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Working tirelessly on the ground are community organizers who turned a particular issue into a political question and mobilized the people to discuss, decide, and determine the proper course of action. They are immersed in full-time political work even if this does not yield any pecuniary benefit.
Education is under threat of being reduced into a mastery of prepackaged learning materials that are stored in downloadable files in the web cloud. Discovery of the new in the near future could simply refer to a browsing experience.
Our hope lies in how we will face the pandemic not as mask-wearing individuals but as a group promoting medical measures, social reforms, and democratic rights. The pandemic demands medical attention, the crisis requires collective political action.
If the internet is a weapon of mass distraction, media streaming is the precision missile targeting citizens in search of escape and lazy fun. This is the extra dose supplied by the media industry after lockdowns have been enforced across the world as we battle a pandemic and an economic recession.
The occupant of Malacanang Palace is always the most rabid and notorious redbaiter-in-chief. Duterte has his own uncouth style but his ranting is no different from former presidents who used their privilege to attack critics and activists.
Activism can provide useful insight and practical guidance on how to better grasp the link between the personal and the broader set of social relationships. It can sharpen our understanding of the dynamics of changing the self in relation to social transformation.
With or without the CPP-NPA, there are just reasons for the people to resist and build a strong movement against authoritarian regimes. And paranoid governments would always clamp down on critics and dissenters whether the opposition is religious, the wealthy, foreign-backed, or communist.
The Left’s primary source of support and inspiration is the fighting masses. Their conditions reflect the failure of the current system to end poverty, hunger, landlessness, and inequality which vindicate the need for a revolutionary struggle.
As BM-Youth campaigners, we saw the election as an effective platform to broadcast our programs, organize young voters, and expand our presence in schools and communities. We formed new alliances, learned some of the intricacies of electoral tactics, and improved our way of communicating our messages to different types of voters.
When individuals begin to realize their oppression, they are motivated to act. And when they begin to use the language that is relevant to their lives, it gives them the power to dare and act decisively.
We are reminded that the best model of ‘audience engagement’ is still direct organizing in communities. Mainstream and social media can broaden reach, but in politics what counts is the solid membership in barangays, districts, cities, and provinces.
Ang ating buhay ay hindi dapat ginu-Google kundi ginugugol sa isang dakilang layunin. Madaling sabihin subalit mahirap gawin dahil sa totoo lang, napakalakas ng hatak ng indibidwalistang pantasya at makasariling konsepto ng pagmamahal sa bayan.
I was prepared to be disappointed with NatDem politics but instead, I became more immersed in their mass campaigns. I was overwhelmed with several political realizations: Here was a movement making democracy work through collective leadership, here was a political force whose strength is linked to the empowerment of its members in the grassroots, here was history claiming the present to build a new future.
It is methodical, thorough, repetitive, but never dull. That’s why those who lampoon the mundaneness of rallies are either clueless commenters, misinformed keyboard analysts, or apologists of the state.
We are back to the basics. Threatened by armies of disinformation, our best weapon is the truth. Reading the truth, deciphering the truth, fighting for the truth. In the age of ephemeral attention, reading is an act we can pursue, promote, and steer towards our other political endeavors.
No one has stopped them from lampooning the CPP in local and international platforms. But they turned their valid right to criticize into a cheap redbaiting ploy to attack activists. It is therefore not a surprise to learn that the state has used their work to develop a propaganda material and even legal evidence to persecute militant activists while praising the politics of the moderates.
Love also holds the key to survive a ‘Groundhog Day’ in Congress. Love in the form of knowledge that what matters most is the movement of people working for social transformation outside the halls of Congress.
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