The Philippine State, Society
& Economy, 1992-1998

Nov 15, 96
On Anti-APEC: Lagman's Arrest Useless
By Teddy Casiño, BusinessWorld Online

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or arrest them, as the case may be, especially those anti-APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) advocates who seem to get bolder as the Subic conference draws near.

The latest to be sent to the can in Felimon Lagman, a.k.a. Carlos Forte, erstwhile chief of the CPP's Manila Rizal Committee and its hit squad, the Alex Boncayao Brigade. He was arrested last Tuesday in connection with some lame four-year-old murder charge.

Lagman, who propped himself up as president of the Bukluran ng Manggagawa para sa Pagbabago or BMP (meaning "workers' movement for change") two years ago, recently made the headlines by announcing his group's fantastic plan to mobilize 3,000 vehicles and 30,000 workers for an anti-APEC caravan to Subic on Nov. 24.

That the government seriously took Lagman's press releases, and arrested him to boot, is proof of the military's lousy intelligence work. Why, the BMP can't mobilize even 20,000 for its May Day celebration.

But that's the problem with our authorities. They start floating stories about communists and terrorists out to disrupt the APEC summit, and then end up believing their own crap. Last week, the military arrested five peasant organizers attending an anti-APEC forum in Bulacan and alleged them to be NPA (New People's Army) guerrillas.

But, perhaps, the government just doesn't want to take any chances. During his stint in the revolutionary underground, Lagman was known to be a fierce advocate of insurrectionary violence, and was said to be one of the brains behind the bus-burning campaign accompanying a Metro Manila-wide Welgang Bayan (nationwide labor strike) in 1990. An alleged ABB chief, he was to have led the CPP's dreaded partisan operations which left many a pulis patola dead.

Obviously, National Security Adviser Jose Almonte was not satisfied with Lagman's assurances that the BMP or ABB wouldn't try any insurrectionary experiments for the APEC summit.

On the other hand, the government was wise in arresting Lagman if its ob-jective was to send a message to anti-APEC groups without necessarily stirring a hornet's nest. Those in the cause-oriented circuit know how Lagman has managed to antagonize potential allies with his arrogant posturings and bully tactics carried over from his ABB days. Notice the little sympathy he is getting from the mainstream Left.

But then, though many may not approve of Lagman and his politics, everybody will surely stand up in defense of his democratic rights.

In any case, Lagman's arrest comes too late. At this point, only a nuclear war can stop the anti-APEC groups from pushing through with their protest actions. The People's Conference Against Imperialist Globalization has promised to mobilize 40,000 for its two-day caravan to Subic on Nov. 24-25, and 200,000 for its nationwide coordinated protests on November 25.

Attending the People's Conference are more than a hundred foreign delegates who, like their counterparts in this week's Anti-Imperialist World Peasant Summit, are sure to attract a lot of attention to the conference's anti-APEC and anti-globalization positions.

Fortunately Pres. Ramos can't afford to totally let loose him martial law henchmen on the anti-APEC groups, lest the Philippines be labeled as another Indonesian garrison. A crackdown at this point would be too late, and too costly, publicity-wise, especially with the local and international media now focused on the region, thanks in part to this week's East Timor fiasco.

Rumor has it that former press secretary Rod Reyes, who heads the APEC media desk with journalists Ellen Tordesillas and Booma Cruz, is having chest pains from all the media coverage the anti-APEC camp is getting.

If there's anything the anti-APEC groups will achieve, if they haven't achieved it already, its the growing public perception that the liberalization and deregulation measures paddled by APEC and lapped up by the Ramos government may not be good for the country after all.

And with oil prices increasing monthly, squatter colonies being demolished left and right, heinous crimes happening daily, transport fares rising, and police arresting people for opposing APEC, it won't be too hard to make the impression stick.

As long as people don't feel any improvement in their lives, no amount of PR work can convince them that the government's development program will work, APEC or no APEC.

If its any consolation for Mr. Reyes, he should know that its not his fault the anti-APEC protesters are getting all that media mileage. The government is its own worst press agent.

*****

Surfing through the evening news on TV last Wednesday, I almost choked on my hors d' ouvres as I watched reporters from various stations valiantly try, and miserably fail, to put some sense to the barrage of anti-APEC stories that day.

Obviously, when faced with a plethora of footages and facts about people, places and events, the broadcast reporter panics, and starts snipping bits and pieces from everything until he/she creates a collage-of-a-news-story comparable to a Gabriel Garcia Marquez masterpiece.

Entertaining at it is, this kind of reporting just can't do for the coverage of anti-APEC stories. There are at least four groups scheduled to hold counterpoint conferences and caravans to Subic, and if the media wants to do a good job, it should be at least sharp and accurate enough to be able to tell which is which.

Just for the record, there are four alternative APEC conferences. These are:

(1) the People's Conference Against Imperialist, Globalization (PCAIG) sponsored by organizations under the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan or BAYAN (New Nationalist Alliance);

(2) the Subic International Conference on the Social Cost of Globalization sponsored by IBON Philippines and Fr. Shay Cullen's PREDA Foundation;

(3) the Manila People's Forum on APEC sponsored by Walden Bello and the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM); and

(4) the Solidarity of Labor Movements Against APEC (SLAM APEC) sponsored by Lagman's BMP.