“The theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property.” –The Communist Manifesto

With the public being inundated with political ads, beyond the streets being littered with endless posters and billboards but every other commercial on television is literally hawking some candidate or partylist organization, there is no escaping the madness. However, if there is anything that can be drawn from the current hyper-political environment, it is the way in which candidates try to reach out to voters and what voters seem to demand from their elected officials.
There are those ads that offer the same vague plans for the future, awful campaign jingles, celebrity endorsements, and slogans repeated ad nauseum. There are also the very few ads that depict candidates presenting constructive proposals, many times drawing on past experience and showing what they have physically done, such as agricultural reform, job creation, or industry development that has led to new opportunity—much more than merely signing their name to a law that has yet to be implemented and calling it “progress.”
However, the type of ad that seems to get the most airtime are the ones repeatedly splashing the word “free” in big bold letters.
“Free Tuition,” “Free Internet Access,” “Free College” (including “Free Housing” and “Free Books”), “Free Check-ups,” “Free School Lunch” (“Free Food” altogether), “Free Medicine,” “Free Medical Services,” “Free Allowances,” and a myriad of other entitlements are all broadcast over the television 24 hours a day. In addition, some candidates are pledging higher salaries, guaranteeing jobs, price controls, and increases to existing government entitlement programs.
In terms of the public, it seems nearly every week there is some group demanding the government to take private property and turn it over to the less fortunate. The call is essentially the first tenet of the Communist Manifesto: “[The] abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.” According to the famous manuscript penned by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, “The theory of the Communists may be summed up in a single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
In addition, just last year, President Rodrigo Duterte signed a law creating a new cabinet department, the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The primary purpose of the department is to respond to the “housing backlog,” which is said to be in excess of two million. While other countries have similar departments intended on providing affordable housing, to organize a government agency primarily operating to provide millions with government housing is more equivalent to China, which is constantly developing massive communities of government housing.

…but it’s not Communism?
In the Philippines, the word Communism draws images of the New Peoples’ Army (NPA) terror group; however, when it comes to the way both the politicians and the public sees the government, it seems to lead to an all-powerful central government.
If all politician proposals are implemented (with about half already signed into law), how does it get paid? With the public already complaining about the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Law and excise taxes, would government officials really propose adding even more taxes? Sure various sectors can fight against deregulation or push for tariffs but once the seemingly-desired price controls come into play, profits and income are out of their hands as government is determining prices instead of the individual that is actually balancing the books.
According to Marx and Engels, “Capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is thereby transformed into social property.” By sacrificing the ability to set one’s own prices, power is further ceded to the state.
Among their other tenets of communism, the manifesto calls for the “centralization of credit in the hands of the state.” New York University politics professor Bertell Ollman interprets that statement to mean, “Carrying this measure into effect will deprive financiers of both their wealth and their power to direct the economy.”
Tapping into the idea of “common property,” with politicians guaranteeing jobs, how exactly does that get accomplished? Given all the free stuff promised, there is no way taxes could be lowered in an effort to spur further investment.
However, a proposal is currently on the table suggesting massive government expansion.
HB 5094 seeks to end the controversial practice of contractualization by requiring the government to provide 80,000 new permanent positions annually. Aangat Tayo partylist Rep. Neil Abayon recently put out a press release claiming the Civil Service Commission and the Department of Budget and Management will be able to “regularize” current contracted workers.
“Giving permanent government jobs to 660,000 qualified personnel is a proposition that will find strong support in Congress,” he affirmed. Additionally, the legislator acknowledged the newly-created permanent positions would require an additional P2.4 billion in retirement payouts, P60 billion in a manpower budget, and P62.4 billion across various agencies.
Endless new government entitlements, the expansion of existing government programs, tens of thousands of new government jobs created yearly, government providing housing for millions of families, and controlling how private business operates, it appears the country continues to move towards a more totalitarian construct and it’s being accomplished by wooing the public with “free” things.

Calls for the Philippines to move further left
After then-Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was elected president in 2016, this column published a piece pointing out the overt admiration of communism by some elected officials and their desires for the Philippines to move in that direction.
After introducing the topic by pointing out former President Corazon Aquino’s hasty pardon of Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) leader Jose Maria Sison, such a legacy continues to be carried out by Senator Risa Hontiveros, who openly expressed her desire to model the Philippines after one of the most prominent Communist nations in the world, Cuba.
Citing a visit to Bacolod City, while on an Anti-Zika campaign and distributing condoms throughout Barangay Alijis, the senator said the Philippines needs “consultorios” and “policlinicos,” like those in Cuba. The article then quoted a piece by Lucia Newman, a resident of Cuba since 1997, who wrote a piece for Al-Jazeera in 2012.
According to the previous column: “She explains the political elite, like Hontiveros, would most likely benefit from the Communist healthcare style due to preferential treatment, quite the position for somebody who ran the government’s healthcare system, PhilHealth (Philippine Health Insurance Corporation)… ‘Many Cubans complain that top-level government and Communist Party officials have access to VIP health treatment, while ordinary people must queue from dawn for a routine test, with no guarantee that the allotted numbers will not run out before it is their turn,’ she wrote. ‘If you do not have a contact or money to pay under the table, the waiting time for all but emergency procedures can be ridiculously long.’”
It’s not exactly clear how the senator’s preferred tiered healthcare system, which would be teeming with long wait times and rationed medicine, reconciles with all today’s politicians promising free healthcare and free medicine (maybe free if you can get it).

Empowering the NPA?
While those who back such a hard move left would deny any association with the NPA, it does recall a statement made back in January that may put the pieces together.
During the Barangay Summit on Good Governance, an event hosted by the Department of the Interior and Local Government, former NPA committee member Evelyn Bustamante pointed out the direct connection between the CPP and the National Democratic Front (NDF), the CPP’s supposed political arm, as a source of manpower, financial, and logistical support for the NPA.
She urged officials not to support any leftist party-list groups, pointing out, “They, too, are directly or indirectly giving support to the NPA’s armed struggle.”
This point was further supported with a revelation by the Philippine Army 303rd Infantry Brigade (303IB) last month after intercepting a statement by NDF-Panay spokesperson Maria Concepcion ‘Concha’ Araneta-Bocala.
According to the NDF official: “Members of the Kabataang Makabayan, Makibaka, PKM (Pambansang Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid), Revolutionary Council of Trade Unions, and allied organizations of the NDF have continually filled in the ranks of the NPA immersing themselves with the masses in the countryside and cities while others perform underground work in urban areas.” Other NDF-allied organizations named in the statement included party-list groups Anakpawis and Bayan Muna.
“The NPA was already declared by our government, the United States, and European Union as a terrorist organization,” explained 303IB commander, Brigadier General Benedict Arevalo “Therefore, based on the statement of Araneta, the primary source of terrorists—extortionists—in the country is the NDF.”

Everything for free
Personally, as somebody who leans right, this type of economic structure is not a personal preference. Expanding the public’s dependence on government only empowers the government and offers no chance for upward mobility. In a country with non-existent domestic manufacturing, an agriculture system marred in red tape, a stifling tax system, and almost complete reliance on foreign remittance, it would seem many are left with two extremes.
The direction many politicians want is to give out more and more entitlements to keep them in office by maintaining a loyal voter base desiring even more free stuff, while sacrificing reasonable government spending, disenfranchising the public by making them more dependent on the government, and continuing the country in a downward economic spiral.
This goes beyond the general western argument of expanding government programs; it’s more than just a “safety net.” If today’s politicians get everything they desire, Filipinos will have to depend on government for education, healthcare, housing, food, and (in many cases) income.
There is also the opposite route—the much more difficult direction: complete tax reform. Reform the tax system to be friendlier to business, which would allow local businesses to expand and more companies (beyond call centers) to invest in the country. Such a system would create more private sector jobs, eliminating the need for excessive government expansion, while offering the individual citizen the opportunity to improve their lives.
A better tax system would also allow people more spending power—the ability for individuals to provide better care for their families through money they earned and not limited to what the government is willing to hand out. If the government is not taking as much from both the individual and businesses, salaries should rise organically, allowing for people to pay for better education, provide shelter, and access more nutritious food.
For somebody who identifies as libertarian, government reform needs to be reduced greatly. There is no reason why nearly every process with the government takes multiple steps over the course of several days. Shrinking government would be a huge step in helping bring the country back to a reasonably stable position. There are less moving parts, which makes it more manageable; and government revenues can be better allocated instead of funding redundant work.
As Brazilian journalist Felipe Moura Brasil said of his home country when voters ushered in an era of Socialism, a time when the country’s government services were expanded exponentially, “Socialism always works at the beginning.” However, he noted, “As government spending kept going up, [former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s] socialist paradise fell apart and the economy fell with it.”/WDJ