“You can always trust the information given to you by people who are crazy; they have an access to truth not available through regular channels”—Sheila Ballantyne
Safely ensconced in his adopted country, thousands of miles away from the reach of any libel suits, self-exiled communist leader Jose Maria “Joma” Sison boldly accused a sister of President-elect Benigno S.C. Aquino III of conspiring with Gloria Arroyo and the CIA to cheat in the 2010 elections. I decided to interview the man hiding in the Netherlands.
“Let me read to you what you said in your interview with Pinoy Weekly.”
“Okay.”
“There are indications that the automated electoral system of Smartmatic, which is controlled by the US and its agents, was pre-programmed to make Aquino and Binay win. It’s obvious that a large number of votes were stolen from Manny Villar and Loren Legarda. Their precipitous decline was overkill and unbelievable. There are reports that high officials of the CIA, the Aquino family and the Arroyo regime decided on the pre-programming six weeks before the election. The meeting between Pinky Aquino-Abelleda and Mrs. Arroyo paved the way for the arrangement.”
“I said that in Pilipino.”
“Did I lose anything in the translation?”
“No.”
“Good, then we can proceed.”
“Fire away.”
“Your allegation of an Arroyobamaquino conspiracy is unbelievable.”
“Why?”
“I cannot imagine any of Cory Aquno’s children singing kumbaya with Gloria Arroyo.”
“You don’t understand how the ruling class operates.”
“How did the ruling class operate the 2010 election?”
“The conduct of the 2010 elections shows the rottenness of the US-dominated ruling system of big compradors and landlords. It was a process dominated by the coalitions, parties and candidates of the reactionary ruling classes. Beforehand, it excluded the leaders of the working people who were repressed or who were without campaign funds. It was merely a personality-based contest of the political agents of the same exploiting classes.”
“What?”
“It foisted a personality-based election on the oppressed masses. It excluded the leaders of the working people who were repressed or who were without campaign funds.”
“But didn’t you order Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza of Makabayan to ally themselves with the richest candidate?
“The alliance with Villar was a collective decision.”
“I heard it was not very popular with your rank-and-file. How did they vote in the election?”
“Makabayan got nearly 10 percent of the actual nationwide voters for each of its two senatorial candidates.”
“Ocampo and Maza got a little more than 3 million votes each, that’s expected, but why did Villar only get about five-and-a-half million. What happened to your command votes?”
“Most of the votes for Villar are equivalent to the basic electoral base of Makabayan and the progressive party-list groups.”
“Ah, so in other words, if not for your command votes, Villar would only have about 2 million votes?”
“Definitely, Villar benefited more from the NP-Makabayan alliance than Makabayan did. But by his refusal to denounce the Arroyo regime as strongly as did Aquino and Estrada, Villar prejudiced not only himself but also his Makabayan teammates.”
“How?”
“It prevented the Makabayan senatorial candidates from benefiting from the anti-Arroyo sentiment and increasing their votes beyond their basic electoral base.”
“So Villar spoiled Makabayan’s chances of winning a couple of Senate seats?”
“The public knows that revolutionary forces are not equivalent to any electoral party. They measure their success in terms of increasing the revolutionary mass base and armed strength in the people’s war and not in terms of taking seats within the reactionary government.”
“Then why do you and your revolutionary forces participate in elections?”
“What?”
“Your revolutionary rhetoric is getting old, Joma. Really old. You’re becoming an outdated revolutionary. Oops, I just turned you an oxymoron.”
*Most of Joma’s verbiage are direct quotes from his interview in Bulatlat.com.
Source: Dispatches from the Enchanted Kingdom
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