Resistance
This brief incident on historic Mendiola
Bridge
clearly exposes the Arroyo government’s policy towards peaceful assemblies
of citizens as nothing short of fascist. It has no place in a so-called
democratic society and is clearly a harbinger of de facto martial rule.
By Carol
Pagaduan-Araullo*
Posted by Bulatlat
When we stepped into the pedestrian lane to cross over to Mendiola Bridge,
none of us thought the police would be so dumb as to block a dozen
protesters, in the process threatening a violent confrontation and
creating a traffic gridlock, the very things they claimed to be preventing
with such zealousness.
In fact, when I
agreed to go to Mendiola with RC Constantino, a senior citizen who is also
a civil libertarian and staunch nationalist, his wife and whoever else
would be willing to assert their inalienable rights to free _expression
and assembly, I worried about simply being ignored by the police.
After all, Mr.
Constantino announced his intentions on national television the night
before in the presence of PNP General Querol. Presumably not only the
police top guns but Malacañang crisis managers had more than enough lead
time to study the situation. They knew their options in dealing with this
motley band of protesters and what would obviously be a peaceful and
largely symbolic protest action.
Almost all those I
asked had some other commitment and couldn’t join the protest that day.
Someone observed that anything less than 50 people couldn’t be
interpreted, even by the police, as a “rally” and would therefore just be
tolerated.
“At least bring some
placards,” said a veteran street parliamentarian, “so you don’t look like
ordinary pedestrians.” My group consisted of six individuals including
former Labor Undersecretary Amado “Gat” Inciong, Alliance of Concerned
Teachers Chairman Antonio Tinio and three others who had been arrested and
roughed up in previous demonstrations. We had four placards in a plastic
grocery bag to share among us.
We were met by the
spectacle of more than a hundred police, about one fourth women, their
shields in front of them, lined up in a phalanx several rows deep, at the
foot of Mendiola Bridge. Mr. and Mrs. Constantino were waiting for us
with Princess Nemenzo, fellow Business World columnist Atty. Argee
Guevarra and three others in tow.
Thus did we start
our “march” on the pedestrian lanes of Legarda and Claro M. Recto.
Immediately the police moved to stop us. Colonel Quirante, the PNP ground
commander, barked into a small bullhorn and demanded that we produce our
permit.
Mr. Constantino
bristled us the women police prevented us from proceeding to the Chino
Roces monument. He retorted, “Do we need a permit to cross the pedestrian
lane?” Col. Quirante relented and told his people to hold their line but
they occupied more than one half of the lane so that Mr. Constantino
stepped forward and forced those in front of him to move back.
At this point a
policewoman complained that Mr. Constantino had touched her breast to
which he responded by pointing to his chest and saying that they had been
pushing him all along with their shields. The sight was ludicrous as
scores of them rushed to block his path as he moved from side to side,
forwards and backwards.
It wasn’t long before
Mr. Constantino was separated from the rest of us surrounded by anti-riot
police. Meanwhile Ms. Nemenzo and her daughter-in-law had somehow slipped
unnoticed to reach the Chino Roces monument. We could see her behind the
rows of police struggling with an improvised cartolina placard that a
policeman was trying to grab from her. It said, “Freedom is as freedom
does!” The placard ended up in tatters.
Col. Quirante must
have been so mortified by the thought that the rest of us might decide to
rush Malacañang Palace that he ordered his troops to disperse us by
pushing and shoving us away, back across Legarda street. About twenty
policewomen and some policemen handily did just that. There were only
about six of us left with only one reinforcement from the party list Bayan
Muna.
Another ludicrous
photo opportunity presented itself as Mr. Tinio landed on the front page
of a broadsheet the following day resisting a formation of helmeted,
shield-wielding female members of Manila’s Finest.
We stopped to catch
our breath as did the police. We took the opportunity to try to reason
with the so-called defenders of the “rule of law”. We appealed to them to
stop pushing and hurting us since we could not by any stretch of the
imagination be a threat to peace and order and could not even constitute
an obstruction to traffic.
Seeing as how we had
been separated from each other, we decided to try to go back towards the
bridge and reach our companions. Accompanied by a swarm of photo
journalists and TV crews, we slowly made our way back to Mendiola.
Some of the police by
this time appeared to relent or hesitate so that we were able to reach the
monument after some more jostling and scuffling. Unknown to us,
individual protesters who had belatedly arrived were being harassed and
overpowered by police on the sidelines.
Col. Quirante
apparently imagined some kind of extreme danger being posed by a handful
of protesters who had gotten several feet closer to the hallowed grounds
of the Presidential Palace. He again ordered that we be pushed away until
we ended up on the sidewalk at the other side of the bridge.
We staged a sit-in on
the sidewalk and dared the police to carry us bodily away. By then we were
joined by about a dozen more people from the human rights group Karapatan,
martial law era ex-political prisoners from the group SELDA as well as
Wilson Fortaleza of Sanlakas. A streamer that said, “Ipaglaban ang
demokrasya!” (Fight for democracy!) was unfurled.
The group sang the
patriotic song “Bayan Ko”, a staple of anti-dictatorship rallies during
martial law. Mr. Constantino read the statement of protest of the group.
When things had
quieted down, I took the opportunity to talk to a group of policewomen. I
asked them if they realized they were following illegal orders by
employing physical violence and disproportionate force on a handful of
protesters. Would they shoot unarmed people if given the orders?
And where did the
orders come from? It is reasonable to conclude that Malacañang itself was
"hands on" and can be held directly accountable for the brutality and
intolerance executed by the police.
This brief incident
on historic Mendiola Bridge, lasting no more than an hour, clearly
exposes the Arroyo government’s policy towards peaceful assemblies of
citizens as nothing short of fascist. It has no place in a so-called
democratic society and is clearly a harbinger of de facto martial rule.
All freedom-loving
Filipinos must condemn and resist the Arroyo regime’s authoritarian mind
set and strong-arm tactics or risk another dark period in our nation’s
benighted existence. Posted by Bulatlat
*Published in Business World, Streetwise, 14-15 October 2005
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