THE ACCOMPANYING, aye, counter-balancing piece – in dialectical praxis – to yesterday’s bourgeois thesis.
First published in the March 23-29 issue of Pampanga News.
HINDI MANGMANG ang masa. Sila’y pinagkaitan lamang ng tamang pagkakataon upang ganap na umusbong ang kanilang katalinuhan, ng akmang kaganapan upang malinang ang kanilang karunungan – pagkakataong pinigil ng hagkis ng kahirapan; kaganapang sinupil ng hataw ng pang-aapi’t pagsasamantala ng mga naghahari-hariang uri.
That “the incompetence of the masses is almost universal throughout the domains of political life…” is a fundamental fallacy in the bourgeois postulates on the people, as contrasted to the competently propertied People we wrote about (yesterday).
The masa response: There is no inherent mass incompetence among the people: there is mass oppression, exploitation, and deprivation that caused incompetence.
Premium to the existence of class exploitative societies is the oppression of the people.
Of the highest priority is the reduction of the people to their basic animal instincts, the deprivation of their natural rights as human beings, in order to best serve – in the bourgeois interest – their principal purpose as nothing more than tools of production.
Sa kaisipang elitista, ang masa ay kawan ng baka’t kalabaw na isinisingkaw sa mga bukirin, sa mga planta’t pabrika upang mabigyan tugon ang lahat ng mga pangangailangan, upang masustentuhan ang lahat ng luho at kapritso ng uring peti-burgis.
Tunay ka, kasama: Tamad na burgis na ayaw gumawa, sa pawis ng masa ay nagpapasasa.
Deprivation damns the people to incompetence, dispossessing them of the necessary knowledge and skills to rise above the lot pre-ordained for them by the ruling class.
Born poor. Live poor. Die poor. An animal existence. To the elite, that is the
masa destiny. A vicious cycle with neither definitive end nor fixed beginning.
Of that, the masa is not.
Incompetence, as we have stated, is reared upon deprivation which in turn is rooted in exploitation which spawns from oppression. To make possible the elimination of incompetence among the people then, exploitation needed to be uprooted.
Ang pagkapantay-pantay ng mga mamamayan ang sandigan ng isang demokratikong estado.
Ang mga kalakarang piyudal, pagbubusabos sa mga anak-pawis, paniniil sa mga anak-dalita ay walang puwang dito.
So government exists for the purpose of preserving the status quo. This does not cover though the preservation of the system of class exploitation.
Ang pagtaas sa antas ng pamumuhay ng mga mamamayan ay hindi lamang pangunahin kundi sagradong gampanin ng pamahalaan.
Lakip nito ang pagbibigay puwang sa pinakamaliit at pinaka-aba mang mamamayan ng bahagi sa pagbabalangkas, sa mga gawain at pagkilos na tuwirang tumitimo sa kanilang buhay. Anumang kaganapang taliwas dito ay isang kabalintunaan sa demokratikong estado.
The bourgeois thesis of governance as a monopoly of the propertied class has been – rightfully – long consigned to the dustbin of history.
Still. the political realities reeked of the old oligarchy holding much sway in all aspect of national life.
The end to their complete monopoly brought about by a new class of noveau riche who found wealth and power in the non-traditional sources of moviedom and vices.
This, the masa could only fight with a determined populism.
