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In the sixties to the First Quar
ter Storm it was called fascism; in the seventies, martial law
and/or dictatorship; in the early eighties, with Marcos ostensively
lifting martial law, “normalization.” In post-EDSA regimes (from
Aquino to the present), it has a variety of names: “low intensity
conflict” (ushered in by the US during Reagan’s time), national
emergency, Bantay Laya, with extrajudicial killings receiving
international attention, and now Human Security Act of 2007, or the
antiterror bill.
Each regime
has its own reasons for unleashing its repressive state apparatus on
the people. Since 2001, for example, the US war on terror (after
9/11) has been the motivation of the Arroyo regime to crack down on
the CPP/NPA just tagged by both US government and European Union as
terrorist. With this tag, the Left, through the National Democratic
Front, disengaged from the peace talks but expressed willingness to
resume negotiations once the terrorist tag is removed.
The 2004
elections marked by massive fraud and the “Hello, Garci” scandal
triggered protests, with middle class and militant groups joining
together in mass actions. The year 2006 saw a series of repressive
measures including a declaration of national emergency in February,
called off after a week because of domestic and foreign pressures,
brutal dispersals of rallies, the trumped-up charging of party-list
representatives from Bayan Muna, Gabriela, and Anak-pawis (with the
latter still in detention for dubious charges), the arrest of
alleged conspirators in an aborted rebellion, and an intensified
assassination and abduction of members of militant groups,
journalists, church workers and academics.
All along,
since 2001 the Arroyo government and military/police have been cited
in extrajudicial killings and disappearances and held responsible by
its own Melo Commission, the UN rapporteur for human rights, a
European Union council, Amnesty International and many other
international groups. A retired Army general who was the focus of
attention for the killings and abductions in several provinces has
not been called to account by the Arroyo government. The military
leadership itself continues to insist that the victims are the
result of a communist purge.
Meanwhile, the
killings continue almost every day, and the military continues to
deny responsibility. Hence, UN rapporteur Alston’s use of the
phrase “state of almost total denial” on the military. Even US
sources noted the lack of resolve on the part of the Arroyo
government in stopping the killings. Hence, the climate of impunity.
More recently,
the military has conducted what are clearly counterinsurgency
operations not only in poor urban areas where party-list groups are
harassed but also in schools where army men give lectures on
“front organizations” and “enemies of the state” using the
propaganda documentary Know Your Enemy. Militants believe these are
but a prelude to urban extrajudicial killings heretofore limited to
the countryside.
What appears
to be another tool for repression not only of the Left but of the
general opposition is the Human Security Act of 2007 just signed by
President Arroyo. Human-rights advocates who had a hand in having
this antiterror bill passed in both houses of Congress may rue the
day when they gave it their imprimatur despite what they believe to
be “safeguards.” With an unreconstructed military and police and
zealous functionaries in government implementing it—the very
people who are clueless about constitutional and human rights—we
can only take a dim view of what will happen as a result of this
antiterror bill.
We salute the
two intrepid members of the Senate, Jamby Madrigal and Mar Roxas,
for rejecting the bill. As Senator Madrigal said, the new law was
“a license to kill.” She added that “those who have supported
and pushed for this bill have the blood of Filipinos in their
hands.”
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