WHERE ARE WE NOW?

The difference between the activists of the 60's and the new millenium is that the former were focused on who their clients are: the farmers, the workers, the urban poor, the marginalized sectors of our society, in other words, the activists were following the dictum of Mao Ze Dong to "serve the masses."

The sixties was a time of our exploration of the countrysides. Students, graduates and undergrads wanted to go to the mountains, the farms and be with the masses. Sad to say, many were so bourgeois that they turned out to be unwanted by some of our kababayan for being high falluting, too intellectual, and senorita y senorito in their ways. But others persisted and even joined the so-called armed struggle in order to prove that they are willing to risk their lives for the masses. 

Did they win? Well the war is still going on- the government versus the New People's Army. Have they gained any from the government? This government tried employing some of the leftist intellectuals and put them in highly sensitive positions that could have made them fathom that there they would have big budgets, an organization that could make them realize the idea to uplift the problems of the masses, albeit bureaucratically. 

Unfortunately, they had to be replaced so early in their term in order to place less radical individuals. Why? They turned out to be very partial to their background, instead of acting as leaders for the nation and not for the party. That is really a difficult balancing act if someone has lived so long falling under a party organization that exacts discipline and obedience even if he/she has already left the organization to a more powerful post, even if they would have new people on top of them. 

Today, where are we? We are nowhere broadening our middle class. Under the pandemic situation, things have gotten worse. I cannot fathom how the jeepney drivers who used to be very active in campaigning in the streets at every rally against the establishment are now panhandling for food. Some poor women were reported to have had to sell their bodies in order to get a quarantine pass to be able to be in the streets. And students in the far-flung areas are not sure if they can cope with the new teaching methods that will be instituted as face-to-face encounters will be banned in schooling. 

Maybe we ought to ask, what have we, activists, members of the non-government organizations, forgotten? What is missing in our methods? Our aims are intact: to uplift the masses from degradation, from marginalization, from poverty and so-called underdevelopment. We ought to raise the flags for women to be liberated economically, politically, socially. But where are we now? Where do we go from here?