GMA Creating ‘De Facto Dictatorship’ – Ex-PCGG Commissioner

A former commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) said over the weekend that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is creating a “de facto dictatorship.” She cited the calibrated preemptive response policy and EO 464 as “repressive acts,” and said that the anti-terrorism bill (ATB) and Charter change could lead to heightened repression.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

A former commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) who is also a law professor at the University of the Philippines (UP) said over the weekend that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is creating a “de facto dictatorship.”

In a forum organized Sept. 30 by the broad-based Artists for Democracy and the Immediate Ouster of Gloria (ADIOS Gloria), lawyer Vicky Avena described the Arroyo administration’s calibrated preemptive response policy and the recently-issued Executive Order No. 464, which prohibits public officers from testifying in congressional investigations without permission from the President, as “repressive acts.” She also said that the anti-terrorism bill (ATB) and Charter change could worsen the scenario of repression which she said is already taking shape.

Arroyo, long opposed by cause-oriented groups for what they describe as her government’s imposition of “anti-national and anti-people” policies, has lately been facing intensifying calls for her resignation or removal from Malacañang following renewed allegations that she cheated her way to victory in the 2004 election.

Calibrated preemptive response

The government has recently enforced the calibrated preemptive response policy, which entails a strict implementation of the no permit, no rally policy provided for by Batas Pambansa Blg. 880, in the wake of a series of rallies calling for Arroyo’s resignation or removal from office. BP 880, signed into law in 1985 by then President Ferdinand Marcos, requires protesters to apply for rally permits before being allowed to hold demonstrations.

“BP 880 does not give a blanket prohibition on rallies,” Avena, who is also a convenor of the Counsels for the Defense of Liberties (Codal), said in a subsequent interview with Bulatlat. “If there are impositions or restrictions readily available or they can lay down, they will give the permit anyway, although they make it difficult for protesters to get permits because it’s possible that the place where you want to hold your rally is not the place where they will allow you to demonstrate.”

“But calibrated preemptive response, by the very word ‘preemptive,’ warns the citizenry that it can be a level higher than BP 880, because there is no definition,” Avena continued. “What are they preempting, the possibility that there will be disorder? Under BP 880, the general rule is that people have the right to free speech and assembly, and supposedly the basis for regulation under that law is clear and present danger of disturbance. Under calibrated preemptive response, the people’s exercise of freedom is preempted.”

Purificacion Quisumbing, chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), had earlier said that the calibrated preemptive response policy is unlawful. “A blanket no permit, no rally policy does not have any legal basis,” Quisumbing said in a televised interview.

“If it’s preemptive rather than preventive of any violence, it sounds like prior restraint,” she added. The Constitution prohibits prior restraint on the exercise of civil liberties.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye has said that the calibrated preemptive response policy is not equivalent to the exercise of martial law powers. “The constitutional avenues of protest are open to the people, but the government is keeping its option of enforcing all laws that will protect commerce, mobility, jobs, livelihood and the overall peace of mind of the community of the streets,” he said in a statement.

EO 464

Avena also said that EO 464 is “scandalous” and arbitrary. “There is no standard by which the President should give her consent under particular circumstances: if she doesn’t want you to appear before Congress you cannot do so, and that’s a gag order,” she explained.

Arroyo issued EO 464 amid a Senate investigation of alleged fraud in the 2004 election, in which two generals were among those summoned to testify.

Related to this, Avena said that Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez’s threat of lawsuits against the so-called “Hyatt 10,” the cabinet officials who resigned in early July and called for Arroyo’s resignation, as “shooting off the hit.” Gonzalez had said that former government officials who previously had access to confidential information and subsequently reveal this to the public could face lawsuits. This had developed amid statements by the Hyatt 10 that they are willing to testify in congressional investigations as well as the proposed People’s Tribunal against Arroyo.

Avena cited Article III, Sec. 7 of the Constitution, which states that: “The right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized. Access to official records, and to documents and papers pertaining to official acts, transactions, or decisions,

as well as to government research data used as basis for policy development, shall be afforded the citizen, subject to such limitations as may be provided by law.”

According to Avena, whether government information is to be considered confidential or not is subject to prior regulation. “There should be prior classification and a clear basis for classifying information,” she said. “You don’t describe information as classified just as someone is about to divulge it.”

ATB, Charter change

Meanwhile, Avena also said that the ATB and Charter change being pushed by the Arroyo administration could further heighten the repression that is now being felt.

The ATB defines terrorism as “the premeditated, threatened, actual use of violence, force, or by any other means of destruction perpetrated against person/s, property/ies, or the environment, with the intention of creating or sowing a state of danger, panic, fear, or chaos to the general public, group of persons or particular person, or of coercing or intimidating the government to do or abstain from doing an act.” Avena said in the forum that this definition is a very broad one that could be taken to encompass even legal protest actions.

Asked what it is in the Charter change agenda that could bring about an intensification of repression, Avena said: “In a country like the Philippines where democracy has not fully matured, when you remove the system of checks and balances and shift to a parliamentary form of government, when they conspire against the people it’s total. They can easily pass any law that would violate our rights.”

“It’s worse than martial law,” she added. “At least under martial law, there are limits and when you abuse it’s already illegal. But under a parliamentary system, anything they want to do can be legalized even if it’s in violation of international covenants and treaties. That is total control.” Bulatlat 

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