Pol. Ideology 35: Why Liberty

In 2007, I was invited by another free market thinker, Marc Guttman, to contribute a story, personal stories and experiences on how I became a free market thinker, or a libertarian, a classical liberal, related terms, to a book that he would edit and publish, "Why Liberty". Marc knew me through a good friend, Jo Kwong, who was the VP for Institute Relations then of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation.

Lucky me, I was the only Filipino who was invited to contribute to that project. After several revisions to my contribution, and after several glitches with his publisher, the book was finally published in 2010. See details here,  http://whyliberty.com/

This is the book. Nice and neat, isn't it? There were 54 of us from different countries and continents who contributed a paper. Marc as Editor did not contribute a paper but he wrote the Foreword and did all the legwork to make the book a reality.

My paper is #52, on page 379 of the book. Below is the last draft that I submitted to Marc. I think there were slight revisions to it in the published book.

One can view some reviews, as well as the Foreword, Table of contents, at the book website. Interested to see the whole book, it's available at   http://www.fr33minds.com/product_info.php?products_id=434.

Thanks for the opportunity to contribute to that book Marc. Cheers.
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From Collective to Individual Liberty

By Bienvenido “Nonoy” Oplas

My introduction to political activism was in my college days in the early 80s at the University of the Philippines (UP), a premier tertiary institution in the country. The movement to oust the Marcos dictatorship which was in power since 1966 was very strong. The former strongman (he died in the late 80s) declared Martial Law in 1972 and ruled by personal decrees and strong police and military forces. Civil rights were drastically curtailed; business monopolies by Mr. Marcos’ friends and cronies were created; and lots of taxpayers money were used to put up hundreds of government corporations and financial institutions to be run by his other friends and political supporters, especially retired police and military personnel so that they would continue  their loyalty to him.

The most consistent and most appealing mass movement especially to student activists then was led by the Maoist-inspired Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in the underground, and its various front and sympathetic organizations above-ground. Thus, my early political formation was molded along the Maoist, anti-dictatorship, anti-imperialism, anti-feudalism, “national democratic” (nat-dem or ND) ideology.

Then in the mid-80s, my buddies and I began discussing the anti-democratic tendencies of most ND organizations. In addition, we were reading the classic writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Lenin, and we interacted with similar individuals, especially some of our professors in the university who were critical not only of the dictatorial tendencies of most ND organizations, but also of the ND ideology itself. We concluded then that the ND movement was theoretically wrong because the Philippines in the 80s was already predominantly capitalist, not feudal. Hence, the call should be socialism, not “controlled capitalism” under national democracy. And the primary leaders of the struggle should be led by the workers and urban poor, not the peasantry. In addition, we felt that socialism, the social ownership of the means of production was a lofty goal to achieve growth with equity, and to help the poor empower themselves. Socialism therefore, should be openly discussed and advocated to a wider audience, at least to our fellow students in UP and other universities.

Thus, we formed our distinct and small socialist movement in UP; later on, we reached out to other allied student organizations in other universities, groups that were anti-dictatorship, open to social transformation, and not fans of the ND philosophy. We also had our own “underground” body, a small group of individuals who were theoretically grounded on Marxism and Leninism, who issued our clandestine socialist newsletter. But we were not as competent and as patient as the NDs in the art of mass organizing and in reaching out to very poor segments of society. Thus, our group failed to expand.  We did retain those whom we had recruited.

When the Marcos dictatorship was finally toppled in 1986 after 20 years in power, there was less fear of political and military harassment. Our group was among the few groups which formed the first openly socialist coalition in the Philippines in 1987, BISIG or “Bukluran sa Ikauunlad ng Sosyalistang Isip at Gawa”, meaning Federation for the Development of Socialist Ideas and Practices. We felt that democratic space opened with the new Cory Aquino government which was made victorious by the first “People Power” revolution, in which we also had participated. I remained active in the socialist movement until 1990.

In 1991, I changed work and for the first time, I worked in government, at the House of Representatives’ economic think tank. Immersed in a new work environment and faced with new set of data and facts, slowly I began to embrace a limited scope of “economic liberalization.” For instance, while I was still in the activist movement, I had previously thought that the bulk of the government’s debt service payment was for foreign debts. When I worked in Congress, I saw lots of detailed data on the budget, numbers that showed that the bulk of debt service payment was from domestic borrowings. Then I got a big assignment to provide technical assistance to the Chairman of the House Committee on Economic Affairs, in a bill liberalizing the entry of foreign investment. Our work was successful with the enactment of the “Foreign Investments Act of 1991.”