Winning European Favors,
Losing at the Homefront
Philippine President Macapagal Arroyo
strode down the red carpets of presidential palaces in Europe, with all
that haughty airs and panache. She has abolished the death penalty law in
the hope of gaining the favor of the European governments. Standing tall
in the crowd of such elite government bodies, Mrs. Arroyo must have
sounded off her presidency’s pride in such a noble act of nurturing and
protecting life.
But in direct contrast to her honeyed
words about life, democracy and freedom, the woeful cries of the hundreds
of victims slain with impunity could be heard all over the country. These
cries of injustice resound all over the world, begging to differ with Mrs.
Arroyo’s self-glorifications.
Europe and all of the world must know that
in her regime – nearly 700 unarmed defenders of truth and justice have
already been slain, while hundreds of thousands have been victims of
forcible displacement wrought by her generals’ unjust wars in Mindanao and
in the countryside.
All of the world must know that more
spilling of the peoples’ blood is at hand. The Arroyo government is geared
for war – soldiers, artillery, money, propaganda machinery. It has
concocted some old formula – the Red scare, the communist purge and the
usual vilification drive against the legal mass movement to justify the
so-called “collateral damage” of the all-out-war that is going to turn
Luzon, if not the whole country, virtually into a virtual war zone.
Indeed, the world agrees – civil
libertarians and peoples’ movements all over the world such as the Amnesty
International, Reporters Without Borders and other private media
institutions – that in essence, Arroyo’s war is a war against the people,
whether they or we, admit it or not.
As the exposed military-plan of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Oplan Bantay Laya has revealed, its core
objective is the crippling of the “civilian component” of the alleged
insurgency movement. This, in the military’s terminology translates to the
legal and unarmed people’s and sectoral organizations. True to their plan,
around 700 of these – UNARMED farmers, indigenous peoples and Muslims,
workers, lawyers, journalists, peace and human rights advocates have
already been slain in cold blood.
And before the second quarter of the year
even ended, the Philippine Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Generoso Senga
was unabashed in claiming that Oplan Bantay Laya will be modified to cope
with the much-hastened agenda of Mrs. Arroyo to annihilate the insurgency
problem. This means a more ferocious political attack – a bigger quota of
slain activists and a much faster pacing, like perhaps one, two, three or
more dead militants in a day, compared to the current ratio of one for
every three days.
The world is not as stupid as Mrs. Arroyo
may think. It can’t be had with her lies. She may have abolished the death
penalty law, but outside the death chamber, the supposedly peoples’
soldiers are using their guns against those who are fighting for genuine
democracy and freedom.
The streets are tainted with the blood of
the people slain with impunity and the streets are ringing with the sound
of fury, clamoring for justice. These lurk behind Mrs. Arroyo as she
smiled her phony smiles in front of the elite governments in Europe, and
the rest of the world.
Ashlanie Dumadalog
Liga ng Kabataang Moro
(LKM-Manila)
Brgy. Salam Mosque Compd.
Culiat Tandang Sora
Quezon City, Philippines
July 7, 2006
Posted by Bulatlat
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