Press Statement
September 3, 2003
Patricio Ramirez
Spokesperson Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino

Rectify errors by committing bigger mistake In advocating a mere regime change rather than system change, Roger Rosal should consider a change of career from spokesperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)to that of Philconsa (Philippines Constitutional Ammendment, an institute that advocates constitutional processes). His formula of ousting Gloria Macapagal Arroyo(GMA)and installing Vice-president Guingona as successor smacks of constitutionalism that is unheard of for a supposed communist like him.

Before the CPP calls on the people to oust the incumbent regime, it should first of all apologize for foisting upon the nation the disaster that is the GMA regime. Just like its present call to install Guingona since he is the constitutional successor, the CPP and its front organizations then moved to establish GMA as the alternative to the former regime of Joseph Estrada regime despite her reactionary record on the shallow premise that she was the Vice-president.

The CPP is poised to rectify its error by committing a bigger mistake-oust the regime it helped install by supporting another pretender to the throne. Ousting GMA to install Guingona will be a worse sequel to their “Erap resign and GMA for president” movement that objectively served as the civilian component to the military coup led by Angelo Reyes (Secretary of National Defence).

No doubt Ka Roger will buttress his opportunist “constitutional” call by arguing that is an application of the Maoist tactics of defeating one enemy at a time. He should learn his history lessons well. Mao forged an alliance with Chiang Kai-shek against the Japanese Army but not for a Kuomintang government. Here, the CPP struck a united front with GMA not just to oust the Estrada regime but to install her as successor.

The working masses and the Filipino people should the lessons of the past three EDSA’s. Pretenders assumed power on the backs of popular uprisings only to betray the workers and the people. Instead, the workers and poor should stamp their plebian imprint through mass struggles that will advance a radical not constitutional solution to the political crisis.

The revolutionary party of the working class calls upon the workers and the people to launch mass struggles in defense of their interests amidst the deepening crisis of the ruling system. If and when the political crisis matures into the ouster of the GMA regime and another uprising erupts, the workers and the people must fight for a transitional regime that will institute radical reforms and will not be bound by the bourgeois constitution or the 2004 elections.

They cannot stop halfway and settle for a Guingona presidency until after the elections-a constitutional solution that is a mere transition to another betrayal of the people. The party calls upon the progressive forces to forge the independent movement of the people and launch struggles that will assail the present regime for its pro-elite, pro-globalization and pro-imperialist policies.

As a start, they should boycott the coming political summit for its agenda is to negotiate a ceasefire among rival factions of the elite and not find solutions to the problems of the masses. Instead they must devote their effort to linking the struggles of labor for wages and rights, the urban poor for housing and livelihood and the peasants for land and services into a powerful movement that will push for a radical solution to the crisis of the rotten system. ###

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The PMP is the merger party formed in the unity congress held August 2002 of the Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino, Sosyalistang Partido ng Paggawa and Partido Proletaryo Demokratiko, which compose the majority of the Rejectionists that split from the CPP in repudiation of Stalinism and Maoism. The name PMP was retained as a tribute to Felimon “Popoy” Lagman, the founding general-secretary of the old PMP.