1 a call for the politics of change_3 september 2001
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The first time was in 1947, when the Democratic Alliance won six congressional seats in Central Luzon. The second was in 1987, when the Partido ng Bayan won two congressional seats. Those gains, however, were negated by reaction. Rep. SATUR C. OCAMPO Party-List, BAYAN MUNA Privilege speech delivered at the House of Representatives, First Regular Session, 12 th Congress, 3 September 2001 Mr. Speaker and distinguished colleagues,TRANSCRIPT
A Call for the Politics of Change
Rep. SATUR C. OCAMPO Party-List, BAYAN MUNA
Privilege speech delivered at the House of Representatives, First Regular Session, 12th Congress, 3 September 2001
Mr. Speaker and distinguished colleagues,
Allow me to speak today on an issue of personal and collective privilege.
After our party-list representation was formally seated in this chamber last August 20, a
parliamentary inquiry was made on whether our group, the three representatives of Bayan
Muna, had manifested the desire to join either the majority or the minority. We deferred
expressing our preference then, as we had to weigh the various considerations involved in
deciding on the matter.
The main reason was that our party, embodying a political force with worldview and
standpoint acknowledged as Leftist, wished to register its independence from any traditional
political party, bloc or coalition in the House of Representatives. Essentially we intend to
maintain this independent stand.
In over half a century, this is the third time that a political party of the Left has won
seats in the legislature in this country.
The first time was in 1947, when the Democratic Alliance won six congressional seats
in Central Luzon. The second was in 1987, when the Partido ng Bayan won two congressional
seats. Those gains, however, were negated by reaction.
The first electoral victory of the Left in 1947 was short-lived. The Democratic Alliance
strongly opposed the Parity Rights Amendment to the Constitution. For taking that principled
stand, its representatives were unseated by the Roxas government on the basis of spurious
charges of electoral fraud and terrorism. In the 1987 elections, the Partido ng Bayan became the
victim itself of electoral terrorism. Six of the party’s candidates for the House were killed along
with 35 of the party’s campaigners.
For a time the specter of those negative experiences loomed over BAYAN MUNA. Certain
political quarters disseminated allegations, via the e-mail and the media – and even in this
chamber at the closing session of the 11th Congress – that our party used force and threat to win
votes. Surely the allegations were groundless. With no formal challenge to its victory filed with the Commission on Elections or the courts, BAYAN MUNA was proclaimed a month and a half
after the 12th Congress began its three-year term.
Satur Ocampo � A Call for the Politics of Change 2
Certain factors rendered ineffectual the attempts to discredit our party and to stop us
from sitting in Congress on the same ground used against the Democratic Alliance.
First, BAYAN MUNA is a mass-based political party with organizations in 70 of the
country’s 79 provinces. Most of its leaders and core members have had long years of
participation in the open democratic mass movement and other arenas of political struggle since the time of the Marcos dictatorship. BAYAN MUNA works hand-in-hand with the multisectoral
alliance of progressive people’s organizations – the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN)
founded in 1985.
Second, the role of BAYAN MUNA has been publicly acknowledged and accepted – and
formally recognized by the Macapagal-Arroyo government – as a significant part of the united
political forces that fought for the ouster of former president Joseph Estrada. It must be noted, however, that BAYAN MUNA did not ask for positions in the new government, opting instead to
seek popular mandate through the electoral process.
Third, BAYAN MUNA garnered the highest number of votes among 153 party-list
participants in the May 14 elections. Comelec records attest that our party received 1,708,252
votes out of the 15,096,261 total votes cast for the party-list system. That is 11.315% of the
total votes, equivalent to five seats in the House – were it not for the three-seat limit set by RA
7941 for a winning party. Our popular mandate cannot be easily brushed aside.
Aside from the failed attempts to link BAYAN MUNA with the use of force and threat to
win votes, certain quarters also tried the discredited “red scare” tactic, retrieved from the Cold War era. There were, and there continue to be, insinuations that BAYAN MUNA harbors a “secret
agenda” in entering the electoral and parliamentary arena.
There is no secret agenda. The objectives of BAYAN MUNA are clearly defined in all the
documents we submitted to the Comelec in compliance with the requirements for participation
in the elections. Our general program aims primarily to empower – in a real, not rhetorical,
sense – the workers, peasants, fisher folk, indigenous peoples, urban poor and other oppressed
sectors, as well as the women, youth and students, professionals and small entrepreneurs.
To a considerable degree, the democratic mass movement of which BAYAN MUNA is a
part has already given the organized segments of these sectors a high sense of political power.
This is the sense of power that found palpable and effective expression in what are referred to
as People Power I and People Power II.
Seeking to continue building up that sense of political power and ultimately to transform it into real power of the people, BAYAN MUNA aims to assert national sovereignty and
independence and protect the national patrimony from foreign domination and control. Our
party also aims to uphold and protect the people’s basic human rights and freedoms, improve
their social and economic welfare, and attain social justice and equity.
Satur Ocampo � A Call for the Politics of Change 3
In due time, by our actions and pronouncements within this chamber and without, our
humble representation will show how we go about pursuing these noble objectives.
Our entry into the legislative process, and intent to participate meaningfully in it,
supplement what we have been doing in the open democratic mass movement. This
representation and my other two colleagues remain basically and primarily mass leaders of this
movement.
As earlier pointed out, historically the government, including the House of
Representatives, has been inhospitable to the politics of the Left. But it is this politics that BAYAN MUNA calls the New Politics, or more aptly the Politics of Change – the politics of the
majority of the Filipino people.
Now we take the Politics of Change into this House. We are determined to express the
collective demand for fundamental change of the “marginalized and underrepresented” sectors
of our society that we in the party-list system are called upon to represent. Who are the
marginalized and underrepresented?
In answer to that, I quote here the pertinent section of the Supreme Court landmark
decision on the party-list system issued on July 26, 2001. The decision pertains to the petition filed by BAYAN MUNA and the OFW Labor Party questioning the qualification of certain party-
list participants in the May 14 elections.
The high tribunal chastised the Office of the Solicitor General, which argued for the
Comelec, for claiming that “even the super-rich and overrepresented can participate” in the
party-list election. Saying that the Solicitor General’s position “desecrates the spirit of the
party-list system,” the Supreme Court declared:
“While the business moguls and the mega-rich are, numerically
speaking, a tiny minority, they are neither marginalized nor underrepresented,
for the stark reality is that their economic clout engenders political power more
awesome than their numerical limitation. Traditionally, political power does not
necessarily emanate from the size of one’s constituency; indeed, it is likely to
arise more directly from the number and amount of one’s bank accounts.
“It is ironic, therefore, that the marginalized and underrepresented in our
midst are the majority who wallow in poverty, destitution and infirmity. It was
for them that the party-list system was enacted – to give them not only genuine
hope, but genuine power; to give them the opportunity to be elected and to
represent the specific concerns of their constituencies; and simply to give them a
direct voice in Congress and in the larger affairs of the State.
“In its noblest sense, the party-list system truly empowers the masses and
ushers a new hope for genuine change. Verily, it invites those marginalized and
underrepresented in the past – the farm hands, the fisher folk, the urban poor,
Satur Ocampo � A Call for the Politics of Change 4
even those in the underground movement – to come out and participate, as
indeed many of them came out and participated during the last elections. The
State cannot now disappoint and frustrate them by disabling and desecrating this
social justice vehicle.”
The results of the two elections for the party-list system, in 1998 and 2001, show how
the system, as a vehicle for social justice, was rendered inept. Weaknesses in RA 7941 and in
its implementation by the Comelec have disabled the more than 100 participants in the election
to fill up the 20% of the total number of seats in the House allocated for the party-list
representatives.
In the llth Congress only 13 seats were filled up. And in the 12th Congress there are
only of us five party-list representatives. In terms of number – and it is number that counts in
legislation – we are clearly marginalized. How then can we further the cause of empowering
the marginalized majority whom we represent?
With this reality, our humble representation has decided to enter into a working
relationship with the majority in the House. We have done this without formally joining the
“Sunshine Coalition.” We have entered into a mutual understanding that our group of three
retains independence and initiative within the working relationship. Specifically, we shall take
positions on important issues raised and legislative proposals pushed by the majority consistent
with our principles.
This way, we aim to maximize, to the extent possible, the fruits of our efforts to
advance and defend the aspirations of the sectors we represent. We have no illusion that by
working with the majority or the minority we can easily push the legislative proposals
submitted by our constituents. Nonetheless, we shall do our best.
Moreover, our representation is looking at a possible meeting point with the President
of the Philippines and the Speaker of the House of Representatives – however unlikely it may
seem – in advancing the immediate demands of the basic masses we represent.
First, I refer to a passage in the state-of-the-nation address of President Gloria
Macapagal–Arroyo at the joint opening of the 12th Congress. She started from the correct
historical premise that the Katipunan Revolution gave birth to the Philippines as the first
republic in Asia. The President referred to People Power I and People Power II as positive
actions in our time towards advancing the causes of freedom, justice and prosperity that Gat
Andres Bonifacio and the Katipuneros fought for.
The President said: “We also see in our great history a progressive advancement
towards the ultimate goal to transfer power over the state from the traditional economic and
political bosses to the people.”
Unfortunately, President Macapagal-Arroyo gave no further indication of what her
government intends to do to hasten the attainment of that goal. But her recognition that the
Satur Ocampo � A Call for the Politics of Change 5
transfer of power to the people from the traditional elite is the ultimate goal of building a nation
is good enough. Good enough for us to call on her to exercise the political will to hasten the
process.
We in BAYAN MUNA believe that the Filipino people’s aspirations for national freedom,
justice and prosperity can be attained only when the people shall have been sufficiently
empowered and mobilized for their own welfare.
Second, I refer to the speech of the Speaker at the opening of the 12th Congress. Also
adverting to the call for change by People Power II, he declared that “the politics-as-usual,
business-as-usual attitude toward national problems no longer works.” The Speaker then called
on the House “to transform our house into an activist, reformist, achievement- and
performance-oriented House, a bastion of good politics, which we must strive to attain as its
enduring standard.”
Against our well-grounded skepticism, our humble representation would like to believe
that both declarations by the President and the Speaker are not the usual rhetoric for the
occasion. We would be happy to be proven wrong on this skepticism. Can we be convinced that
such declarations reflect genuine appreciation of our people’s historic struggle and a sense of
urgency on the part of our officialdom to undertake fundamental change in the way public
affairs have been run?
At her inaugural address, President Macapagal-Arroyo vowed to espouse “new politics”
– politics based not on personalities but on principles and programs. We assume that the
Speaker had the same in mind when he called for “good politics.”
In vain did we seek evidence of that new politics in the People Power Coalition in the
May elections. We continue to seek evidence of it in the Macapagal-Arroyo government. Can
we hope to find it in the House of Representatives?
It was the Partido ng Bayan that in 1987 raised the call for New Politics. BAYAN MUNA
raises it today as the Politics of Change. We are fostering this politics principally through the
democratic mass movement and secondarily through our work in Congress.
The Speaker has urged the House to help the Macapagal-Arroyo government “get this
nation moving again.” We submit that, for the people to truly achieve political power and for
the nation to move towards attaining national freedom, justice and prosperity, the proper
vehicle for such a journey is the Politics of Change. �