts who know the subject well. One narrowly escaped assassination by an NPA "sparrow" squad some years ago. I do know enough, however to recognise your proclamations of innocence as disingenuous at best.
It is very much unfortunate and disappointing that you Mr. Loudon would buy this stale cold-war propaganda of the government who happens to have no respect for the universal and absolute right of every human person to freely express their own opinions and espouse systems of thought and beliefs without any repression. I can not believe that you even have to go to the extent of searching my name in google to obtaibn information about me, my affiliations, the school where I study and then publish it on the net after making the pronouncement that the organization of which I am a member of is a "communist Front"
You could have just argued against the merits and demerits of my blog post. Now I fear for my life. Who knows, the military may just be around the corner, waiting for my appearance. Who knows, I may be the next victim of GMA's vigilante death squads.
I hope we could just debate on the truth value and points of our arguments and line rather than resort to ad hominems, brandings, and regurgitated black propagandas.
Thank you very much.
I. P. Enrile
New Zeal Again, disingenuous. Regarding your life being in danger, why would you sign an internet petition, announcing your affiliation to ANAKBAYAN if that would put your life in danger?
Do you not think the Armed Forces Philippines have computers or can access the Internet?
If the left is correct and the AFP has spies on campus, I'm sure your affiliation is already well known to them.
Your government has already labelled ANAKBAYAN a "communist front", a fact you have confirmed above. Why then would you openly affiliate to the organisation in a forum as public as the internet?
What you have face Ivan is the fact that your organisation is supporting the Communist Party of the Philippines/New Peoples Army who are responsible for several thousand deaths-including civilians, AFP, "rebel" communists and several hundred of their own cadre.
If you wish to align yourself to such criminals, by all means do so, but don't deny me my right to point out the facts.
I admire your bravery Ivan, I really do. By being active as you are, you run risks that most NZ activists would never dream of.
However much you may disagree with your country's government-as I disagree with mine-it doesn't justify supporting terrorists and murderers. I support your right to free speech Ivan, but not your right to support killers.
If you want to play with the "big boys" Ivan, don't come crying if you get your name in print.
Next up, regular commenter, Cameron of the Free Papua Movement also takes me to task.
Trev Mr I P Enrile has a good point. Some of your blog posts could seriously put some people's lives at risk (such as this one and the one where you accussed a refugee of being Shining Path). As you can appreciate the Arroyo government and the military in the Philippines aren't particularly fond of human rights. Over the last few years many unionists and dissidents have been shot.
It seems the threat of the NPA is just used to crack down on legitimate dissent. Don't let your hatred of communism lead you to support repression of innocent people.
New Zeal Cameron, this is incorrect, for the reasons given above. I don't doubt that Ivan's life might one day be at risk, if he maintains his current affiliations. The choice is in his hands. He doesn't have to support communists.
Regarding the other post you refer to. Edgardo Alarcon Leon was a Peruvian student who was arrested and accused of taking part in a Sendero Luminoso bomb attack that killed three people.
After a long incarceration he was freed by the courts and made his way, as a refugee to New Zealand. Once here he joined a pro Sendero Luminoso organisation, "Radical Society" at Canterbury University and also probably at Auckland University.
He has since spent some time in Peru, from where he criticised his government on the internet.
I accused Mr Leon of nothing. I gathered publicly available information and pieced it together. I thought this was "free speech". Am I mistaken, or is free speech only to be used for the left and not against it?
Edgardo Leon abused the hospitality of this country by openly supporting a Maoist/terrorist organisation.
Ivan Phell Enrile, came onto my blog and wrote what I would frankly describe as propaganda.
Both deserve to be held accountable.
In many ways admire people like Ivan Phell Enrile and Edgardo Alarcon Leon. They take big risks for what they believe in. Unfortunately, what they believe in is evil and results in much death and destruction.
I suggest if either objects to being named, they should change their allegiances to something more positive and try to make amends for the damage they have done.
posted by Trevor Loudon at
4/08/2007 02:48:00 PM
9 Comments:
Glad to see you exposing these Communist scum for what they truly are.
Trev, I was also wondering if you could probably expose these Communist fronts you have been exposing so long on your New Zeal blog to the Once Upon a Time in the West blog.
I'm probably sure there is a much larger Communist network of front groups, and I am probably sure the owner would appreciate your work of exposing such fronts.
hello, im just a passerby, i dont really know much about communism etc but i know that the Philippine government, according to the investigation made by the United Nations, is actually responsible for the death of many leftists in the Philippines. on that note, i guess you are putting a life at risk here. now, i leave.
Refio Smith, Australia
Refio Smith, Australia
Hmm, strange, where have I heard this rhetoric coming from? Oh wait, didn't the Communist Party of the Phillippines stated a similar claim?
First things first.
Mr. Trevor Loudon states that terms like “semi-feudalism”, “semi-colonialism”, “imperialism”, “fascism”, “bourgeoisie” and sorts (basically, terms which I employed in my reaction to his previous blog post) are Marxist jargons, and by using Marxist jargons in my statement he concludes, my credibility is therefore destroyed.
For your information Mr. Loudon, the above-mentioned terms are terms not exclusively used within the Marxian parlance: they are no novelty made by Marx! Those terms have been used, also, by ACADEMICIANS, INTELLECTUALS, historians, political economists, literati, to refer and accurately describe phenomena, realities, historical forces and events; thinkers and practitioners who are not necessarily operating within the Marxist problematique. Post-structuralist/post-colonial critics like Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, Homi K. Bhabha and other renowned and celebrated philosophers made use of the term (some of them even critical, if not hostile, to Marxism). What this fact tells us about your Mr. Loudon, is your IGNORANCE regarding the meanings and uses of those terms; your intellectual depravity. Your statement is practically a cold-war knee-jerk reaction which sees RED whenever such terms come across their field of (myopic) vision. I bet you don’t even know the definition of those terms, nor are you acquainted with the philosophers that I have mentioned. But if you feel like laundering your imbecility to the reading public, go ahead, after all this is your blog site.
Mr. Loudon states: “Your affiliation to WFDY does imply the communist nature of your organisation as virtually every other WFDY affiliate is OPENLY communist”. Unfortunately Mr. Loudon failed to deconstruct my previous statement that ANAKBAYAN is an organization that has its own founding principles (which are in fact not “communist” by strict Marxist-Leninist standards, but are caricatured as such by those arrogant people who happen to be incredibly ignorant at the same time) and we unite with other organizations on the basis of those principles. Our strategy of forging alliances does not entail our absolute adoption of the ideologies and perspectives of those organizations and groups we are making alliance with.
Mr. Loudon merely repeats what he previously said. Unfortunately, mere insistence does not make a lie true. Nevertheless Mr. Loudon is adamant: “There could be another reason why your government names your organisation as "communist"-because it is communist. ANAKBAYAN is also close to the League of Filipino Students, The KMU, KMP, NDF and several other Communist Party of the Philippines fronts”. And then he says: “This is not debatable, but well documented fact, easily confirmed with a little research”. That is if resource for the research is acquired in the archives of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (which, for the benefit of the reading public, has failed to produce even an iota of credible evidence which can be brought up to the court that will establish legal organizations so-called links to the underground movement) As for the AFP and Mr. Loudon, they can only forever make hilarious connections-concoctions which may temporarily function as a source of entertainment for us Filipino leftists. I suggest that Mr. Loudon, now start to make his own “research”, contact and make the necessary arrangements with the publisher of “Harry Potter”. It will certainly sell in the “fantasy sections” of bookshops.
Mr. Loudon inquires me: “…why would you sign an internet petition, announcing your affiliation to ANAKBAYAN if that would put your life in danger?” The above mentioned internet petition, in fact, was for the post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida who recently passed away (do you know Mr. Loudon who Jacques Derrida is, have you read some of his works? can your brain actually process his ideas?). My affiliation with ANAKBAYAN in itself does not put my life and security in danger. And it shouldn’t be. My classmates, professors and friends are very well aware that I am a member of the said organization. We intelligently discuss and argue with each on the basis of the validity and soundness of our analyses regarding issues we present to them. But you Mr. Loudon, in a deductive (il)logical fashion, first categorically imputed my organization as being a communist front and then proceeded to abstract from therein that I, sine qua non, is a supporter of the communist movement (which amounts to the same thing, that I am a communist).
Mr. Loudon would like to establish connections out of what in reality, disparate events and spaces (my signing of a petition in the internet wherein I indicated my affiliation with ANAKBAYAN (a legal, UNARMED, youth organization) and his “revelation” to the public through this blogsite regarding my affiliation with ANAKBAYAN (which now (dis)figures in his site and in his imagination as a “communist front”) He is making comparisons and basing observations out of two very much distinct – to borrow Michel Foucault’s term – discursive contexts/environment (I suggest he study the linguist Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the dialogic character of utterances as not absolute in themselves, not enacted in a void or in isolation but rather executed and addressed for and within a specific, concrete sign-system with its own internal epistemological and semiotic processes). This answers Mr. Loudon’s stupid question for me: “Your government has already labelled ANAKBAYAN a "communist front", a fact you have confirmed above. Why then would you openly affiliate to the organisation in a forum as public as the internet?”
What I am vehemently protesting is Mr. Loudon’s distasteful act of maligning/slandering of legal, UNARMED, progressive organizations like ANAKBAYAN as communist fronts. By doing so, Mr. Loudon becomes no different from the terrorist/fascist henchmen of Mrs. Arroyo in the AFP.
We in Anakbayan firmly assert our right to legal recognition and operation as we are not violating the law nor have we inflicted any harm against any fellow. We are just claiming our right to freely organize and express our own opinions and views; rights that are enshrined, and guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights of the 1986 Philippine Constitution.
The first comment that I had posted onto his blog site was intended to encourage debates, stimulate honest-to-goodness intellectual discussions and exchange. Unfortunately, Mr. Loudon has a different agenda in mind. I went to the wrong web page.
Mr. Loudon demagogically proclaims his continued adherence to “free speech”. Mr. Loudon has to qualify his use of the word “free” here for it is already a well established truth that this phrase can also be used to suppress and silence voices which threaten the harmony and stability of the Symbolic Order. What Mr. Loudon probably means is that I am free to rant and rave versus the state as long as I do not infect others to do the same, and of course as long as I do not challenge the hegemony of Capital. In short, I am free to obey the normative rules of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her toy soldiers in the AFP.
Let us further peruse Mr. Loudon’s blog post: “If you wish to align yourself to such criminals, by all means do so, but don't deny me my right to point out the facts”. Mr. Loudon still needs to provide ample proof that I am indeed aligned with what he calls as “criminal” (the CPP-NPA, he means) before this statement could hold ground (his accusations against the CPP-NPA as a mere band of “criminals” requires another forum, he can not just simply say that the CPP-NPA is “criminal” without further elaboration). Mr. Loudon claims that I am depriving him of his right to point out the “facts”. As I have said previously the “facts” he is referring to are no facts: they are “regurgitated, stale, cold-war rhetoric” we Filipino activists already heard from the black-propaganda machines and outfits of the military.
And may I also dare say that Mr. Loudon is not simply pointing out “facts” (in his subjective interpretation of the term). He is rather giving it a certain narrative structure and form to fit his pre-determined premises (or ideological biases). Mr. Loudon himself is not free (nor will he ever be) from the structuring and structural operations of ideology (for ideology –or as the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls it, symbolic power – is that invisible power, like the Freudian unconscious, which can be exercised only with complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it.).
(In some instances, Mr. Loudon couldn’t even get some of his so-called “facts” straight. Anakbayan is not an electoral wing of BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance). Anakbayan is a mass-organization of Filipino youths and is a member-organization of BAYAN. We have our own partylist running for the upcoming national elections – Kabataan Party (Youth Party) – of which Anakbayan is one of the charter members. Would you readers let yourself be deluded by someone who supposedly points us the way to truth, when even minor details such as this Mr. Loudon can’t get right?)
Further into the fray.
Listen again to Mr. Loudon’s violent fulminations: “I don't doubt that Ivan's life might one day be at risk, if he maintains his current affiliations. The choice is in his hands. He doesn't have to support communists.” He says the choice is in my hands. But let me ask you Mr. Loudon, who determined and selected the “choices” laid out for me? The choice you said is whether I should or not support the “communists” – or to put it in a more correct manner – whether I should continue my membership with Anakbayan or not. As you see, the State (and Mr. Loudon) pre-selected the “choices” for me. This creates the illusion that I am, in fact, free to determine my security, future and life. What goes unquestioned is the power relations that exist between those who pre-selected my options and the subject who is (imagined to be) free to do the picking. The choosing subject is actually free to move (or pick) within the parameters of the existing social order constructed by those who are in power (or Mr. Loudon’s imaginary of pre-determined set of choices).
“In many ways (sic!) admire people like Ivan Phell Enrile and Edgardo Alarcon Leon. They take big risks for what they believe in. Unfortunately, what they believe in is evil and results in much death and destruction”. Indeed, flattery is also a form of rebuke especially if it emanates from the dirty mouths of those who practically knew none. Normative and ethico-religious assertions and judgments, alas, can never be admitted as a form of intelligent debate.
If there is anything fruitful that has resulted from this “interesting” encounter, I think it will be the fact that the public has finally seen the true political and ideological color of Mr. Loudon. Marxists (here I am openly acknowledging the term’s ideational/paradigmatic roots to Marxist discourse) have a term for the likes of Mr. Loudon: clerico-fascists. A clerico-fascist is someone who preaches social justice but are in fact ideological allies of the reactionary state. They endlessly babble about “freedom”, “potentials”, “working in the same direction” “responsibility” etc., concepts that will only hold true if they are used within the confines of the existing social relations. They are the real terrorists, Hitlers of the new world order from which humanity and civilization should be rescued.
“I suggest if either objects to being named, they should change their allegiances to something more positive and try to make amends for the damage they have done.”
With this, I am left with an expression that any intellectual could possibly reply: “huh?!”
I. P. Enrile
First things first.
Mr. Trevor Loudon states that terms like “semi-feudalism”, “semi-colonialism”, “imperialism”, “fascism”, “bourgeoisie” and sorts (basically, terms which I employed in my reaction to his previous blog post) are Marxist jargons, and by using Marxist jargons in my statement he concludes, my credibility is therefore destroyed.
For your information Mr. Loudon, the above-mentioned terms are terms not exclusively used within the Marxian parlance: they are no novelty made by Marx! Those terms have been used, also, by ACADEMICIANS, INTELLECTUALS, historians, political economists, literati, to refer and accurately describe phenomena, realities, historical forces and events; thinkers and practitioners who are not necessarily operating within the Marxist problematique. Post-structuralist/post-colonial critics like Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, Homi K. Bhabha and other renowned and celebrated philosophers made use of the term (some of them even critical, if not hostile, to Marxism). What this fact tells us about your Mr. Loudon, is your IGNORANCE regarding the meanings and uses of those terms; your intellectual depravity. Your statement is practically a cold-war knee-jerk reaction which sees RED whenever such terms come across their field of (myopic) vision. I bet you don’t even know the definition of those terms, nor are you acquainted with the philosophers that I have mentioned. But if you feel like laundering your imbecility to the reading public, go ahead, after all this is your blog site.
Mr. Loudon states: “Your affiliation to WFDY does imply the communist nature of your organisation as virtually every other WFDY affiliate is OPENLY communist”. Unfortunately Mr. Loudon failed to deconstruct my previous statement that ANAKBAYAN is an organization that has its own founding principles (which are in fact not “communist” by strict Marxist-Leninist standards, but are caricatured as such by those arrogant people who happen to be incredibly ignorant at the same time) and we unite with other organizations on the basis of those principles. Our strategy of forging alliances does not entail our absolute adoption of the ideologies and perspectives of those organizations and groups we are making alliance with.
Mr. Loudon merely repeats what he previously said. Unfortunately, mere insistence does not make a lie true. Nevertheless Mr. Loudon is adamant: “There could be another reason why your government names your organisation as "communist"-because it is communist. ANAKBAYAN is also close to the League of Filipino Students, The KMU, KMP, NDF and several other Communist Party of the Philippines fronts”. And then he says: “This is not debatable, but well documented fact, easily confirmed with a little research”. That is if resource for the research is acquired in the archives of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (which, for the benefit of the reading public, has failed to produce even an iota of credible evidence which can be brought up to the court that will establish legal organizations so-called links to the underground movement) As for the AFP and Mr. Loudon, they can only forever make hilarious connections-concoctions which may temporarily function as a source of entertainment for us Filipino leftists. I suggest that Mr. Loudon, now start to make his own “research”, contact and make the necessary arrangements with the publisher of “Harry Potter”. It will certainly sell in the “fantasy sections” of bookshops.
Mr. Loudon inquires me: “…why would you sign an internet petition, announcing your affiliation to ANAKBAYAN if that would put your life in danger?” The above mentioned internet petition, in fact, was for the post-structuralist philosopher Jacques Derrida who recently passed away (do you know Mr. Loudon who Jacques Derrida is, have you read some of his works? can your brain actually process his ideas?). My affiliation with ANAKBAYAN in itself does not put my life and security in danger. And it shouldn’t be. My classmates, professors and friends are very well aware that I am a member of the said organization. We intelligently discuss and argue with each on the basis of the validity and soundness of our analyses regarding issues we present to them. But you Mr. Loudon, in a deductive (il)logical fashion, first categorically imputed my organization as being a communist front and then proceeded to abstract from therein that I, sine qua non, is a supporter of the communist movement (which amounts to the same thing, that I am a communist).
Mr. Loudon would like to establish connections out of what in reality, disparate events and spaces (my signing of a petition in the internet wherein I indicated my affiliation with ANAKBAYAN (a legal, UNARMED, youth organization) and his “revelation” to the public through this blogsite regarding my affiliation with ANAKBAYAN (which now (dis)figures in his site and in his imagination as a “communist front”) He is making comparisons and basing observations out of two very much distinct – to borrow Michel Foucault’s term – discursive contexts/environment (I suggest he study the linguist Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the dialogic character of utterances as not absolute in themselves, not enacted in a void or in isolation but rather executed and addressed for and within a specific, concrete sign-system with its own internal epistemological and semiotic processes). This answers Mr. Loudon’s stupid question for me: “Your government has already labelled ANAKBAYAN a "communist front", a fact you have confirmed above. Why then would you openly affiliate to the organisation in a forum as public as the internet?”
What I am vehemently protesting is Mr. Loudon’s distasteful act of maligning/slandering of legal, UNARMED, progressive organizations like ANAKBAYAN as communist fronts. By doing so, Mr. Loudon becomes no different from the terrorist/fascist henchmen of Mrs. Arroyo in the AFP.
We in Anakbayan firmly assert our right to legal recognition and operation as we are not violating the law nor have we inflicted any harm against any fellow. We are just claiming our right to freely organize and express our own opinions and views; rights that are enshrined, and guaranteed to us in the Bill of Rights of the 1986 Philippine Constitution.
The first comment that I had posted onto his blog site was intended to encourage debates, stimulate honest-to-goodness intellectual discussions and exchange. Unfortunately, Mr. Loudon has a different agenda in mind. I went to the wrong web page.
Mr. Loudon demagogically proclaims his continued adherence to “free speech”. Mr. Loudon has to qualify his use of the word “free” here for it is already a well established truth that this phrase can also be used to suppress and silence voices which threaten the harmony and stability of the Symbolic Order. What Mr. Loudon probably means is that I am free to rant and rave versus the state as long as I do not infect others to do the same, and of course as long as I do not challenge the hegemony of Capital. In short, I am free to obey the normative rules of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her toy soldiers in the AFP.
Let us further peruse Mr. Loudon’s blog post: “If you wish to align yourself to such criminals, by all means do so, but don't deny me my right to point out the facts”. Mr. Loudon still needs to provide ample proof that I am indeed aligned with what he calls as “criminal” (the CPP-NPA, he means) before this statement could hold ground (his accusations against the CPP-NPA as a mere band of “criminals” requires another forum, he can not just simply say that the CPP-NPA is “criminal” without further elaboration). Mr. Loudon claims that I am depriving him of his right to point out the “facts”. As I have said previously the “facts” he is referring to are no facts: they are “regurgitated, stale, cold-war rhetoric” we Filipino activists already heard from the black-propaganda machines and outfits of the military.
And may I also dare say that Mr. Loudon is not simply pointing out “facts” (in his subjective interpretation of the term). He is rather giving it a certain narrative structure and form to fit his pre-determined premises (or ideological biases). Mr. Loudon himself is not free (nor will he ever be) from the structuring and structural operations of ideology (for ideology –or as the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu calls it, symbolic power – is that invisible power, like the Freudian unconscious, which can be exercised only with complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it.).
(In some instances, Mr. Loudon couldn’t even get some of his so-called “facts” straight. Anakbayan is not an electoral wing of BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance). Anakbayan is a mass-organization of Filipino youths and is a member-organization of BAYAN. We have our own partylist running for the upcoming national elections – Kabataan Party (Youth Party) – of which Anakbayan is one of the charter members. Would you readers let yourself be deluded by someone who supposedly points us the way to truth, when even minor details such as this Mr. Loudon can’t get right?)
Further into the fray.
Listen again to Mr. Loudon’s violent fulminations: “I don't doubt that Ivan's life might one day be at risk, if he maintains his current affiliations. The choice is in his hands. He doesn't have to support communists.” He says the choice is in my hands. But let me ask you Mr. Loudon, who determined and selected the “choices” laid out for me? The choice you said is whether I should or not support the “communists” – or to put it in a more correct manner – whether I should continue my membership with Anakbayan or not. As you see, the State (and Mr. Loudon) pre-selected the “choices” for me. This creates the illusion that I am, in fact, free to determine my security, future and life. What goes unquestioned is the power relations that exist between those who pre-selected my options and the subject who is (imagined to be) free to do the picking. The choosing subject is actually free to move (or pick) within the parameters of the existing social order constructed by those who are in power (or Mr. Loudon’s imaginary of pre-determined set of choices).
“In many ways (sic!) admire people like Ivan Phell Enrile and Edgardo Alarcon Leon. They take big risks for what they believe in. Unfortunately, what they believe in is evil and results in much death and destruction”. Indeed, flattery is also a form of rebuke especially if it emanates from the dirty mouths of those who practically knew none. Normative and ethico-religious assertions and judgments, alas, can never be admitted as a form of intelligent debate.
If there is anything fruitful that has resulted from this “interesting” encounter, I think it will be the fact that the public has finally seen the true political and ideological color of Mr. Loudon. Marxists (here I am openly acknowledging the term’s ideational/paradigmatic roots to Marxist discourse) have a term for the likes of Mr. Loudon: clerico-fascists. A clerico-fascist is someone who preaches social justice but are in fact ideological allies of the reactionary state. They endlessly babble about “freedom”, “potentials”, “working in the same direction” “responsibility” etc., concepts that will only hold true if they are used within the confines of the existing social relations. They are the real terrorists, Hitlers of the new world order from which humanity and civilization should be rescued.
“I suggest if either objects to being named, they should change their allegiances to something more positive and try to make amends for the damage they have done.”
With this, I am left with an expression that any intellectual could possibly reply: “huh?!”
I. P. Enrile
on a final note, i realized and asked myself why for chrissakes, do i really have to spend much of my intellectual energies and time for such a forum like this which in the first place does not have any intellectual credibility? do I really want to let myself get caught debating and arguing (if such were really the case) with people who are obviously my intellectual inferiors?
ARE ALL THESE REALLY WORTH THE EFFORT?
I'm afraid that the answer is in the negative.
Reading your nonsense isn't worth it either Anon.
Any organisation that has democratic in its name is usually anything but.
Hi everybody. I am Datu Daku. Sorry if its only now that I stumbled upon your site and exchange of ideas. I wish activist Enrile was with us in the streets against Marcos following the death of Ninoy Aquino. He could have understand that the Philippine communists are fond of bragging that every organization it organize is LEGAL, OPEN, UNARMED, Etcetera just to present an iota of acceptance. Fuck you, boy! You came in late. We were there before. We even went to the hills, took up arms, tortured some soldiers only to be labelled COUNTER REVOLUTIONARIES by the elites of the Philippine Left. Hope you follow the road I took and, instead of safely abandoning the insurgent movement, get yourself subjected to kangaroo courts, surgeries without anaesthesia, days of hunger, malaria and sexual abuse by pedophiliac commanders. Its not too late, Mr. Enrile. You can still join the armed combatants. There's no use arguing your case in a country where the courts can be corrupted and the people are immune to news about corruption. To the hills, Comrade! And know how it feels to be a combatant. By the way, I entered the route through College Editors Guild of the Philippines - an organization of campus editors and not of loud thinkers like you. Enjoy the hills, sucker!
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