I’m reading a book about Edgar Jopson (Edjop) a student activist back in the 60’s.
The book was written by Benjamin Pimentel.
I haven’t finished reading it but then i noticed that most problems facing the youth today are almost the same as before…
There are the moderates and the radicals (though not as staunchly supported nowadays).
The youth of their time were looking for ways and means and reasons for the problems and difficulties of their time aside from the popular sentiment and the success of then people’s revolution in China. Some great leaders placed their trust to a Marxist structure having the Maoist line of thinking.
The difference perhaps of activism today and then could be summed up in the values presented by the youth of Edgar Jopson’s time…
They created mistakes, some grave mistakes they trusted in a constitutional convention that would “ideologically” represent the masses that they serve while on the other hand they trusted a revolution inept to begin with by structuring its framework not in the Filipino’s point of view.
Eventually Edgar Jopson joined the armed guerrilla revolution of the CPP-NPA that was before the time they consequently devoured their own by presenting the “purges” that ran for almost a decade and haven’t faced its repercussions and accountabilities instead pointing its fingers to those who left their ranks following the great cleavage of 1990’s thus the creation of the RJ (Rejectionists) and the RA (Re-Affirm) blocs that up to this day has its own rifts even amounting to the absurd. The RA mostly killed former cadres and as for the RJ they went mainstream and faced on the changes demanded in society by taking to the streets and running for seats in the government.
Jopson died as a revolutionary but his ideals remained the same i personally would have wanted him alive than dead… but then fate has it that he must die…
The problem of con-con is a never-ending paradox as representative of the status-quo. It represents the rule of the elite few while the ignorance of the majority. The president pushing for another term even a no-election campaign… and as a reaction we asks questions only after we thought religious institutions thinks otherwise. I was right to assume that as always we are still influenced by religion and not by our critical mindedness…
Over and over again it has been the center of debates and arguments why the masses of our time are not mobilizing why they would rather wait until such time that con-ass would come to light.
Is it such that we romanticize as a nation the image of a mediocre people?
Rather we look up to institutions rather than ourselves for direction?
Right now we lack leaders… i think that’s one of the reasons… in Edjop’s time they had him, they had Renato Constantino, Tanada, Recto, all of them staunch nationalists who are not afraid of debate and struggle and now who do we have?
We don’t have anyone to associate with… no activists…
I don’t know maybe we lack the courage or even the skill…
That’s the sad reality…
It is not that we lack direction, as pointed out by Edgar Jopson’s colleagues and friends as interviewed by the author of the book.
Rather we lack the initiative and remained consistent with the opinion of “Nothing will change even if we do something about it”.
I rather like to think that “Nothing will really change if we look at things that way”.
On the option of having an armed revolution i personally think that we always have the right to defend ourselves and our liberty, and in good hands it will always be ideal for a change in the structure of government. And always behind it should be the power of the people and divine provenance.
“JOIN THE RALLIES! DEFEND OUR CONSTITUTION! DEFEND OUR RIGHTS!”
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Written last June 21, 2007
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what a crudely simplistic yet fabulously fantastic account of the so-called “purges” in the underground revolutionary movement in the 80s and the subsequent split in both the underground and aboveground Left movement in the 90s! so black and white. anyhow, the rejectionists are indeed even now splitting and splitting and splitting in “rifts even amounting to the absurd” [sic]. they have been left in the dustbin of history, either co-opted by the system (Akbayan) or completely left in the margins (others). if the revolution the past and present generations continue to forward is inept because its framework is not structured along a truly “Filipino point of view” (this is obviously implying, of course, that its Marxist-Leninist-Maoist inspiration is imported from abroad and thus unFilipino), then which framework can be said to be Filipino? which ideological current manifesting itself in the country is not always-already colored by its manifold interactions with foreign ideas and culture? in the end, the masses are out there just waiting to be educated, organized and mobilized for their rights and welfare. there is no dearth of leaders and activists of Edjop’s caliber from the present generation of the youth. as the chronic crisis of the Philippine society continues to worsen, expect massive upheavals that will shake the foundations of the present social order.
Hello Karlo,
Thank you for visiting my site and taking time to comment on it. I’d like to think that a revolution should really be from a Filipino standpoint but basically the truth is there is no such thing as a Filipino viewpoint there is only such a thing as a luzonian, visayan, minadanaoan viewpoint that doesn’t really converge altogether. With you being a member of the kabatan partylist I surmise that you are aware of the history of your ideologies and where the matter of “purges” have not been tackled in a more democratic standpoint.
You are young, intelligent and very much active and I also suggest you become irreverent and never swallow anything or anyone’s dogma whether its from Marx, Lenin, Mao, Armando Liwanag or even Jesus.
But I will never be judgmental of you I only suggest that you open your mind to doubts and the “real plan” of your organization. Sayang kapatid sayang talaga…
Will be glad to converse with you here.
Cheers!