MORE OFTEN than not, personal antagonisms have helped shape the contours of the splits and dictated the ever-shifting alliances as much as the interplay of ideological, political and organizational differences. At times, personal differences were garbed in ideological clothing. At other time, the rifts were reduced to sheer clashes of personalities.

Former Ang Bayan editor Ricardo Reyes laments the way the "Reaffirm" document glossed over the ideological and political debate with character attacks and past mistakes. Himself tagged by Liwanag as "counterrevolutionary," Reyes thinks internal matters such as "mistakes, errors in the past for which we should be held responsible one way or another" should have been addressed in a different forum.

''In the first place, the Party's leadership is collective," he says. "It's very rare that an error, especially a big one, was committed by one person. Second, these errors have long been committed. There have already been judgments on those either in the form of censure discipline or punishment."

No sooner had different opposition groups joined ranks, though, the RJ camp itself fell into personality-driven feuds. An initial falling out on how to handle the "Reaffirm" debate served to polarize the RJ groups as a majority did not take to the brand of polemics of Felimon 'Popoy' Lagman, ex-secretary of the CPP's Komiteng Rehiyon ng Metro Manila-Rizal (KRMR) and now working aboveground as Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) chair.

Argues Reyes: "Perhaps he (Lagman) has his own justifications but I don't think we should reply in kind to the RAs. His attacks are just like Joma's. He'd hit Joma, saying, here are your mistakes. And he'd employ character attacks, too."

Lagman himself finds it laughable that the reason behind the splits were not about principles. "It's always Popoy is just like Joma. Any discussion is always about the 'five little pigs and the big bad wolf,'" Lagman says, he being the wolf, of course. He says it politically immature of Left leaders to dwell more on his character or style.

The truth is, Lagman is not exactly the opposite of his nemesis Sison, burdened as he is by accusations of being "ruthless," "dictatorial" and "utilitarian." In 1993, his "arrogance" abetted the crumbling of the loose foundation on which RJ groups stood. Before an ideological summit to discuss theoretical and political positions could be held, and a national coordinating body to discuss the building up of a party formed, a split had ensued between the groups that collectively called themselves the "Third Force" on one side and Lagman's KRMR on the other. Using the KRMR Counter-Thesis, Lagman was adamant about meeting Liwanag's theoretical and tactical positions head-on, even if the group had not been through with the collective review of Marxism-Leninism.

There is also the precarious KRMR-VisCom formation, which materalized in January 1994 when VisCom chief Arturo Tabara made a surprise shift to KRMR's side, splitting the VisCom in the process. Three years later, it was KRMR's (now Komiteng Rebolusyonaryo ng Metro Manila-Rizal) turn to fragment. Lagman was expelled for acts violating the basic principles of collective leadership and democratic centralism. His character was also said to be unbecoming of a "proletarian revolutionary." The rift, Lagman says, arose from his perceived "liquidationist" attitude — for his refusal to help in the Party congress preparations.

In the wake of Lagman's expulsion, KRMR split into two bitter factions. Lagman claims to have the support of majority of the party branches. The rest of KRMR, now under the name of Metro Manila Rizal Regional Party Committee (MRRPC) and occasionally referred to as 'Bloke,' consisted of the bulk of the region's underground cadres, including the Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB). The 'Bloke' later decided to disengage from the pre-party formation of the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa (RPM), which was established in May 1998, citing that its party building efforts ended in "an organizational project without resolving ideological unity or coming up with any party program." Only the former ABB chief and a few followers remained with the RPM.

The Lagman faction suffered yet another split when one of Lagman's closest lieutenants, Sonny Melencio and forces from the "Progresibo" (Progressive) tendency within the pre-split KRMR, bolted out to form the Liga Sosyalista in 1998. An open socialist organization, the Liga deplored the continuing drift of the Lagman group's politics to the right. Eventually, it merged with the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Proletaryo (RPP), the revitalized left-wing faction of the 1930 PKP, to give rise to the pre-party formation of Sosyalistang Partido ng Paggawa (SPP).

Melencio's "Left Unity" project, which anticipates the formation of a legal socialist party in the tradition of Australia's Democratic Socialist Party, has drawn varied reactions from other Left groups. Joel Rocamora of Akbayan finds the recruits to the "Left Unity" a very strange ideological mix — PKP, a small group from the Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas (PDSP), social democrats, the left-wing group of the discredited Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA). Others are open to such a unity project as part of tactical considerations, which thus implies a propitious element to it. Only that now is just not the right time.