On Celebrating the Centennial of the Philippine Revolution of 1896

I am elated to learn that the organizations of the toiling masses of workers and peasants (Kilusang Mayo Uno and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas) and the organizations of the student youth (League of Filipino Students, Student Christian Movement, National Union of Students of the Philippines and College Editors Guild of the Philippines) and teachers are combining to launch a year-long celebration of the centennial of the Philippine revolution of 1896 on August 23.

This celebration is of great importance. It should inspire us to continue the struggle for national liberation and democracy which was started by our revolutionary forefathers in 1896. So long as the Filipino people are under foreign and feudal domination, there is the ever crying need for carrying out the national democratic revolution.

It took more than 300 years of suffering and struggle under Spanish colonialism before the Philippine Revolution assumed the force and form of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of the old type in 1896. Andres Bonifacio, the supreme leader of the Katipunan, had the resolve and courage to declare the independence of the Filipino people. He was a worker. But his guiding ideology was still bourgeois liberal. Ultimately, the ilustrados themselves laid him aside.

The revolution was in prospect of winning total victory in 1898. But U.S. imperialism intervened, unleashed a brutal war of aggression against the Filipino people and turned the Philippines into its own colony. It did not only deploy a far superior military force to defeat the revolutionary army and massacre 10 percent of the people but also launched the deceptive propaganda of benevolent assimilation and pro-imperialist liberalism which coopted the bourgeois liberal leadership of the revolutionary movement.

Up to 1946, with the exception of the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945, the U.S. kept the Philippines as a colony. Since 1946, the country has been a semicolony, with nominal independence and under the national administration of politicians and bureaucrats representing the local exploiting classes. Since the beginning of its colonial rule, however, the U.S. turned the Philippine social economy from a feudal into a semifeudal one, dominated by the comprador big bourgeoisie and landlord class as basic exploiting classes, which comprise one percent of the population.

The working class has expanded up to 15 percent of the population from a negligible percentage at the beginning of the century. The peasantry has qualitatively decreased from around 90 percent to 75 percent. The urban petty-bourgeoisie and the middle bourgeoisie have expanded from negligible percentages to eight percent and one percent, respectively.

The growth of the working class and the adoption of the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism have given rise to the leadership of the working class in the resumption of the Philippine revolution. The new class leadership transforms the national democratic revolution into one of a new type, puts it in the context of the world proletarian-socialist revolution and gives it a socialist perspective.

The working class is the most productive and progressive force in the Philippines today. But it is a minority class under the persistent agrarian semifeudal conditions. To carry out its revolutionary mission, it must forge the basic alliance with the peasantry. This is the current foundation of the Philippine revolution.

In the era of modern imperialism, the urban petty bourgeoisie is no longer in a position as in 1896 to lead the Philippine revolution. But it can still play the role of a basic revolutionary force by taking part in the national democratic movement under the leadership of the working class.

In celebrating the centennial of the Philippine revolution of 1896, we must carry out the general line of national democratic revolution against foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. In this regard, we must be able to make a class analysis of Philippine society and must grasp the correct and effective relationship of the basic revolutionary forces.

The working class and the peasantry are driven by their intolerable oppression and exploitation to fight for national and social liberation. As less oppressed and less exploited than the toiling masses, the urban petty bourgeoisie needs to be encouraged to join the national democratic revolution. The educated youth and teachers who are already in the national democratic movement must attract to it the entire urban petty bourgeoisie.

The revolutionary mass activists from the ranks of the educated youth and teachers can best serve the people by integrating themselves with the workers and peasants in the revolutionary struggle and can remould themselves into proletarian revolutionaries in the process.

The year-long celebration will be most fruitful as the workers, peasants, the students, teachers and other people grasp the continuity of and differences between the old and new types of national democratic revolution and carry out the tasks of raising to a new and higher level their revolutionary consciousness and militancy in the struggle for national liberation and democracy.

Uphold the revolutionary legacy of 1896!
Carry the Philippine revolution forward!
Long live the Filipino people!