The Bayan Muna (People First) is a major political party in the Philippines and is a proponent of the National Democratic movement.

The party upholds the "New Politics, the Politics of Change" in opposition to "traditional, elitist, pro-imperialist politics". Its platform includes the setting up of a government that they define as progressive and pro-people, with meaningful representation of democratic sectors, according to the official party line. Among the marginalized and non-traditional party-lists in the Philippines, Bayan Muna is the most popular and has the widest mass base.

Bayan Muna advocates genuine land reform or redistribution of land (which is very popular to poor and landless Filipino peasants) and nationalist industrialization (developing Philippine macro- and micro-industries for the benefit of the Filipino people and not of foreigners), in contrast with neo-liberal policies instituted by successive Philippine governments. However, it has remained silent on how land reform can be made sustainable in the face of more productive foreign farmers. Nor do they mention the fact that foreign investors can provide capitalization and technology transfer to jumpstart industrialization as experienced by Singapore, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. Bayan Muna has a socialist program similar to that advocated by some genuine social-democratic parties in Europe: a democratic and socialist-inclined welfare state. But again remains silent on the sustainability or practicality of their policies unlike the welfare states of Scandanavian countries.

It was formed in 1999 by representatives of grassroots-based people's organizations under the umbrella group BAYAN (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, New Patriotic Alliance).

Due to its high-profile role in the 2001 People Power uprising and in spite of harassment and logistical problems,[citation needed] Bayan Muna won the most votes for partylist representatives in elections for the House of Representatives in 2001 and 2004.

Due to this strong electoral showing, the party was able to place three representatives in 2001 (Satur Ocampo, Crispin Beltran and Liza Maza) as well as in 2004 (Satur Ocampo, Teodoro Casiño and Joel Virador). In their 2001-2004 stint, Beltran and Maza resigned their posts to help their sectors form their own parties: Anakpawis (Toiling Masses of Workers and Peasants) and the Gabriela Women's Party.

Filipinos easily identify with candidates of Bayan Muna because most of their candidates come from the poor sectors or from the socially-conscious segment of the middle class, in contrast with candidates of traditional political parties who are rich and members of prominent but much-hated political dynasties.

Bayan Muna's strong electoral victories have led some militarist elements in the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime to theorize that its leftist and progressive programs would dominate Philippine politics and thus may effectively challenge the status quo. As a result, Bayan Muna members have been subjected to harassment, tortures and killings. Since 2001, it is reported that 717 Bayan Muna members, supporters, and officials have been killed.[citation needed]

Currently, the party is at the forefront of the movement to remove Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from the presidency on account of what they feel is her betrayal of public trust and political repression, among other issues. The party's strong anti-Arroyo stance further strengthens its popularity with the masses who felt that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's presidency has failed to solve poverty, corruption, starvation and other socio-economic problems. This is despite the fact that BAYAN MUNA has yet to create jobs or craft laws that give incentives to do so. Most of their actions involve increasing the benefits of laborers regardless of how uncompetitive or unproductive it makes the Philippine worker relative to other ASEAN countries (See criticisms). They have backed and crafted laws that make it more profitable for a worker to be lazy and inefficient than productive and hardworking. This is done by making it more expensive (by increasing transaction costs) to fire a worker (because of the cost of litigation with complicated laws) than keeping him despite just cause (e.g. such as stealing). Their policies for workers often involve increasing the minimum wage without regard to worker productivity which is unsustainable (see price/wage spiral). Mainstream economics has already proven such policies to not only be unsustainable but harmful to workers' welfare. This of course does not affect BAYAN MUNA because its' members remain largely protected and only non-members feel the brunt of their policies. This only makes non-member workers want to become BAYAN MUNA members even more. In economics and related disciplines, a transaction cost is a cost incurred in making an economic exchange. ... In macroeconomics, the price/wage spiral (also called the wage/price spiral) represents a vicious circle process in which different sides of the wage bargain try to keep up with inflation to protect real incomes. ...

If Bayan Muna's popularity with the poor masses in the Philippines would steadily progress, it may soon be capable of fielding candidates for the Philippine Senate, or even for the presidency. Bayan Muna's Satur Ocampo may in fact become the Philippines' Hugo Chavez, Daniel Correa, Evo Morales, Fidel Castro or Daniel Ortega someday, ushering the Philippine republic into what many may call as its golden age: communist dictatorship, with all the glory this involves. Despite the lack of empirical evidence to support communism's sustainability and long term prosperity.

Criticisms

See [BAYAN criticisms]

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