Space for Progressives in Parliamentary
Arena is Constricting - Casiño
For Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Teddy
Casiño, there is indeed space for progressive groups in the electoral and
parliamentary arena, but it is now constricting. “It is getting smaller
and smaller because the Arroyo government, which represents the status
quo, is afraid of change,” he told Bulatlat in an interview.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Is there real space in the electoral and
parliamentary arena for progressive party-list groups?
This question has surfaced amid what has
been described as “political persecution” presently being experienced by
these progressive representatives – Satur Ocampo, Teddy Casiño, and Joel
Virador of Bayan Muna (People First), Crispin Beltran and Rafael Mariano
of Anakpawis (Toiling Masses), and Liza Maza of the Gabriela Women’s Party
(GWP) – in combination with the physical annihilation of leaders,
organizers and supporters of these party-list groups.
For Casiño, there is indeed space for
these groups in the electoral and parliamentary arena, but it is now
constricting. “It is getting smaller and smaller because the Arroyo
government, which represents the status quo, is afraid of change,” he told
Bulatlat in an interview.
Casiño and the other four representatives
eluded attempts to arrest them without warrant while attending a press
conference in Quezon City on Feb. 25, a day after President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo imposed Proclamation No. 1017, which declared a state of
national emergency. Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran did not fare as well:
he was on his way to the same press conference when he was arrested, also
without warrant, by elements of the police Criminal Investigation and
Detection Group (CIDG).
The Batasan 5 who evaded arrest
consequently had to seek protective custody at the House of
Representatives as protection from further attempts to arrest them.
1017 and rebellion
The Arroyo government purportedly issued
Proclamation No. 1017 to prevent a coup attempt by elements of the
“extreme Left” and the “extreme Right.” The said proclamation was issued
hours after the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) claimed to have
thwarted a mutiny allegedly led by Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and Col. Ariel
Querubin of the Philippine Marines.
The issuance of Proclamation No. 1017 led
to the arrests of a number of progressive leaders and other opposition
personalities, including Beltran and Army 1Lt. Lawrence San Juan - both of
whom were subsequently charged with rebellion.
The DOJ subsequently filed an amended
information that included the Batasan 5 and 49 others - including National
Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) leaders Jose Maria Sison and
Luis Jalandoni and former Sen. Gregorio Honasan in the charges.
The amended information cited, among
others, a chain of events beginning from the reestablishment of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in 1968 and included the Plaza
Miranda bombing in 1971. This applied even to Casiño, who was still in his
infancy during the reestablishment of the CPP and the Plaza Miranda
bombing.
The amended information was junked by
Judge Jenny Lindo Delorino of the Makati City Regional Trial Court on May
4, and only Beltran and San Juan remain as defendants in the rebellion
case filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ).
A few days after the junking of the
amended information, the DOJ recalled a standing order to the Philippine
National Police (PNP) to arrest the Batasan 5. This signaled their exit
from the House of Representatives.
Delorino inhibited herself from the case
against Beltran and San Juan on May 10. In her decision to inhibit,
Delorino cited accusations from the DOJ that she handled the case with
partiality, which she denied.
On May 12, the amended information to the
case against Beltran and San Juan was filed as new information, thus
making a new case against the Batasan 5 and the 49 others charged together
with them.
“The Arroyo government is bent on having
all its opponents arrested,” Casiño said. “This is because Arroyo is
isolated and becoming more and more desperate.”
Arroyo has long been facing calls for her
resignation or removal from power because of her government’s
implementation of what cause-oriented groups describe as “anti-national
and anti-people” policies. These calls intensified in the latter half of
2005 following renewed allegations that she cheated her way to victory in
the 2004 election, where she was supposed to have received a fresh mandate
three years after being catapulted to power through a popular uprising.
The recent results of various opinion surveys show as much as 65 percent
of respondents wanting Arroyo out of office.
Asked why the political persecution and
physical annihilation appear to be concentrated on representatives,
members and supporters of the progressive party-list groups and not on
other opposition groups, Casiño said the government is focused on wiping
out the legal Left because it has the numbers and the capacity to mobilize
multitudes. “When they’re done with the Left, the other opposition figures
will be next,” he pointed out.
Persecution and annihilation
This, however, is not the first time that
Bayan Muna and the other progressive party-list groups have experienced
what they describe as “political persecution,” Casiño said.
In particular, he said, Bayan Muna – which
went into the electoral contest three years ahead of Anakpawis and GWP –
had experienced Red-smearing as early as the 2001 election campaign.
“There were attempts even then to brand
Bayan Muna as a party-list group organizationally linked with the
underground Left,” he said. “These, however, were not as intense as they
would be in the next few years.”
In 2004, National Security Adviser
Norberto Goonzales came out with what he called an expose branding six
progressive party-list groups – Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, GWP, Anak ng Bayan
(Sons and Daughters of the People) Youth Party, Migrante Sectoral Party (MSP),
and Suara Bangsamoro (Voice of the Moro People) – as “front organizations”
of the clandestine CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA). A
year later, the six party-list groups would appear among other groups as
“enemies of the state” in a powerpoint presentation of the Intelligence
Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP), titled Knowing
the Enemy.
The so-called “enemies of the state”
included such groups as the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines
(CBCP), the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), the Iglesia
Filipina Independiente (IFI or the Philippine Independent Church), the
Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP), the
Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), IBON Foundation, the
Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), and the National
Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).
And now, they have the DOJ lodging
rebellion charges against them – two cases in a span of less than three
months.
It is not just what they describe as
“political persecution” that they have to contend with, however.
“Bayan Muna and the other progressive
party-list groups would not mind political persecution by itself,” Casiño
said. “The thing is, the political persecution comes with the physical
annihilation of our members and supporters.”
Based on data from the human rights group
Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights), there has
been a total of 603 political killings since 2001 - the year that
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was catapulted to power through a
popular uprising. Of the 585, Karapatan data further show, 221 were
confirmed to be affiliated with cause-oriented groups.
Ninety-three of the victims were Bayan
Muna members. Anakpawis and GWP likewise have their own lists of
casualties included in the total count of 603.
“The killings came in various waves,”
Casiño said. “The first was in 2002, then in 2004 and the first half of
2005. There was a slump during the time of the impeachment complaint, but
it intensified again and it is getting worse and worse.”
“Before, at least, they would ‘prepare the
ground’ for the killings,” he added. “Shortly before being killed, the
reputations of the targets would be smeared systematically. But now they
no longer ‘prepare the ground’ - they just kill.”
Options
Given the constriction of space for
progressive party-list groups in the electoral and parliamentary arena,
what options are at hand at this point?
“The option for now is for progressive
party-list groups to assert this space, to assert our right to this space”
Casiño said. “If we don’t assert it, the government would find it easier
to push us out of this arena.”
The shutting down of the space for
progressives in the electoral and parliamentary arena, he said, would give
justification to other options. “During martial law, all space for
opposition disappeared, and there were many who went underground to pursue
their efforts to effect change,” he said. Bulatlat
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