Marcos redux

 

 

Noted Filipino historian Teodoro Agoncillo once wrote that the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II caused a big spike in crimes. Due to the harshness of the economic conditions, many Filipinos were driven to criminal activities, which continued even with the restoration of the Commonwealth government and the inauguration of the Republic in 1946.

 

Agoncillo observed that “morality had gone down since many people did not care whether they violated the laws of the country provided they earned enough money. Also, relatives and friends of unscrupulous politicians were not afraid to commit crimes because they knew their political-friends would protect them.”

 

When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, it was the same lame excuse that he used to justify his decision – rise in criminality including crimes of rebellion and insurrection. The promise of the New Society that Marcos peddled around, however, did not solve or mitigate the upswing in criminality. Instead, criminal behaviour was accelerated by his own dictatorship and crimes against the people. He sheltered and protected his business cronies from prosecution of the law so they prospered at the same time that his family amassed their stolen wealth.

Philippine Independence Day as traditionally celebrated on June 12.

Modern-day Philippine independence should be celebrated from the day the Marcos dictatorship ended, which seems to offer a better and clearer perspective of national freedom. Never mind the 1898 declaration of Philippine Independence that was outlived by American colonization at the turn of the 20th century. Besides being a mere aspirational quest for self-determination, the Philippines never really became independent after the Philippine-American War nor during the brief Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945.

 

Ferdinand Marcos disturbed the peace of the independence years from 1946 to 1972 with his dictatorial rule, which, as a matter of historical fact, was merely a period of nominal independence from American colonial rule.

 

To reckon our independence from the time Marcos was forced out of Malacañang is indeed a more significant celebration of the triumph of people power. It also sends a strong message to the Marcos loyalists that their political era is just a sad chapter in Philippine history, a miserable interregnum that brought large-scale oppression of civil liberties and gave almost a license for those involved with the dictatorship to ransack the country of its wealth with impunity.

 

If history is to be taught so that important lessons can be learned, we should start teaching our children that modern-day Philippine independence commenced from the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship until democracy was restored in 1987. It may not be the ideal democracy the people wanted, but it was the stepping stone of our country’s struggle for genuine political and economic rights.

 

The former enemies of Philippine society are now resurrecting the bankrupt ideals of the new society under Marcos. They are attempting to rewrite history to portray Marcos as a benevolent dictator who cared for the Filipino masses, who built more roads and bridges, hospitals, schools, and centres of culture and entertainment than any of his predecessors and successors combined. As if his achievements in concrete are the best measure of his greatness, when the truth is, these infrastructure projects bound our people with debts so enormous that people wallowed in poverty not only during his presidency and continue to do so to this day.

 

They are spreading the big lie that Marcos instilled discipline and a genuine respect for the law when the honest truth is that his cronies and friends ignored the law for their own personal benefit without fear of apprehension. Those who opposed his government became victims of repression.

 

They crow about his oratorical skills and decisiveness compared to the bungling incumbent in Malacañang who could not even stand up against his fellow leaders in the region. That he would never have allowed our neighbours to bully us just because we are a smaller nation.

 

The biggest enemy our country has faced in its struggle for independence was not its colonizers, whether it was Spain, the United States or Japan. Its biggest enemy was within and one of its own.

A caricature of former president Ferdinand E. Marcos, first and only
dictator of the Philippines, 1973 to 1986.

An American writer visiting the Philippines during the early period of struggle against martial law in 1984 interviewed a plantation owner in Mindanao who happened to be a former supporter of Marcos. The plantation owner said: “The most humiliating thing about dictatorship is not the repression; it is that you wind up a collaborator yourself. It all seems so easy at first. You smile; you say nothing; you give money when they ask for it. Then something happens that makes you see the truth. I realized three things: that the whole Marcos system was rotten, that I was as much a part of the system as any soldier or spy, and that enough was enough. I had to do something.”

 

Many others have suffered their private humiliation at the hands of Marcos and his agents and turned their fear into loathing the government. That kind of outrage was enough to galvanize an entire nation, to transform the private humiliations of millions into a national upheaval of defiance and pride. That moment happened when millions marched on EDSA to demand Marcos to step down, braving a convoy of soldiers and tanks and aircraft hovering above. That should be the day we should commemorate our independence.

 

But instead, we choose to continue to celebrate our independence from Spain, reducing the rite into a symbol without substance and meaning. We stage marches and parades, hold festivities like fiestas and beauty pageants, which do not give full meaning and significance to our celebration.

 

To many of us, our independence day celebration has become shallow and empty. The declaration of independence by our revolutionary heroes in Kawit was not the culmination of our national struggle for self-determination. American colonization made it impossible for us to be a free nation. Japan gave us “independence” when its army drove the Americans to win the sympathy of Filipinos, to show that they were better than the Americans. When the Americans finally granted our independence in 1946, they tied us to a string of dependency that allowed them full rights to exploit our natural resources and used our waters for their military bases.

 

Then Ferdinand Marcos took our freedoms away in 1972. He was worse than a colonial ruler or a modern-day monarch. When the people drove him away to the islands of Hawaii in 1986, it marked the first time that we were free again to restore our democratic rights. But the nature of politics that we inherited from the colonial past and the tight control of the economy by our oligarchic elite remain the biggest stumbling blocks to the full realization of our democracy.

 

We may not be totally free as what a genuinely free society should be. But at least, we should be free to choose a date when to celebrate this freedom, a time to remind us that our freedoms are still fragile, that we cannot be complacent in the face of a significant threat from collaborators of the Marcos dictatorship in our midst to attempt a comeback.

 

Our history has been hitherto a history of one oppression after the other. Rizal’s death transformed him into a national hero and triggered a rebellion against the Spanish autocracy. Two years after Rizal's execution, the Spanish-American War broke out, and U.S. forces quickly ended more than 300 years of Spanish rule in the islands.

 

The Americans proclaimed themselves liberators; they turned out to be oppressors. After having conquered the Philippines, the United States decided it had no stomach for empire. In 1935, the islands were granted commonwealth status, and the United States promised the Filipinos independence within ten years. The Japanese, too, said they came as liberators when they invaded the Philippines in 1941. Finally, we became an independent republic in 1946, only to be shattered once again in 1972.

 

Ferdinand Marcos destroyed the country’s democratic institutions. But then Marcos was repeating an old Philippine pattern. Proven or not as to his complicity with the assassination of Benigno Aquino, he made possible the rise of another nationalist icon like Rizal that would be responsible for inspiring mass demonstrations and protests leading to his downfall in 1986.

 

Now the stirrings of a comeback of the Marcos era are just beginning. Our national independence is being threatened again.

 

Never again, we should say to this cabal of Marcos loyalists. What better time is there to express our collective will as a nation but during this independence day celebration.

A political prisoner’s song

 

 

For Toni Morrison, an African-American writer and Nobel prize winner for literature, the crucial distinction is not the difference between fact and fiction, but between fact and truth. “Because facts can exist without human intelligence, but truth cannot,” she writes.

 

History tells us that repressive governments never waver in denying the truth, until they come crushing down in defeat to the forces of change. Wherever there is repression, there is always a cover-up by those who are culpable. The amazing truth is they almost believe their infallibility, that their crimes against the people would never be exposed.

 

Take the case of the state of political prisoners in the Philippines, for example.

 

President Benigno Aquino III has steadfastly maintained that the present government has no official policy on human rights violations. The spokesperson for President Aquino, Edwin Lacierda, speaking on behalf of his boss, said this is so because there are no political prisoners in the Philippines. Remember that this was also the official line of the Marcos dictatorship from 1972 until 1984 when more than 70,000 political prisoners were arbitrarily detained during the martial law period. The same position was duplicated by President Aquino’s predecessors, from his mother Cory Aquino to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KpNCGgv6Uo to view
"Tanikala at Talinhaga (Chained Metaphors), a doucmentary on artist-
political prisoners in the Philippines, featuring the segment on poet
Ericson Acosta.

Denial has always been the customary practice of repressive governments or states that have no respect for human dignity. Argentina, Chile, Cambodia, Burma and other states that went through a period of repressive rule had denied the existence of political prisoners in their countries. To these despotic regimes, there was only one category of prisoners: prisoners held under criminal law.

 

Without charging anyone for complicity with rebellion or treason or for participation in any political activity that opposed the government, these prisoners were held for common crimes such as murder, assault, robbery, kidnapping, illegal possession of firearms, disturbing the peace, and other garden-variety infractions.

 

Karapatan, a human rights non-governmental organization in the Philippines, has found almost 447 documented victims of illegal arrests under the present Aquino government from July 2010 to September 2012. These were farmers and indigenous peoples rounded up by the Philippine military in the fields and forests on the pretext that they were New People’s Army (NPA) soldiers or supporters. During that same period, Karapatan also documented some 401 political prisoners, with 123 persons arrested and detained by the Aquino government.

 

But the Aquino government deemed these individuals as mere common criminals, who committed crimes against the law, and therefore, must be put in prison. So far, from the time martial law was imposed in 1972 until now, those who have opposed or criticized the government of the Philippines, or who might have participated in political activity opposed to the government whether by peaceful means or resistance, could spend time in jail as common criminals. Yet as common criminals, the irony is they are deprived of their right to a speedy trial to which they are entitled under the Bill of Rights in the Constitution. In fact, they could be detained for as long as the government wants. After languishing in jail, they are released with the charges against them dropped without going to trial.

 

This was the lasting legacy of martial law under Ferdinand Marcos. A legacy that engendered a culture of impunity by the state – from illegal arrests and detention to torture to forced disappearances and extra-judicial killings. Cases upon cases have been documented by Karapatan and other human rights organizations, yet the government continues to deny that there are political prisoners. Only common criminals, the government insists.

 

Very recently last week, President Noynoy Aquino must have suffered from a change of heart. He ordered the creation of an Inter-Agency Committee (IAC) to handle cases of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other forms of human rights abuses committed under the previous administration. Note that documented cases of abuses and violations of human rights under the Aquino administration are not covered by this new human rights body.

 

But why create this human rights “superbody” in the first place?

 

A month ago in Phnom Penh, leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that included President Aquino adopted a human rights declaration that purportedly would enshrine human right protections for the region’s 600 million people. Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario called it as “a legacy for our children.” Immediately, the ASEAN agreement came under fire from various critics including the United Nations rights chief, Navi Pillay, who asked that the pact be postponed because of concerns that it might undermine universal rights standards by allowing loopholes for governments.

 

This didn’t stop President Aquino from jumping the gun and ordering the creation of his government’s new human rights “superbody.” But here’s the catch. Aquino appointed the heads of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) as members of the Inter-Agency Committee (IAC). How could we then expect the IAC to be an independent body when the chiefs of the AFP and PNP are involved in investigating and resolving cases of human rights violations carried out by their own members? How is this body different from the Melo Commission during the Arroyo administration? Recall that despite evidence pointing to members of the military and the police as perpetrators of human rights violations, the Melo Commission exonerated them of any complicity or responsibility for crimes against human rights.

 

Critics of the ASEAN human rights pact are right in stating that the declaration only lowers human rights standards by creating new loopholes and justifications ASEAN members can use to justify abusing the rights of their citizens. Aquino’s Inter-Agency Committee, other than a mere publicity stunt for the administration’s avowed seriousness in defending human rights, is just another new loophole for the government to absolve the military and the police of abuses and violations of human rights.

 

If President Aquino is truly sincere with his promise three years ago to uphold human rights, he can begin with a declaration of amnesty to all political prisoners who are languishing in various prisons in the country. But first, he must admit that there are political prisoners in the Philippines. The recognition of political prisoners is essential to a democratic and national reconciliation process. Denial of their political status is a denial of their human dignity.

December 3 marks the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners as
detainees around the world raise awareness of their plight and longing for freedom
through poetry reading. Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SVLRtgjqrE
to listen  to Anakbayan-Toronto as they read on Radyo Migrante "Awit ng Bilanggong
Politikal/Political Prisoner's Song,"  a poem written by peasant advocate, Axel Pinpin.

Last Monday, December 3, political prisoners from all over the Philippines commemorated the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners with a reading of a poem about the longing for freedom. The poem, “Awit ng Bilanggong Politikal” (Political Prisoner’s Song) was written by Axel Pinpin, a peasant advocate imprisoned during the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration. Pinpin was arrested in Tagaytay City along with four others and spent more than two years in prison before being released without trial for alleged crimes.

 

Originally written in Filipino, the poem has been translated in seven languages, including French, Spanish, Portuguese and Russian. Pinpin’s poem was read by political prisoners in Quezon Provincial Jail, Laguna Provincial Jail, Camp Vicente Lim, Batangas Provincial Jail, Bicutan Detention Center, Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center at Camp Crame and other detention facilities in Bicol and Samar. High-profile political prisoners in other countries, including journalist Mumia Ali-Jamal, the Cuban 5, punk band Pussy Riot and Kurdistan revolutionary leader Abdullah Öcalan also joined the poetry reading.

 

Here’s Axel Pinpin’s poem:

 

Ang pader ko’y di lamang malamig at malagkit,

Nakakwadro rin dito ang latay ng pasakit.

Ang sahig ko’y di lamang marumi at maganit,

Nakaratay din dito ang tisikong inip.

Ang rehas ko’y di lamang kalawang ang galis,

Naglangib na rin dito ang paglayang nais.

 

(My wall is not only cold and unkempt,

Framed on it is the welt mark of torment.

My floor is not only dirty and roughly done,

Laid on it is my sick boredom

My prison bars do not only have rust for scabs,

Crusting on it are wounds of longed for freedom.)

 

Wisikan ng tula ang langib ng paglaya!

Wasakin, wasakin ang rehas na sutla!

Wakasan, wakasan ang salot ng pagdusta!

Bumangon sa dilim na ngitngit ang tanglaw!

Banggain, banggain ang pader na ampaw!

Banggain ang karsel na pagtakas ang hiyaw!

 

(Wash with the salve of poems the wounds of freedom!

Bash, bash down the smooth bars of prison!

Smash, and smash down the pestilence of oppression!

Rise, rise up in the night with the raging light!

Break, break down the weak walls of repression!

Fight, fight back incarceration with cries of emancipation!)

The ghosts of martial law

 

Last year during the 39th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, Edwin Lacierda, the spokesperson of President Benigno Aquino III, was asked what changes the Aquino administration had initiated to improve the human rights situation. In his reply, Lacierda said, “We have no political prisoners.”



The Aquino government continues to deny that there are political prisoners in
the Philippines. Click link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9DC4rLtge8
to view "Political Prisoners in the Philippines."

Lacierda also said that the Aquino administration has no official policy on human rights violations. Pointing to the appointment of Etta Rosales as chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights, who herself was a victim of torture under the Marcos regime, Lacierda said this was proof that “We frown on human rights violations.”

 

In denying that there are no political prisoners in the Philippines, at least under the Aquino presidency, Lacierda argued that the list under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) bore this out. The list he was referring to contained the names of the persons supposed to be protected by JASIG, who were participants in the peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). But the list contained assumed names (aliases) as agreed upon by both panels to ensure the security of the peace talk participants, including their consultants and staff.

 

Because Lacierda and the government could not decrypt the JASIG list (complaining that there were even no pictures), he used this as his term of reference why no political prisoners exist in the Philippines. Lacierda must have thought that the NDFP supplied in one list the names of all the political prisoners languishing in various jails and detention centres in the country. The list actually had only the names of the NDFP peace panel members and consultants. Either Lacierda, who is a lawyer, was being overly technical in asking for a clearer term of reference or simply dim-witted to deny that political prisoners in the Philippines are in fact deemed as common criminals and incarcerated along with those charged with murder, theft, robbery and other common crimes.

 

There is nothing novel in Lacierda’s denial. Ferdinand Marcos said the same thing when he said that there were no political prisoners during the martial law period. It has been the official practice of the Philippine government from the time of Marcos to lump all political prisoners with common criminals. From the time of martial law under Marcos, no person has ever been charged with rebellion or treason or for participation in any political activity that opposed the government, but only for crimes such as murder, assault, robbery, kidnapping, illegal possession of firearms, disturbing the peace, and other garden-variety common crimes.

 

Even the President’s father Ninoy Aquino was jailed by Marcos for trumped-up charges of murder, illegal possession of firearms and subversion. Not because he was an outspoken critic of the Marcos administration. Ninoy Aquino was never prosecuted for his political opposition to the martial law regime.

 

How would President Benigno Aquino III react if told that his father was never a political prisoner, but just a common criminal? When in fact Ninoy Aquino was the foremost political detainee at the time.

 

Why would hundreds of other political dissenters and innocent victims of state repression continue to suffer imprisonment? Is it because there are no political prisoners? The President must have a short memory: he has already forgotten that one of the first things his mother, the late President Corazon Aquino, proclaimed upon assuming the presidency after martial law was a general amnesty and to release all political prisoners.

 

A political prisoner is someone who is in prison because he has opposed or criticized the government of his own country. Why most political prisoners have the taken the path of most resistance is not difficult to understand.

 

When Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law on September 21, 1972, he imposed his own will outside of the limits of the Constitution. He ruled by decree and curtailed press freedom and other civil liberties. He closed down Congress and ordered the arrest of opposition leaders and militant activists, including his staunchest critics and potential contenders to the presidency, Senators Benigno Aquino, Jr., Jovito Salonga and Jose Diokno.



Ferdinand Marcos declaring martial law in the Philippines on September 21, 1972.
Click http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFDB25C4DA6DFF2E0  to view "Batas
Militar: Martial Law in the Philippines" by the Philippine Presidency  Project, a two-hour
 long video produced by Foundation Worldwide People Power (FWWPP).

The economy floundered under martial law because Marcos and his cronies were stealing the country’s wealth. Repression was widespread as the military establishment under Marcos became more entrenched and powerful. They could arrest anyone on mere suspicion and make them disappear.

 

Military historian Alfred McCoy in his book, Closer than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy, cited 3,257 extrajudicial killings, 35,000 torture victims, and 70,000 incarcerated during the Marcos martial law period.

 

As the people were deprived of their political and civil rights, their only viable option was to take to the hills and the path of most resistance. All revolutions are born from similar conditions. Oppressive social structures and economic inequalities often have pushed dissenters to take the road to resistance. Many of these people are poor, weak and belong to underprivileged communities. Where there is state repression, people will always be attracted to fight back.

 

From the martial law years until the present time, political prisoners have been arrested without the veneer of legality, where false criminal charges and manufactured evidence are used to disguise the fact that an individual is a political prisoner. This situation is most common when human rights are violated and abused, to the point of establishing a culture of impunity by the state.

 

The legacy of arrest and detention of political prisoners during the Marcos martial law years has never been broken. As it persisted during the Marcos time, justice became a flexible notion and depended on what was in the best interests, not of the people, but of the state and its dictator. Prosecution was used as a political tool and the presumption of innocence was just an abstract liberal legal principle. While the enemies of the Marcos regime could easily have been liquidated, which in some cases were made through enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings, the government also opted to make efficient use of the criminal justice system to destroy them. Instead of accusing them of political crimes, they would invent propped-up charges of common crimes. Depriving them of their day in court, they would languish in detention, sometimes tortured and deprived of their decency. What was lacking from the treatment of political prisoners during that time was a “show trial,” a practice that was normally staged in other repressive states where the defendant was brought before the court, a broken and hollow man, to confess his crimes.

 

Putting in prison those who oppose the government, or even forcing their disappearances or extra-judicially liquidating them is a legacy from the martial law years. Today, such arrest and prolonged detention of political prisoners keep lingering on. There are at present about 385 political prisoners, not identified as such but mixed with common criminals, who continue to languish in prison for exercising their right to civil society freedoms.

 

Since President Benigno Aquino III became president, there have been 99 victims of extrajudicial killings and 11 cases of enforced disappearances. Majority of the victims are farmers, indigenous peoples and activists advocating for land rights and environmental protection.

 

In its second-quarter report, the local human rights group Karapatan also documented 60 victims of frustrated killings, 67 victims of torture, 93 victims of physical assault and injury perpetrated by suspected state security forces.

 

We don’t need to have a better definition of terms or perhaps a clearer term of reference on human rights as Lacierda has suggested. In addition to the rule of law that the Philippines upholds, it is also a signatory to almost all international instruments on human rights. Instead of denial, Lacierda and his likes, including the President, have all the terms of reference before their disposal to inform them on why we have political prisoners in the Philippines including ongoing violations and abuse of human rights.

 

All those who are in a state of political denial, such as President Aquino, his spokesperson and others can start with a clear appreciation of September 21, 1972, and be ever mindful of the ghosts of martial law that continue to haunt us as a nation.

Whitewashing the truth

Plato said that “those who tell the stories also hold the power,” something that historical revisionists understand fully well. This is particularly true to those who would like to portray an illusion of a great presidency as in the case of Ferdinand Marcos and his almost twenty years of authoritarian rule. His immediate survivors who are now entrusted to keep the Marcos legacy alive like his wife Imelda and children Imee and Ferdinand Jr. are all in cahoots with historical revisionists who saw nothing despicably wrong with the iron-clad rule of Ferdinand Sr. from 1969 to 1986.

The same can be said for those who, on one hand, continue to glorify the outcome and moral impact of EDSA I on government and its leaders, and on the other, those who would like to demonize the military and the Church in installing Cory Aquino to an accidental position of president of the Republic after Marcos was driven out. Videos lampooning EDSA I and discrediting its achievements are circulating on YouTube and the Internet. But at the same time, the moderate media or so-called “yellow media” have become the anointed protectors of the legacy of EDSA I and they would not hesitate to inspire or instigate another public uproar should it be necessary to preserve that legacy or support a popular government even if it ignores the rule of law.

Both are clear examples of historical revisionism that attempt to erase the culpability of the martial law years under Marcos and the succeeding presidencies starting from Cory Aquino to her son Noynoy Aquino for government complicity in violating human rights and for instilling a culture of impunity.

Filipinos protest against military abuses of human rights, extrajudicial killings and
 disappearances. Photo by Magic Liwanag. Click link to view "Ending the culture of
impunity in the Philippines," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c24VJubiVv4

Martial law spawned corrupt system

G. Eugene Martin, U.S. Institute of Peace Executive Director of the Philippine Facilitation Project, in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs in 2007, pointed to the legacy of the Ferdinand Marcos regime as one palpable cause for the extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances of civil society activists. According to Martin, martial law created a corrupt system where soldiers, police, judges and prosecutors became principals of offences like extralegal arrest, detention, incarceration, disappearances and salvaging, are all permitted or allowed.

This is very evident in the military’s reliance on Proclamation No. 2054 of President Marcos despite the lifting of martial law on January 27, 1981 and the succession of democratically elected presidents after EDSA I which were supposed to obliterate the repressive laws of the martial law period. It is the same objective under that Proclamation “to prevent or suppress lawless violence, insurrection, rebellion and subversion” that prompts the military to continue launching pre-emptive strikes against alleged communists and their sympathizers, and terroristic enemies of the state. All this violence against the people is therefore considered justified, as the Marcos regime used it as a rationale for its repressive measures, under the aegis of preserving the Constitution as the supreme law of the land at all times.

So when Cory Aquino assumed the presidency in 1986, her pardon of the top military brass and its officers for complicity in the commission of crimes and offences against the people during the Marcos era prevented any criminal prosecution and those responsible were never brought to justice. This coddling of the military and the police by succeeding presidents did not only provide immunity for violators but also made military and police abuses of human rights the norm, instead of protecting civil society.

Thus, to the military and the police who are entrusted to protect the rights of civil society, extrajudicial killings and disappearances are justified and necessary to protect the state and preserve peace and order. That human rights might by necessity although unintentionally be trampled upon. This is the official line and is therefore what is reported in the media, the story that is being taught to our present generation of young people in schools. It all started with the Marcos era and the spate of violence and killings continues to be condoned as legitimate under the present government of Noynoy Aquino.

Extra-judicial killings and disappearances

Thus, proponents of historical revisionism have succeeded in demonizing the civil society instead of protecting it. The 2007 report by Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights, on extrajudicial killings and disappearances is a case in point.

Alston in his report identified two root causes of these killings: (1) vilification, labelling or guilt by association, i.e., the characterization of most groups on the left of the political spectrum as front organizations for armed groups whose aim is to destroy democracy making them as legitimate targets for military/police action, and (2) the government’s counter-insurgency strategy which has facilitated the killings of activists and others who oppose the government.

Alston’s report could very well be the official and most accurate narrative, an objective historical account of the underlying causes of violence perpetrated against the people by the military, the police and other agents of the government. However, the Philippine government denies this. There are no crimes of extrajudicial killings and disappearances, and that is the official line of the government. The government, therefore, has rewritten the history of violence against the people by continuously and flatly denying that crimes were committed despite independent third party findings of facts.

In 2006, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo created the Melo Commission to investigate the killings of militant activists and some members of the press. While concluding that most of the killings were instigated by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Melo Commission however found no proof to blame the government and the military. Instead, the Commission reiterated the dubious statements made by Task Force Usig of the Philippine National Police that the rise in the killings of activists and media personnel was due to the “purge” of the ranks of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army (CPP-NPA). Here we can see a clear effort by the government to whitewash the crimes committed by its military and to pin the responsibility for the killings of innocent civil society activists to the communist insurgency.

The Melo Commission Report and the statements made by Task Force Usig, including their suspicious statistics on atrocities committed by the military and by alleged underground groups, form part of the official history of political violence in the Philippines. Third party and independent investigations such as the Alston Report and the testimonies of experts on extrajudicial killings and disappearances from international human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Amnesty International, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders, are considered by the government as mere observations not grounded on facts.

The U.S. State Department Report has also highlighted the fact that Philippine security forces have been responsible for serious human rights abuses, a report that is glossed over by the government. Even an observation from a friendly country and former colonial master failed to muster any clout, thus reducing it to an insignificant footnote to the official historical narrative of the government.

Deception and denial

Historical revisionists thus effectively use their twin techniques of deception and denial. Deception, by falsifying information, lying and obscuring the truth in order to manipulate information or opinion. Denial, by claiming facts are untrue, blame shifting, censorship, distraction and media manipulation. These are all self-evident in the government’s historical record of political violence against the people as contained in the Melo Commission Report and in all proclamations of the previous and present governments with regard to Oplan Bantay Laya and Oplan Bayanihan, both counter-insurgency programs of the government.

Holocaust memorial in San Francisco. Photo courtesy of Dubgael. Click link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIJYl7U4ksY to view "What is a crime
 against humanity?"

During the Nuremberg trials of the war crimes committed by Nazi regime, the prosecutors were faced with the problem of how to respond to the Holocaust and other grave crimes. At that time, a traditional understanding of war crimes did not include crimes committed by a power on its own citizens. So, a new charter was drafted not only to cover traditional war crimes and crimes against peace, but also crimes against humanity.

The Tokyo trials that followed Nuremberg also tried the leaders of the Japanese empire with these crimes against humanity, together with crimes against peace and war crimes. With the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002, the Rome Statute has significantly broadened the definition of crimes against humanity from its original legal definition.

According to the Rome Statute, crimes against humanity are particularly odious offences that constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy or a wide practice of atrocities tolerated or condoned by a government or a de facto authority.

One would therefore suspect that the Arroyo and Aquino governments are rewriting the history of political violence in the Philippines in order to avoid being brought before the ICC and be tried for crimes against humanity. Perhaps, the consolation to President Noynoy Aquino is that he still has the opportunity not to repeat the mistakes of his predecessors. However, if the signs are clear that Noynoy Aquino might have already chosen to continue painting a rosy picture of the history of violence against the people, thus denying and deceiving the truth, genuine history will not be so kind in remembering the grave political consequences of the illusions his government has attempted to nourish.

EDSA I is not a revolution

We Filipinos love romance. We always love a story that ends well. That’s what EDSA I is to many of us, a revolution without bloodletting, and the ultimate triumph of spirit over evil in its most romantic sense.

We shudder at the thought of more than a million people gathered on one long street demanding the end to a despotic regime, and when we recall how they achieved their purpose without resistance from the government’s army, we shudder even more.

Twenty-six years have passed, yet we have not recovered from the euphoria of EDSA I. Every year we celebrate its anniversary, even much bigger than our Independence Day parade. To many Filipinos, EDSA I was the real thing.

Filipino People Power. Photo courtesy of manilamommy. Click link to view
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL0lM3abUQE&feature=fvst, "26th EDSA
People Power Anniversary Rally."

Never again, we tell ourselves, shall we allow one dictator to rule over us. As if this were the magic bullet that we need every time we face a crisis. Just gather about 2 million people and get them to march on the street. Let their voices be heard, that would be enough. That’s the miracle of EDSA I.

Why did we become so enslaved to this romantic notion that EDSA I and all its derivatives of display of people power would be enough, that it is the end-all to our problems?

Was EDSA I a revolution?

EDSA I was a popular protest of close too to 2 million Filipinos against authoritarianism, against almost 20 years of despotic rule, of wanton corruption, of abuse of power, of crony capitalism. Although the protest was staged only in Manila, it was considered a collective entreaty by the nation to the dictator to step down and let a new government take over. A new president was elected, and the people vowed not to tolerate any more cheating and fraud. It was a united plea for change. But even that idea of change was so vague and nebulous.

EDSA I represented a cleansing of the heavy cheating and fraud during the presidential elections held in 1986. It was the penultimate event to the declaration of the genuine winner, Mrs. Cory Aquino, who was catapulted to the role of a reluctant national leader after her husband Ninoy was assassinated. Cory Aquino was immediately embraced as the symbolic leader of a peaceful transition to genuine democratic reforms. But even the idea of democratic reform was alien to Cory Aquino’s state of mind, so she left everything to her advisers to chart the map towards building a new government that is supposed to be responsive to the people.

EDSA I meant the restoration of the old oligarchy that was removed and transplanted by Ferdinand Marcos with his own political cronies. It meant that Cory Aquino’s family would recover their old economic foothold, in the same way as it did for the oligarchs of the past.

EDSA I changed the leadership structure of government, but not the structure of society. The poor remain stuck in the quagmire of poverty. The new leaders and the new politicians are all members of family dynasties bred by the oligarchs. It was a replication of the old Marcos government, except that the people who ran the government are now allies of the restored oligarchy. Where did the poor and downtrodden masses figure in the new government after EDSA I? They became significant only during elections, when it was time to buy their votes. Their disenchantment toward their government continues to the present.

EDSA I was the culmination of the people’s revolt against 20 years of Marcos dictatorship. It didn’t happen just because Marcos cheated Cory Aquino during the snap presidential elections in 1986. It didn’t happen because the people were angry at Ferdinand Marcos for the assassination of Ninoy Aquino three years earlier. It happened because the timing was right. Marcos was frail and already dying. The disgruntled elements of the military seized that opportunity to rally their members who had long been dissatisfied with the military establishment, the Roman Catholic Church and its multitude of followers, and the disaffected business sector to come out to the streets and join the popular protest. Members of the leftist movement who were the most militant and who bore the brunt of repression of all groups in opposing the Marcos rule during the 20-year period, had no choice but to join the wave of protesters as well. EDSA I happened because the United States government supported the idea of disposing Marcos and replacing him with a new one.

EDSA I elevated the military to a hero’s status. After being sworn to office, instead of prosecuting those in the military for violation of human rights and the basic legal right to express a contrary opinion and for being responsible for the many who were extra-judicially killed and disappeared, Cory Aquino pardoned the perpetrators. No effort was made to establish the truth and seek reconciliation as other countries under similar circumstances had done after their political upheaval was over.

To the media and moderate Filipino intellectuals, EDSA I was a revolution. They were responsible in propagating this myth that people power had effectively spoken and that EDSA I was instrumental in restoring democracy in the Philippines. True, the dictator was deposed and forced to exile in Hawaii. But democratic institutions like popular elections, the free press, Congress and the judiciary were all in existence, albeit subject to the whims and caprices of the strongman Marcos.

Military as shadow government

Nothing very dramatic or revolutionary happened after EDSA I. It simply installed a new leader, someone who did not meet the basic requisites of a national leader but symbolic enough to lead the country from dictatorship. This is the singular achievement of EDSA I, the proclamation of Cory Aquino and the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos, the passing of the baton from a dictator to someone more moderate and compassionate.

Cory Aquino’s lack of political experience was tested early by malcontents in the military. Staging a series of coups against the government, the military kept reminding the new president that they were a crucial and integral force in the new balance of power. So Cory had to assuage a more serious military opposition to her administration. The military had become the shadow government, and the eternal threat to succeeding presidents like Ramos, Estrada, Arroyo and now, Noynoy Aquino, the son who also rises.

Restoring the old oligarchy which Marcos destroyed was also a priority for Mrs. Aquino, who herself hailed from a landed class with a vast array of economic and financial interests that were held back by the old Marcos regime. Together with the old oligarchy, the new power-holders cemented their firm grasp of political power. To those with the economic means and resources goes the concentration of political power. They bred and continue to multiply political dynasties who control different positions in national and local governments. Politicians and their relatives have controlled political power since the time of Marcos, and Cory Aquino made sure this arrangement would remain. An emerging breed of politicians such as movie, TV and sports celebrities was encouraged to relieve the growing discontent of the masses so these favourite celluloid heroes were added into the mix.

Same same

This was the very same oligarchy that the American colonial period ushered in from the landed elites in the 19th century. The development of these families as the new oligarchy was important to the American colonisers, and these families were able to dominate the country’s political and administrative apparatus and shape it to serve their own ends.

So EDSA I ensured the continuation of an oligarchy that would always remain in control of the levers of the economy and the powers of government. What revolution are the media and moderate darlings of the Philippine intelligentsia talking about?

A revolution is always followed by fundamental changes in socio-political institutions after the struggle for state power. A revolution does not have to be violent. It could be extra-constitutional and in the form of a popular but peaceful upheaval like the Dandi Salt March led by the pioneer of nonviolent resistance Mahatma Gandhi in 1930. EDSA I did not alter the socio-political landscape after Marcos was deposed. In fact, EDSA I reinforced the oligarchy and its control of the economy and politics of the country.

If the exercise of people power is to be considered relevant, then we should expect some profound changes after all the public fuss is over. We should wait for something more drastic than a mere change in leaders, like prosperity for all, for example.

With Filipino people power as in the case of EDSA I, you could almost expect everyone to join with or without a cause. To be meaningful, a real mass movement must have an unmistakable expression of resentment and desperation. That’s why the call for a new people power or revival of EDSA I to oust Corona as Chief Justice will easily fall on deaf ears, except for the few who are the clear beneficiaries of such public uproar.

The Filipino masses are in a desperate condition all right, but unfortunately there is no sign that they feel the slightest resentment against the Chief Justice. Probably, they would just sit this one at home and blame the President for his penchant for playing political games.

Eventually, however, change of some sort must be made. Not through another EDSA I or a similar expression of people power. That won’t cut. New forms of structure need to be set up, and old forms must be destroyed. This is the critical moment which is properly called revolution.