"First as tragedy, second as farce":

Marcos, Duterte, and the Communist Parties of the Philippines.

Why did the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), along with the various political groups associated with its political line, rush to endorse Rodrigo Duterte when he was elected president in 2016? Why after less than two years did they declare him a fascist?

This lecture will explore the historical parallels between the party’s initial enthusiasm for Duterte and the endorsement of the Marcos’ dictatorship by an earlier Communist Party, the PKP, in the 1970s. While the founders of the CPP broke from the PKP in 1967, there remained an underlying programmatic continuity between the rival parties. This lecture will explore the class logic that led the PKP to support the Marcos’ dictatorship and justified the CPP’s embrace of Duterte.

Joseph Scalice is a postdoctoral researcher at Nanyang Technological University with a Ph.D in South and Southeast Asian Studies from UC Berkeley. He specializes in the history of modern revolutionary movements in the Philippines focusing on the manner in which they both influenced and were shaped by regional and global political shifts. His doctoral dissertation, Crisis of Revolutionary Leadership: Martial Law and the Communist Parties of the Philippines, 1957-1974, dealt with the political rivalry between two Stalinist parties, the PKP and the CPP, and their role in Ferdinand Marcos' imposition of martial law in 1972.