KMU extols Marx, Lenin, but resents ‘commie’ tag
AFTER regularly extoling in public Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, the recognized leaders of the world communist movement, the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), has sought the help of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in “identifying” groups and persons it claimed as behind the increasing number of social media posts accusing it as part of the local communist terrorist movement headed by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
In a letter last week to NBI officer-in-charge, Dir. Eric Distor, the KMU said it is “alarmed” over the proliferation of anti-communist propaganda tagging its leaders and members as also members of the CPP.
“We call on the NBI to immediately look into these cases of attacks, smear campaign, and disinformation drive against us—workers, labor leaders, labor unions, and workers’ rights advocates and our organizations,” reads part of the letter signed by KMU chair, Elmer Labog and its secretary-general, Jerome Adonis.
The labor center, which is not even registered with the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) as a legitimate workers’ federation, also claimed the accusation against it “undermine our organization’s integrity and grossly violate our rights to organize workers, form unions, and the people’s freedom of association as guaranteed by the Philippine Constitution and provided in international conventions.”
The KMU’s request immediately drew a response from National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, also the vice-chair of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), who stressed that no less than Jose Maria Sison, founder of the CPP, who first ‘red-tagged’ the KMU and other organizations under the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan).
Before finally settling down in Utrecht, The Netherlands, Sison, in a speech in Belgium in 1987, identified Bayan and KMU as among those composing the “legal democratic forces” of the CPP in the Philippines.
Aside from Bayan and KMU, Sison also identified other CPP-created legal fronts such as the women’s group ‘Gabriela,’ the peasant group, ‘Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas’ (KMP), the teachers’ group, ‘Alliance of Concerned Teachers’ (ACT) and the youth/student groups, ‘League of Filipino Students’ (LFS) and ‘Kadena.’
Sison stated that as the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA) cannot win their “armed revolution” by themselves, the creation of these legal democratic forces is a vital component in their fight to bring down the Philippine government by violent means.
A video clip of Sison naming the CPP’s created front groups still exists and can be viewed on social media such as YouTube.
Esperon said Sison is the “master red-tagger” of CPP-created organizations and that part of the government’s job is to inform the public about the facts.
After Sison’s admission resurfaced and began circulating some two years ago, none of those he named—KMU, Gabriela, KMP or ACT—stepped forward to publicly contest his statement.
