Human Security Act: License to Kill*
How are we to believe de facto president
Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when she proclaims that the new
anti-terrorism bill, euphemistically named the Human Security Act, will be
used against supposed bombers and not protesters? On the contrary, such
fascist legislation will certainly give further license to the Arroyo
regime-sanctioned death squads responsible for the political killings that
have triggered concern among international quarters including the European
Union and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial
Killings.
BY CAROL PAGADUAN-ARAULLO
Business World
Posted by Bulatlat
How are we to believe de facto president
Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when she proclaims that the new
anti-terrorism bill, euphemistically named the Human Security Act, will be
used against supposed bombers and not protesters? On the contrary, such
fascist legislation will certainly give further license to the Arroyo
regime-sanctioned death squads responsible for the political killings that
have triggered concern among international quarters including the European
Union and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial
Killings.
The new law will certainly embolden the
military and police forces – from the overbearing generals to the
trigger-happy soldiers and truncheon-brandishing cops – to ride roughshod
on ordinary folks’ civil, political and basic human rights. It will whet
the appetites of the right-wingers concentrated in the Cabinet Oversight
Committee on Internal Security (COCIS) headed by Mrs. Arroyo to quicken
the tempo of her regime’s much publicized “all-out war against the Left.”
In a nutshell, this consists of: (1)
funneling more and more government resources to the AFP and PNP and the
Mrs. Arroyo’s unaudited “intelligence” funds; (2) sanctifying the “Palparan model” of civil-military
operations which is essentially state terrorism at its terrifying worst;
(3) providing official cover-up at the highest level for the horrendous
practice of extra-judicial killings, abductions, massacres and torture not
to mention wholesale displacement, arbitrary arrests, physical abuse and
harassment of poor people in rural and urban communities; (4) practically
scuttling peace negotiations as a means of addressing the long-running
armed conflict between the government and the communist movement and its
underlying socio-economic roots; and, not the least, (5) marching to the
discredit baton of U.S. President Bush’s administration in using the
“terrorist” label to demonize and repress those who resist US-led wars of
aggression, fight against state assaults on civil and political liberties
and, in general, oppose the regime’s dangerously insane policies.
The all-out campaign to eliminate the
progressive party lists Bayan Muna (People First), Anakpawis (Toiling
Masses) and Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) from the political arena is a
special project of the COCIS orchestrated by the National Security Adviser
Norberto Gonzales. An intense vilification campaign in the form of
relentless red-baiting and an anti-communist witch hunt reminiscent of the
50s is being conducted by the loathsome troika of NSA Gonzales, AFP (Armed
Forces of the Philippines) chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon and Justice
Secretary Raul Gonzalez with the implicit blessings of Mrs. Arroyo. For
example, these not-so-honorable gentlemen try to get away with wild
accusations that the three party lists are channeling their countryside
development funds to the NPA (New People’s Army) without being able to
produce an iota of evidence as proof.
While poisonous words can be parried by
truthful ones, the unabashed militarization of rural and urban areas
nationwide that the regime has pinpointed to be the bailiwicks of these
uncompromisingly oppositionist party-list groups are certainly causing
harm to life and limb. Recently, the obtrusive presence of military men in
full combat gear prowling the slums of Metro Manila, ferreting out and
threatening Bayan Muna et al supporters as well as telling residents not
to vote for these party-list groups has raised alarm bells among civil
libertarians and the general public.
The filing of trumped-up charges of
rebellion and common crimes such as multiple murders against standard
bearers Satur Ocampo, Liza Maza, Teddy Casiño and Rafael Mariano and the
concomitant disqualification petitions against the party lists themselves
are meant to knock them out if not seriously incapacitate the
front-running candidates from campaigning, and eventually, assuming
office.
It goes without saying that the most
brutal but officially denied component of this campaign is the unabated
killings, abductions, surveillance and harassment of the leaders,
organizers and even ordinary members and supporters of these party-list
groups.
And yet what are these aforesaid
party-list groups truly guilty of? They are being pilloried for standing
on a political platform that calls for genuine land reform and national
industrialization, for upholding and promoting fundamental human and
democratic rights and institutionalizing people’s empowerment through
vibrant grass-roots organizing, militant mass struggles against oppression
and exploitation and using the ballot to elect genuine servant-leaders of
the people. Of course, they sealed their doom by taking a leading role in
pushing for the impeachment of Mrs. Arroyo and joining the call for her
ouster through another massive demonstration of unarmed “people power.”
Are not the political objectives,
aspirations and actuations of the progressive party lists strikingly
similar to that espoused by the armed revolutionary movement? Of course they are! And why not, they are unashamedly
self-proclaimed to be on the Left of the political spectrum.
Does this not then constitute prima
facie evidence that they are mere “communist front organizations” as
the loathsome troika Gonzales-Esperon-Gonzalez would have us believe? Not
so. These organizations are politically legitimate and legally
recognized. They operate openly, do not engage in armed struggle and are
democratically organized with an expanding mass constituency that the
Arroyo regime is trying hard to terrorize with the military’s guns and
vicious psychological warfare. As a matter of fact, the countryside funds
of Bayan Muna representatives are subject to the same accounting and audit
requirements of other members of Congress and, even more so, the prying
eyes of Messers. Gonzales et Gonzalez. Thus the latter’s much ballyhooed
accusations about these funds being diverted to the NPA are just a lot of
hogwash.
It must be pointed out that part of the
so-called “peace offensive” cum counter-insurgency measure of the Aquino
and Ramos governments was to entice and co-opt the revolutionaries under
the umbrella of the National Democratic Front (NDF) to join electoral
politics. Now that the legal Left has successfully entered Congress while
not relinquishing the autonomous parliament of the streets and without
denouncing the right of the people to take up arms against an oppressive
government, Arroyo’s hit men cry foul, raise the communist bogey and
resort to the most underhanded of tactics to halt the legal Left’s
fledgling inroads into an arena still very much dominated by reactionary
and discredited politicians like themselves.
While Mrs. Arroyo and her cabal of widely perceived liars, plunderers,
blood-thirsty fascists and die-hard anti-communists insist that the
deliberately mislabeled Human Security Act is geared to go against
“terrorists” like the Abu Sayyaf/Jemayah Islamiyah, we all know better.
The people’s democratic movement is in for
fearsome and trying times not unlike that of the Marcos martial law
period. But it will surely persevere, gain further strength and win wider
support from the Filipino people and the peoples of the world as it
struggles to overcome another fascist dictatorship in the making.
Business World / Posted by Bulatlat
* Published in
Business World, 9 March 2007
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