This outsider was surprised not so much by the fact that Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. has declared his intention to run for the presidency as by the fact that he has done so under the banner of the Lapiang Manggagawa (LM, Labor Party). There have, in fact, been two LMs, neither of which seems to have reflected the political outlook of Ebdane.
The year 1922 saw the birth of the Partido Obrero, founded by Antonino D. Ora. The list of reforms demanded by the new party included the eight-hour day, greater access to education, legislation against usury and landlord abuses, and cheap and decent housing for workers.
Relaunched in 1924 with its name Filipinized to Lapiang Manggagawa, its general secretary was Crisanto Evangelista, while Ora was chairman. Although all the candidates fielded by the LM for the 1925 elections were unsuccessful, it notched up a respectable 19 percent of the vote.
In a statement released on Nov. 30, 1925 the LM proclaimed that “it is not a party of social parasites… It urges the workers — those who work with brawn and brain — to take economic and political powers away from the capitalist class and abolish all class divisions and class rule.” Given such aims, it may come as no surprise to learn that the new LM manifesto was prepared with guidance from the Communist International.
The LM had its base in the left wing of the Congreso Obrero de Filipinas (COF, Labor Congress of the Philippines), in which Evangelista and Ora were also leading members, but it was unable to persuade the COF to give the party organizational support. In 1929, seeing that the COF convention had been packed with conservatives, Evangelista led his followers from the conference hall, and in 1930 became the founding general secretary of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP).
(Commercial break: A full account of the events just discussed can be found in my Forcing the Pace, published by UP Press in 2007.)
Thirty-odd years later, there was a second Lapiang Manggagawa, and again the PKP was involved. After the defeat of the Huk Rebellion, which the PKP had led, the much-reduced party commenced the painstaking task of rebuilding its ranks. Responding to the rising tide of nationalism, Jesus Lava, then general secretary, issued a document (“Political Transmission 19”) calling for the formation of open, mass organizations. The new Lapiang Manggagawa, founded in February 1963, was the organization designated for the labor sector, its role being to rally labor behind nationalist demands.
General secretary of the new LM was Ignacio Lacsina, a PKP member, while Cipriano Cid, a more conservative labor leader, was president. Although the new party was broader than its 1920s predecessor, at the policy-level there were distinct similarities.
The new party’s platform was comprehensive: Full employment; improved wages and conditions; a concrete program of land reform; a nation-wide housing program; the reform of laws “which operate to the injury of the masses” (an obvious reference to the Anti-Subversion Law); a nationalist economic policy; the nationalization of “industries and institutions vital to the national interest”; Filipino ownership of the media; the purging of the education system “of its colonial content and orientation and the development of Pilipino as the national language”; major emphasis on basic industrialization (although, said the LM, agriculture should also be modernized and extended); foreign aid “payable on reasonable terms, and without strings”; the expansion of foreign trade and the development of an independent foreign policy; and the encouragement of trade unionism by the state, with the right to strike being protected.
Some accounts (Dante C. Simbulan’s The Modern Principalia, for example) claim that this LM disappeared within months after first vice president Roberto Oca was recruited by the Nacionalistas and the other leaders went to the Liberals. This was not the case. In fact, Oca was expelled for other reasons, and replaced by Felixberto Olalia — at the same time, Jose Maria Sison was installed as vice president for education.
It was the whole party, not just certain leaders, that entered into a coalition with President Diosdado Macapagal, who claimed to be pursuing the “Unfinished Revolution” of 1896. The LM maintained its independent existence, and the arrangement with the Liberal government was one whereby the party would support Macapagal as long as he lived up to his nationalist claims. The terms of the “Instrument of Coalition” drafted by Lacsina and signed by Macapagal included pledges to root out corruption, the adoption of an independent foreign policy, land reform and a pro-labor stance.
By 1965 it was clear that Macapagal had no intention of implementing the understandings he had reached with the LM, and in an article in Progressive Review (another PKP initiative) Lacsina complained that there was no real difference between the Macapagal’s Liberal Party and the Nacionalista Party.
Between 1963 and 1967 the LM, along with the other PKP-inspired mass organizations — MASAKA (peasantry), AKSIUN (unemployed), Kabataang Makabayan (youth), etc. — participated in all the major demonstrations and rallies.
But the LM fell victim to internal feuding (of the left-right variety, although personalities undoubtedly played their part) between Lacsina and Cid. Then in 1967 Jose Maria Sison, having split with the PKP, “captured” Lacsina, whereupon the LM was transformed into the Socialist Party of the Philippines (SPP). After a falling-out between Sison and Lacsina, the SPP, shorn of the conservative labor leaders, re-established relations with the PKP, but with the declaration of martial law in 1972 it was banned.
There have been, then, two parties called Lapiang Manggagawa. Given their radicalism, can either of these be the party that is supporting Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. in his presidential bid?
More next week. –Ken Fuller, Daily Tribune
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