Relevance in context of poverty, underdevelopment

This is in reaction to John Nery’s column, “The irrelevance of the Left.” I wish to first commend him for proceeding from the premise of “[identifying] the Left as those associated with the National Democratic Front.”  However, I also wish to take exception to the column’s main contentions.

First, Nery writes: “A movement that takes its bearings in part from Karl Marx should have something distinct to offer—if not in substance (capitalism and the class structure) then in analytical rigor (subjecting assumptions to a critique).” On the contrary, in the Philippines, genuine Marxists or Marxist-informed critiques of Philippine society have pointed to the feudalistic political economy and culture, largely driven by an unfair and exploitative trade pattern, as primarily behind the country’s persistent poverty and underdevelopment. Every now and then, the Vatican itself has denounced this unjust trade, either in its encyclicals or pronouncements. Even non-Marxists have similarly described Philippine politics as “cacique democracies” or “feudal patronage.”

I myself have written at least three Marxist or partly-Marxism-informed books on this central thesis—“Crime of Empire” (2003), “Untold People’s History: Samar, Philippines” (2004), and “Economics for the Filipino” (Ibon, 2011). I believe that these books have offered something distinct and analytically rigorous. That these books and their content have been either ignored or denied by mainstream media and academe reveals failures or flaws of mainstream media and the academe, more than anything else.

I wish to offer Nery the proposal of a friendly, constructive and healthy debate or dialogue on the points raised in these three books. In the face of the country’s spiraling poverty and underdevelopment, such a discourse would be highly relevant and in keeping with Nery’s advocacy of relevance.

In this vein, I also believe that the issues of South China Sea claims and even of Moro autonomy deserve a deeper inquiry into their political economic and geopolitical foundations. It would be folly, myopia and hypocrisy to simply adopt knee-jerk reactions, while ignoring and disregarding the truths that Western oil companies unjustly capture the lion’s share—90 percent—of income in the corruption-ridden Malampaya project; or that the United States sided with Malaysia and its patron, the United Kingdom, in annexing Sabah.

In support of relevance.

—RICCO ALEJANDRO M. SANTOS, [email protected]