It is hard to explain Akbayan’s vision, analysis and strategy because these evolved as Akbayan evolved. The Party went through two phases. The first phase of Akbayan lasted from 1998 to 2003, from its actual formation to its five years of existence. The last phase was from 2003 up to the present.
During its formative phase, Akbayan’s political program was basically the result of a process of consultation from 1996-1997. Its vision and platform were based on an analysis of the situation in the Philippines and an analysis of global capitalism. The structural analysis - including gender and class analysis - were not that deep. Based on these, regional consultations were held and we were able to come up with a political platform which Ed dela Torre (when he was still in Akbayan) called a progressive reform platform.
It is clear that Akbayan was not a class-based party with a clear class analysis. We used the phrase “a party for national governance” to describe Akbayan. Its beginnings were very diluted in order to give would-be participants a chance to undergo a narrative process. When its platform was approved in 1997, Dodong Nemenzo came out immediately with a ten-page criticism. He said he was used to lost causes, but he was not going to spend his last years for a program that was not worth dying for, that looked like an NGO proposal and the shopping list of various sectors and regions. But it did resemble a shopping list and was without coherence, without a sound long-term trajectory, and looking back, it really looked like a project proposal. That was how we started.
Akbayan’s organizational form was also not well-developed. During the first phase, there was a debate on what kind of party Akbayan should be. One wing (which included Benjie de Vera of Mindanao) said it should be a political party that is more comprehensive, ideological and strategic, with a good structural analysis and ideological vision. Another wing wanted to maintain Akbayan as a parliamentary party that will focus on the parliamentary and electoral arenas, or at least while the party’s unity, analysis and strategy were developing. This was the 1997-1998 debate.
In its first phase, Akbayan eventually took the form of a semi-coalition of various political forces with individuals who did not belong to political blocs. It resembled a campaign machinery; it was not really an organization or party with functional chapters that were disciplined and were united around a common point of view, and marching in step. These weaknesses were evident during the 1998 elections. There were chapters with different candidates on the local level although they all belonged to Akbayan. There were also local members who allied themselves with different parties. The first phase was characterized basically by coalition politics that was not too different from issue-based coalitions, accommodating differences and seeking to build on these unities. Akbayan became better known, not as a parliamentary party, but as a party-list party that focuses on anti-corruption.
I remember that Ric Reyes walked out (but later returned) on our first educational conference because he was insistent on class analysis. There was no problem with some of the forces but at that moment; not everybody in Akbayan was united on that point. Class analysis was the subject of debate, and no unity was reached at that stage. At the initial phase, around half of the original Akbayan members left to form other party-list parties such as Abanse Pinay, Anak Mindanao, Pinatubo Party and alliances of basic sectors. Others from PDP-Laban and the Liberal Party also left. What were left were the three little pigs and Etta who gave them that name. Akbayan’s political unity was shaped basically by who its members were at a particular period. 2003 was a defining moment because it became clear that Akbayan could not survive and enter into engagements as a coalition with a political platform that was not worth dying for, as Dodong stated. It will not survive or it will survive as a marginal, traditional political party, if its vision, analysis and strategy do not undergo a process of evolution. There were lots of fights, friction and debates from 2001-2003. Also, one of themost intense and important debatea concerned cha-cha or charter change.
With this process, Akbayan’s vision, analysis and strategy and organizational form became more ideological. The interaction between class and gender, class and ethnicity and class and ecology became clearer in its analysis. It clarified the importance of class and its manifestation in various forms of exploitation - the class component of patriarchy, gender, ethnicity and environmental destruction. What is dominant among these, and the common thread they share, are issues that are still being debated and remain unsolved. The value of class analysis and of the various manifestations of different forms of exploitation, later on was recognized. At the same time, it was recognized that class alone could not explain issues and exploitation involving ethnicity, environment, and gender.
During Akbayan’s Third Congress in 2003, the delegates agreed on participatory socialism as the alternative to the new kind of global capitalism. The social blueprint was not tied to redistribution but recognized the dual components of socialism. The economic program favored people’s socialism but there was a debate on the role of the state. Others stood for self-managing socialism; still others defined the role of the state as ensuring self-management at the basic levels.
There was a debate on self-determination and secession. The federal form of government was approved in principle, but there was a debate on how to get there. The right to secede was recognized, although groups may see no need to secede if problems can be resolved through the federal form of government. People agreed that a federal system is disastrous if imposed from above but successful if not. Political strategy focused on the open and legal parliamentary terrain with components that should be developed, such as developmental alternatives. Socialism is considered a process, not only a vision. Alternative centers of power with alternative visions should be organized both inside and outside of the institutions.
It was clear by 2003 that Akbayan should be strategically opposed to the bourgeois state. It believes, as a socialist political party, that there will be a qualitative leap in the evolutionary process. Although it is a parliamentary party, it represents class structures and social movements tied to class unity and gender unity. It believes that an accumulation of struggles, at a particular moment of rupture, should challenge the nature of the bourgeois state.Akbayan should be open to that moment, although it may not lead the moment. Finally, Akbayan is evolving into a unitary party and blocs will either have to adjust or fuse.