Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts

Vol. VI, No. 15      May 21-27, 2006      Quezon City, Philippines

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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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