This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 36, October 16-22, 2005
Resistance
By Carol
Pagaduan-Araullo* 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 © 2005 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
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.
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.