This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. V, No. 37, October 23-29, 2005
ANALYSIS
Repeating History
Repression invites more resistance than fear, and usually succeeds in achieving
the exact opposite of its intention to intimidate.
By the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CENPEG)
The Arroyo regime is
focused on survival, but is instead succeeding in strengthening already
widespread opposition to it. The reason for this is simple and fundamental: it
cannot confront head-on the issues that have bedeviled it since May this year
because, as many suspect and as is probably the case, it did steal the May 2004
elections.
Over the last five
months the Arroyo regime has therefore done its all to (1) prevent the truth
about the May 2004 elections from seeing the light of day, in the furtherance of
which it has been led to (2) suppressing the right to free expression.
Last summer it
threatened to charge the media organizations that dared air or print the “Hello,
Garci” tapes with violating the anti-wiretapping law, and the protest groups
demanding Arroyo’s resignation or forcible removable from office with sedition
and inciting to sedition.
The Justice
Department’s National Bureau of Investigation also raided a printing press for
the alleged offense of printing posters that depicted Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as
a viper-haired Medusa, after arresting and charging with sedition three young
men it accused of pasting the posters on metro Manila’s grimy walls.
Indeed the justice
department has been busy trying to find loopholes in the country’s laws that
would enable the regime to prosecute its perceived enemies. What it cannot find
in the laws, it has itself concocted.
Only a month or so
ago it unleashed Executive Order 464 under the provisions of which no official
of the Executive Department can testify in any hearing in the House or
Representatives and the Senate without Arroyo’s permission.
Before EO 464 the
regime had announced a “no permit, no rally” policy in blatant violation of
Article III Section 4 of the Philippine Constitution which expressly prohibits
the passing of any law infringing on the free press, free expression and the
right to assemble peaceably for the redress of grievances.
Eventually it went
even further, announcing some weeks ago the now infamous CPR (Calibrated
Preemptive Response) policy towards demonstrations and other street mass
actions.
Both supplanted a
supposed “maximum tolerance” policy that was only sporadically implemented, and
allow the dispersal, most of the time violent, of demonstrations and rallies.
It was under the
authority of the CPR policy that the police, incidentally with undisguised glee,
turned fire hoses on a prayer rally last October 14 in which former Vice
President Teofisto Guingona, Senator Jamby Mardigal, Party List Representatives
Satur Ocampo and Joel Virador, and Bishops Antonio Tobias and Deogracias Iñiguez
were in attendance..
As
anyone--apparently except the curious assortment of “exes” (an
ex-anti-dictatorship President’s daughter, ex-journalists, ex-activists and
ex-Marcos generals) that now run Malacañang—would have expected, the attack on
the prayer rally has aroused widespread outrage and begun the process of
unifying a divided Church. Even El Shaddai’s Mike Velarde, an Arroyo ally, has
in fact expressed outrage over the incident.
As Bishop Tobias
pointed out during the weekend, the attack is also uniting the Catholic bishops,
who only last July 8 had hesitated in demanding the resignation of Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo.
Expect attacks
similar to Friday’s to continue and to worsen. The one thing one can rely on
about the Philippine political elite, particularly Arroyo and company, is its
incurable reliance on repression and more repression in answer to the legitimate
grievances of the citizenry. But expect too the growth of resistance to the
regime’s suppression of free expression, and, quite possibly, the unleashing of
the Second Wind of the oust-Arroyo movement.
The obvious and
historical fact in this country and elsewhere is that repression invites more
resistance than fear, and usually succeeds in achieving the exact opposite of
its intention to intimidate. Arroyo and company should review their martial law
history and learn from it if they expect to avoid repeating that part of it
which ended with Ferdinand Marcos’ fleeing the country in well-deserved
disgrace.
Contact Person: Luis
V. Teodoro, Executive Director © 2005 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Posted by Bulatlat
(632) 929-9526
Oct. 20, 2005