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The Original Founders (Early 20th Century)

The Original Founders (Early 20th Century)

Be A Part of the real Change in the New Philippines

Be A Part of the real Change in the New Philippines

2015年5月5日星期二

KARL MARX TUESDAYS

PHILIPPINE SOCIETY AND THE REVOLUTION AGAINST THE PHILIPPINE DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT
By: Comrade Mark Cua

II. US Imperialism
The Scheme to Prolong U.S. Domination

In the last 10 years, the crisis in the Philippine economy has rapidly worsened. This has been the result of the vicious maneuvers of U.S. imperialism to shift the burden of its economic crisis at home to its colonies and semicolonies and also to prepare for the termination of the Laurel-Langley Agreement and the Parity Amendment. The scheme of U.S. imperialism is to put the Philippines into such a desperate financial situation as to ensure the prolongation of imperialist privileges. At the same time, all-out military and police preparations and actual operations are conducted to counteract the revolutionary mass movement inflamed by the economic crisis. Counterrevolutionary reformist campaigns are also waged to sow confusion in the ranks of the revolutionary masses.

As a result of the full and immediate decontrol of foreign exchange at the start of the Macapagal puppet regime, U.S. business firms remitted profits heavily and the comprador-landlords used their dollar earnings as they pleased. The dollar reserves of the reactionary government were depleted and the peso sank in value from P2.00 to P3.90 per U.S. dollar in the absence of sufficient dollars to support it. To maintain the peso at its new level, the Philippine reactionary government was extended “stabilization�? loans at onerous terms. But these loans were mainly sucked up by U.S. firms and their comprador-landlord and bureaucrat allies. The puppet chieftain Macapagal promoted the “open-door�? policy on foreign investments and the idea of “joint ventures�? and allowed U.S. subsidiaries to grab the foreign loans in remitting profits, building up their local assets, taking over Filipino enterprises or overloading them with foreign loans in preparation for being taken over and the like.

During the first four years of the Marcos puppet regime, U.S. imperialism went high on aggravating the puppet policies of the Macapagal regime. The Marcos puppet regime was even more efficient in implementing the recommendations made by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank as early as 1960. It was able to increase taxes ostensibly of those with the ability to pay, who in turn shifted the tax burden to the broad masses of the people in the form of steeply rising prices. The Marcos puppet regime profligately made expenditures on public works and other inflationary projects. The U.S. subsidiaries and the comprador-landlords were extended the biggest government loans and guarantees. There was a splurge on luxuries, buildup of sugar mills, mining projects and mining speculation. The bureaucrat capitalists exacted the most stupendous amounts of kickbacks on import-export contracts, especially in contracts with foreign machinery and construction firms.

At the beginning of 1970, it was clear that the Marcos puppet regime had succeeded in making the Philippines more bankrupt than ever before, with a big internal and external debt. The peso sank to another low level, at more than P6.00 per U.S. dollar. In only eight years, the peso suffered a devaluation of more than 200 per cent in relation to the U.S. dollar. The International Monetary Fund, functioning as the agency of U.S. imperialism, dictated the devaluation of the peso as a precondition for the rescheduling of loan payments and also for the granting of new loans by U.S. imperialism. The automatic result of the peso devaluation was the increase in the price of all commodities and the increase in value of all foreign debts.

In February 1970, the peso value of the $1.5 billion foreign debt rose from P5.85 billion to at least P9.3 billion (at the unsettled rate of P6.20 per U.S. dollar) excluding interest which also rose. In June, only five months after, the foreign debts reached $1.9 billion or at least P11.78 billion excluding interest. Annual interest payments alone on these debts consumed half of the dollar earnings on Philippine raw material exports. In this process, U.S. imperialism is the worst usurer in the whole world. The Philippines does not stop begging for foreign loans from U.S. imperialism because it has to import many vital commodities which its colonial economy does not produce and because it has to service previous foreign debts. The rapid increase in the value of such foreign loans can only concretely mean ever cheaper raw materials and cheaper local labor for U.S. imperialism and an ever higher cost of importing finished products from the United States and other imperialist countries. The working people are today suffering from the higher prices of commodities; their real income has gone down and no adequate adjustment has been made by the puppet government. The daily minimum wage has been refixed at P8.00 for industrial workers, a mere increase of 33 per cent, yet the devaluation is at least 60 per cent and continues to cut down real wages in a rapid way.

A puppet government that is bankrupt cannot be expected to undertake the expropriation of U.S. assets with U.S. dollars. It is both politically and economically impossible for that puppet government to do 90. The repeated devaluation of the peso has increased the vslue of these alien assets and has favored their buildup in 90 many related ways. As a matter of fact, the U.S. monopolies have deliberately increased their assets in the Philippines from $440 million in 196220 to at least $2.0 billion (book value) in 1969. They did so by bringing in only a small amount of direct investments and by borrowing heavily from local credit sources. They sucked up the very same laws that they had extended to the Philippine puppet government at onerous terms. The rapid buildup of U.S. interests, inside and outside the areas of “parity rights�? is obviously calculated to effect a firmer internal U.S. political and economic control of the Philippines. It is to prepare for the termination of the Laurel-Langley Agreement and the Parity Amendment and to nullify any notion that U.S. assets could be bought out within the framework of reactionary laws.

In the light of the financial bankruptcy of the reactionary government and the severe impoverishment of the Filipino people, it is clearly counterrevolutionary to advocate the “peaceful nationalization�? of the economy or to hope that the mere formal termination of the Laurel-Langley Agreement and the Parity Amendment would automatically inaugurate economic independence. Besides, the majority of U.S. investments (more than 50 per cent\ are now outside the areas of “parity rights�? and are therefore legally allowed to stick in business entities where U.S..investors can own and control more than 40 per cent.

In order to promote the acceptance of U.S. investments in the Philippines, U.S. imperialism is actually subsidizing counterrevolutionary organizations and movements spouting such nonsense as “peaceful revolution,�? “constitutional reform,�? “due process,�? “just compensation,�? “profit-sharing,�? “joint ventures,�? “hospitality to foreign guests�? and other such hogwash. These counterrevolutionary slogans are all intended to slur over the viciousness of U.S. monopoly capital and to head off the revolutionary mass movement clamoring for people’s war against U.S. imperialism and all its local lackeys.

Not even the national bourgeoisie can hope to increase its share in the exploitation of the Filipino people. This social stratum is daily facing bankruptcy. The few commodities that it produces locally cannot escape the rising cost of importing fuel, equipment, spare parts, raw materials and the like. The local sources of credit have practically dried up for the national bourgeoisie. More than this local stratum, the Japanese militarists and the Soviet social-imperialists have the better chance of joining up or competing with U.S. imperialism in the exploitation of the people.

The Investment Incentives Law was enacted to pave the way for the continuance and aggravation of U.S. economic control over the Philippines after the termination of the Laurel-Langley Agreement and the Parity Amendment. The Constitutional Convention now being played up by the counterrevolutionaries as a channel for “change�? in Philippine society is actually a step towards allowing the U.S. monopolies to own more than 40 per cent equity beyond 1974, even in the utilization of public lands, exploitation of natural resources and the operation of public utilities. As certain as dominance of comprador and landlord delegates in the Constitutional Convention, the accommodation of the Investment Incentives Law and an unequal treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation with the United States will be carried out by the most significant amendments in the colonial constitution.

The Investment Incentives Law empowers the Board of Investments, a mere agency of the puppet president, to allow U.S.-dominated enterprises to persist or be set up in the Philippines even without limiting their equity capital to a maximum of 40 per cent in corporations as per requirements of the present constitution. Section 19, Paragraph 3 of the investments law allows foreign investors to own even 100 per cent equity in local corporations provided that they merely signify their intention of selling shares of stock to Filipinos or “Philippine nationals�? within 10 years from the date of registration of such corporations. On the eleventh year, these corporations are supposed to actually offer for sale shares of stock in the stock exchange. But if Filipinos and “Philippine nationals�? fail to buy enough shares to reduce direct foreign equity to 40 per cent, so much the better for the foreign investors because they would be permitted to continue owning equity beyond 40 per cent for 20 years from the date of registration of the corporations. After one period of 20 years, these corporations may again be permitted to stay under unlimited U.S. ownership and control for another period of 20 years.

The Investment Incentives Law sanctifies the “Philippine national,�? a corporation with a maximum of 40 per cent foreign equity in its capital structure. Thus, there is so much talk nowadays about giving “national treatment to U.S. investments among the puppet politicians. The outlandish definition of “Philippine national “ is calculated to allow the U.S. monopolies to hold more than 40 per cent equity even in local corporations where they are restricted to a maximum limit of 40 per cent equity. For an illustration, let us have corporations A and B. If corporation A bears 40 per cent foreign equity and qualifies as a “Philippine national,�? it can acquire and hold 60 per cent equity in corporation B side by side with 40 per cent equity directly headed by foreign investors. In such an interlocking relationship, corporation A actually effects 64 per cent foreign equity in corporation B, if one were to do away with legal blinders. In turn, corporation B will certainly have an impact on corporation A in favor of foreign control.

It is already sufficient for the U.S.monopolies to own and control 40 per cent equity in order to control an entire corporation irternally. This is easily effected by keeping solid 40 per cent equity in the hands of foreign investors and keeping diffused through the stock market the 60 per cent among Filipino petty shareholders. It is an old trick of monopoly capitalists to use a small but solid block of shares to control a big mass of small shareholders. It is in line with this imperialist trick that there is a huge campaign for “profit-sharing�? (an obscurantist term for stock manipulation) to mislead some wage-earners and petty-bourgeois elements to surrender their meager savings and future earnings to the exploiters or allow the U.S. monopolies and the local reactionaries to rob the Social Security System (S.S.S.), the Government Service Insurance System (G.S.I.S.), the Development Bank of the Philippines (D.B.P.) and the Philippine National Bank (P.N.B.). The U.S. imperialists, rapacious as they are, wish to have more levers for retaining their political and economic power over the Philippines.

There are other ways by which the U.S. monopolies could continue controlling and enjoying ownership of more than 40 per cent of the capital in a corporation and also more than 40 per cent of the profits even after the termination of the Laurel-Langley Agreement and the Parity Amendment. These were obsequiously explained by the Philippine panel to the American panel in the negotiations on the Laurel-Langley Agreement. The U.S. monopolies could hold non-voting shares and bonds in corporations, exercise credit control, impose management contracts, manipulate purchase agreements and technical assistance contracts and so many others that reactionary power permits. Moreover, the Braderman-Virata negotiations have sought to perpetuate “parity rights�? by simply replacing the term with a new one, “national treatment,�? in the treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation now being cooked up. In the communique issued by the negotiators, it is evident that the U.S. imperialists and their local running dogs are willing to remove U.S. “parity rights�? only from the field of retail trade.

The Investment Incentives Law worsens the economic enslavement of the Filipino people and sells off every semblance of Philippine sovereignty to U.S. imperialism. The puppet state is bound by this law never to expropriate or requisition foreign assets. It is also bound to provide U.S. dollars to foreign investors for the repatriation of investment, remittance of earnings and payment of all foreign loans and contractual obligations. In addition to these basic privileges, the U.S. investors through their corporations registered with the Board of Investments enjoy such “incentives�? as capital-gains tax exemption, tax allowance, tax exemption on sale of stock dividends, deduction of organizational and pre-operating expenses, accelerated depreciation, net operating 1oss carryover, tax credit, tax exemption on imported capital equipment, employment of foreign nationals, deduction for expansion reinvestment, protection from government competition, preference in grant of government loans, absorption of G.S.I.S. and S.S.S. funds and special export incentives.

The Investment Incentives Law has set a pattern of legislation intended to perpetuate U.S. ownership and control of local firms to the extent of 100 per cent. The Export Incentives Law allows foreign equity up to 55 per cent in export industries and up to 100 per cent in pioneer industries engaged in export.

Following the dictates of their U.S. imperialist masters, the reactionaries have also taken to creating free trade zones, like the Mariveles Free Trade Zone, to let the U.S. monopolies have permanent economic enclaves where they are beyond the tax laws of the Philippine puppet government.

U.S. imperialism is using both peaceful and violent methods of suppressing the Filipino people’s clamor for national liberation and democracy. The C.I.A. and other subversive agencies of U.S. imperialism are subsidizing and manipulating various branches of the puppet government, “civic�? and “reform�? organizations, educational and cultural institutions and the reactionary mass media to wage a propaganda campaign designed to whip up a “climate for foreign investments�? and an atmosphere of anti-communist hysteria. At the same time, all-out violent efforts are being exerted to “nip in the bud�? the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army, meaning to say, the broad masses of the people who have risen to shake off their colonial shackles. Increased military supplies and training in counterinsurgency techniques are being extended to local police forces through the A.I.D. Offlce of Public Safety and to the reactionary armed forces through the JUSMAG. So many fascist crimes are being committed in the name of anticommunism against the people. The Marcos fascigt puppet regime daily promotes the rise of fascism in an attempt to cow the people.

Whenever a dastardly crime is committed by U.S. military personnel and there are widespread demands for justice which find their way even into the reactionary press, the puppet government goes through the motion of asking the U.S. Embassy for renegotiations on the U.S.-R.P. Military Bases Agreement. When the din dies down, talk of having renegotiations also ties down. What is made to prevail is the treacherous idea that the foreign military bases provide a dollar income for the puppet government. A measly annual income of about $130 million to $I50 million from the U.S. military bases for the puppet government and vice lords is clearly not enough to pay for the transgression of Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity and also the actual economic deprivation and sabotage resulting from the occupation of potential agricultural and mineral lands and the wanton smuggling of U.S. goods through the U.S. military bases.

Whenever U.S. imperialism wages a war of aggression against another country, the Philippine puppet government never hesitates to call for or join a war council under the direction of U.S. imperialism. The necessity for U.S. imperialism to hold on to its military bases in the Philippines becomes more clear. These military bases are the ultimate guarantee for the protection of its foreign investments in the Philippines and also for launching wars of aggression in Asia. Despite all talks of U.S. “withdrawal�? from Asia, U.S. imperialism repeatedly insists that it will remain a “Pacific power�?. Sham talk of “withdrawal�? is only intended to give Filipino running dogs an occasion to beg U.S. imperialism to stay. Whenever the demand for U.S. withdrawal is raised by the broad masses of the people, the local diehard reactionaries say that it is untimely to “renegotiate�? treaties when the Philippines is suffering from an economic crisis and is begging for foreign loans.

Being fast isolated as the Number One enemy of the world’s peoples and the Filipino people, U.S. imperialism is desperately trying to dissimulate its role as the principal oppressor and exploiter. As before, it wants to make the Philippine government appear to be begging of its own volition for investments not only from the United States but also from so-called international financial institutions and consortiums 21 and such other imperialist countries as Japan and the Soviet Union, among others. In imposing its imperialist policies on the Philippine puppet govermnent, the United States does not only make use of the A.I.D. and its other direct agencies but also the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, international consortiums, various agencies of the United Nations and “regional�? organizations. But when an internal analysis is made of the accounts, it is U.S. imperialism that inevitably comes out as the principal bloodsucker.

Aggravating the old bilateral and multilateral treaties and agreements shackling the Philippines, U.S. imperialism encourages the Philippine puppet government to promote such new “regional�? arrangements as the Asian Pacific Council (ASPAC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Southeast Asian Ministers’ Economic Council (SEAMEC) and others. These are ballyhoed as regional organizations independent of U.S. imperialism but are clearly composed of the puppet government bound to U.S. imperialism in so many ways. Efforts of U.S. imperialism to hide behind such farcical organizations are being intensified under the “Nixon Doctrine�? of “making Asians fight Asians.�? But U.S. imperialism can never conceal its aggressive nature; it will always keep and use its military personnel abroad as much as it can.

At any rate, U.S. imperialism is rapidly reviving Japanese militarism to serve as its principal Asian instrument and is accomodating it in the Philippines. It has the pipe dream of retaining Japan as its fugleman in Asia. In line with the wishes of U.S. imperialism, the Marcos puppet regime has been maneuvering to have the unequal Japan-R.P. Treaty of Amity, Commerce and Navigation ratified. Even without this treaty, Japan is being allowed to participate in the plunder of Philippine mineral, marine, forest and agricultural resources. It is being allowed to make investments and dump its goods in the Philippine market. It now ranks second only to the United States in investments and control of Philippine foreign trade.22 The reactionaries wish to give Japan the special privilege of moving as it pleases its fishing fleets as well as its naval vessels in Philippine territorial waters.

U.S. imperialism is also calculatingly compelling the Philippines to open diplomatic and trade relations with Soviet social-imperialism. Under the guise of being able to extend loans, especially in the form of capital goods, Soviet social-imperialism is trying to get a share of raw material products from the Philippines, dispose of its shoddy commodities in the Philippine market and impose usury. Like Japan, Soviet social-imperialism is being maneuvered by U.S. imperialism to overextend itself in the defense of the world capitalist system and share in the responsibility of maintaining reactionary governments that are basically puppets to U.S. imperialism.

U.S. imperialism is specifically interested in allowing Soviet social-imperialism to help the local revisionist renegades sabotage the revolutionary mass movement and help the reactionary government foster the illusion that there is democracy. Eager to benefit from the accomodation being granted by U.S. imperialism, the Lava revisionist renegades, the Philippine agents of Soviet social-imperialism, have on many occasions fed to the reactionary armed forces information against the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army and the broad masses of the people. They have conducted slander campaigns and bloody forms of intrigue against the people.

The strategic alliance of U.S. imperialism, Japanese militarism and Soviet social-imperialism into which the Philippine puppet government has been drawn is basically directed against the people, revolution, communism and China. In this arrangement, U.S. imperialism makes use of Japanese militarism to keep in check Soviet social-imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism to keep in check Japanese militarism. While they ally themselves against their common enemies, they cannot but contend among themselves as imperialist powers for the redivision of the world. This is a self-defeating arrangement.

Though U.S. imperialism is relatively strong in the Philippines, it has actually become weak on a world scale. It can no longer postpone its collapse. This is now the era of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought when imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is marching toward world victory.

Unlike in the last two world wars when it could take advantage of the disaster of other imperialist powers, U.S. imperialism now finds itself being pushed to its own total disaster by the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle. By overextending itself throughout the world in order to oppress the people, U.S. imperialism is now being struck hard by more and more people and in more and more places than it can cope with. People’s wars are raging all over the world, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. At this stage, when so many oppressed peoples have risen up to make revolution the main trend, U.S. imperialism is rapidly heading for total collapse. If it were to launch a world war, it would only hasten its own destruction. If it did not, it still would have no chance of winning its wars of aggression as those against the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and other countries. In the homeland of U.S. imperialism, the white and black proletariat are intensifying their revolutionary struggle against the bellicose impositions of the big bourgeoisie. U.S. imperialism makes alliances with other imperialist powers but the latter never fails to take advantage of its plight. Though it appears to be a huge monster, U.S. imperialism is in essence a paper tiger in the throes of its deathbed struggle.

While U.S. imperialism and its allies are heading for disaster, the Chinese and Albanian peoples are conso1idating socialism and ensuring a powerful rear base for the worldwide anti-imperialist struggle. The international united front is ever expanding to isolate counterrevolutionary diehards. All oppressed peoples can look forward to a bright future as they arm themselves with the same basic weapons with which the Chinese and Albanian peoples have achieved their glorious victories. The Philippine Revolution is today illumined by the great universal truth of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. The Communist Party of the Philippines, the revolutionary party of the Filipino proletariat, has become reestablished on a correct theoretical basis to lead the people to victory .

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