So,
President Duterte ranted – contextualized though in the pursuit of the common
good: “It’s the majority of the people,
huwag niyong ipasubo ang tao.”
Still,
there is no mistaking the raving: “I’m giving you… until the end of the year, sumunod kayo kasi January 1, kapag may nakita ako na hindi na-rehistro,
luma, guguyurin ko yan sa harap niyo.”
And,
the unmasking – of Duterte’s populist, aye, pro-masa, image reveled in by the 16 million who made him president.
Yes, the drivers and operators of jeepneys who took the streets Monday and
Tuesday, included. They who are now the object of his bluster.
Here
yet is another self-contradiction afflicting Duterte – the self-avowed
socialist at the time of the election campaign, the tyrant of a president.
His
disdain, if not utter abomination, of the masa
– the very core of his political base – most manifest, not only in these fulminations
against striking drivers, but in the fulsome slaughter of the poor, be they
drug addicts or pushers, or innocent collaterals to his war on drugs.
There
is not an iota of the socialist in Duterte. There is in him everything of the
elitist, at the least of the peti-burgis.
Else,
he would have taken to heart the DG (the student activists’ discussion group)
lessons of his generation at the time of the “days of disquiet and nights of
rage.” Yes, those lessons unrepentant socialists like myself, pull out like
mantras at every call of their continuing relevance. As I have first written in
the now defunct Pampanga News issue
of March 23-29, 2006 under the heading The
masa antithesis:
HINDI
MANGMANG ang masa. Sila’y pinagkaitan lamang ng tamang pagkakataon upang ganap
na umusbong ang kanilang katalinuhan, ng akmang kaganapan upang malinang ang
kanilang karunungan – pagkakataong pinigil ng hagkis ng kahirapan; kaganapang
sinupil ng hataw ng pang-aapi’t pagsasamantala ng mga naghahari-hariang uri.
That “the incompetence of the masses is almost universal throughout the domains of political life…” is a fundamental fallacy in the bourgeois postulates on the people.
The masa response: There is no inherent mass incompetence among the people: there is mass oppression, exploitation, and deprivation that caused incompetence.
Premium to the existence of class exploitative societies is the oppression of the people. Of the highest priority is the reduction of the people to their basic animal instincts, the deprivation of their natural rights as human beings, in order to best serve – in the bourgeois interest – their principal purpose as nothing more than tools of production.
Sa kaisipang elitista, ang masa ay kawan ng baka’t kalabaw na isinisingkaw sa mga bukirin, sa mga planta’t pabrika upang mabigyan tugon ang lahat ng mga pangangailangan, upang masustentuhan ang lahat ng luho at kapritso ng uring peti-burgis.
Tunay ka, kasama: Tamad na burgis na ayaw gumawa, sa pawis ng masa ay nagpapasasa.
Deprivation damns the people to incompetence, dispossessing them of the necessary knowledge and skills to rise above the lot pre-ordained for them by the ruling class.
Born poor. Live poor. Die poor. Paldac-sicaran ning cacaluluan, ibat qng quebaitan angga na qng camatayan, as we put it in Capampangan. An animal existence. To the elite, that is the masa destiny. A vicious cycle with neither definitive end nor fixed beginning.
Of that, it is not.
Incompetence, as we have stated, is reared upon deprivation which in turn is rooted in exploitation which spawns from oppression. To make possible the elimination of incompetence among the people then, exploitation needs to be uprooted.
Ang pagkapantay-pantay ng mga mamamayan ang sandigan ng isang demokratikong estado. Ang mga kalakarang piyudal, pagbubusabos sa mga anak-pawis, paniniil sa mga anak-dalita ay walang puwang dito.
So government exists for the purpose of preserving the status quo. This does not cover though the preservation of the system of class exploitation.
Ang pagtaas sa antas ng pamumuhay ng mga mamamayan ay hindi lamang pangunahin kundi sagradong gampanin ng pamahalaan. Lakip nito ang pagbibigay puwang sa pinakamaliit at pinaka-aba mang mamamayan ng bahagi sa mga gawain at pagkilos na tuwirang tumitimo sa kanilang buhay. Anumang kaganapang taliwas dito ay isang kabalintunaan sa demokratikong estado.
The bourgeois thesis of governance as a monopoly of the propertied class has been – rightfully – long consigned to the dustbin of history.
There is, though, an emerging new elitism. This, the masa should fight with a determined populism.
NO, NOT that kind of populism arrogated unto Duterte. Who, in fact, is an elitist to the core
That “the incompetence of the masses is almost universal throughout the domains of political life…” is a fundamental fallacy in the bourgeois postulates on the people.
The masa response: There is no inherent mass incompetence among the people: there is mass oppression, exploitation, and deprivation that caused incompetence.
Premium to the existence of class exploitative societies is the oppression of the people. Of the highest priority is the reduction of the people to their basic animal instincts, the deprivation of their natural rights as human beings, in order to best serve – in the bourgeois interest – their principal purpose as nothing more than tools of production.
Sa kaisipang elitista, ang masa ay kawan ng baka’t kalabaw na isinisingkaw sa mga bukirin, sa mga planta’t pabrika upang mabigyan tugon ang lahat ng mga pangangailangan, upang masustentuhan ang lahat ng luho at kapritso ng uring peti-burgis.
Tunay ka, kasama: Tamad na burgis na ayaw gumawa, sa pawis ng masa ay nagpapasasa.
Deprivation damns the people to incompetence, dispossessing them of the necessary knowledge and skills to rise above the lot pre-ordained for them by the ruling class.
Born poor. Live poor. Die poor. Paldac-sicaran ning cacaluluan, ibat qng quebaitan angga na qng camatayan, as we put it in Capampangan. An animal existence. To the elite, that is the masa destiny. A vicious cycle with neither definitive end nor fixed beginning.
Of that, it is not.
Incompetence, as we have stated, is reared upon deprivation which in turn is rooted in exploitation which spawns from oppression. To make possible the elimination of incompetence among the people then, exploitation needs to be uprooted.
Ang pagkapantay-pantay ng mga mamamayan ang sandigan ng isang demokratikong estado. Ang mga kalakarang piyudal, pagbubusabos sa mga anak-pawis, paniniil sa mga anak-dalita ay walang puwang dito.
So government exists for the purpose of preserving the status quo. This does not cover though the preservation of the system of class exploitation.
Ang pagtaas sa antas ng pamumuhay ng mga mamamayan ay hindi lamang pangunahin kundi sagradong gampanin ng pamahalaan. Lakip nito ang pagbibigay puwang sa pinakamaliit at pinaka-aba mang mamamayan ng bahagi sa mga gawain at pagkilos na tuwirang tumitimo sa kanilang buhay. Anumang kaganapang taliwas dito ay isang kabalintunaan sa demokratikong estado.
The bourgeois thesis of governance as a monopoly of the propertied class has been – rightfully – long consigned to the dustbin of history.
There is, though, an emerging new elitism. This, the masa should fight with a determined populism.
NO, NOT that kind of populism arrogated unto Duterte. Who, in fact, is an elitist to the core
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