We fear. We grieve. We rage. But let us rise above this fear, and transform our grief and rage to an undying commitment to the cause of people’s rights.

By Edre U. Olalia*
Posted by Bulatlat.com

Naimbag nga agsapa kadakayo amin! A pleasant good morning to all! Nabara a kablaaw kadakayo amin! Militant greetings to all of you!

For the past nights, we saw how members of the House of Representatives identified with the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) administration brazenly and manipulatively moved for charter change through a senate-less Constituent Assembly. This clearly indicates that GMA and her cohorts in Congress are making all efforts to change the 1987 Constitution as a last bid, among others, to perpetuate themselves in power and for GMA as a last resort for her political survival.

This brazenness comes after a rebuff from the Supreme Court of the Malacanang-backed false people’s initiative that a revision of the Constitution cannot be made through people’s initiative. The Supreme Court even went further to declare that there appears anomalies in the gathering of the more than alleged 6 million signatures to the said initiative.

These developments are very significant particularly for human rights defenders and advocates. And the theme for your Assembly is most appropriate and timely. One of the major targets for revision is Article III or the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights as we all know is supposed to serve as a minimum safeguard against State violations or abuses of individual civil and political rights. It sets the minimum standards as far as the conduct of arrest, search and seizure, rights of the accused in detention and under custodial investigation, on due process and equal protection of the law, on privacy of communication and correspondence, freedom of speech, expression and assembly and the like.

These formal constitutional provisions, imperfect and not even followed in practice as they are, will be undermined by the draconian Anti-Terrorism Bill (ATB) that is also being rushed by those in temporary power, a legislation that falls into the design of the U.S.-led global war of terrorism.

The ATB provides for a very vague and all-encompassing definition of the term terrorism. It practically would include all lawful and legitimate dissent against the present dispensation as acts of “terrorism”. Worse, it proposes longer detention without charges being filed in court for periods even beyond what is provided in the 1987 Constitution in case of suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. In other words, we see a further and more systematic legitimization of the human rights violations as practiced and customarily done by the military, police and other law enforcement agents.

Amidst all these is the escalation of political killings and abductions. According to KARAPATAN, from January to November of this year, it documented 185 political killings and the number of victims of enforced disappearances this year reached 93, the highest in the six-year presidency of Mrs. Arroyo. Majority of the victims of extrajudicial killings and abductions were members of progressive partylists and peoples’ organizations. Today it has reached 794 summarily executed with hundreds more missing and hundreds more who survived these attacks.

“Rule of law”

The extrajudicial killings common during the Martial Law regime of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos are back with a vengeance under GMA’s “rule of law.” The targets have not changed and the intentions are the same – “to wipe out insurgency” and “run to the ground” any opposition to a regime that does not represent the interests or has lost the trust and confidence of the people. The only difference is that the current policy remains an undeclared martial law.

These numbers are among the human rights violations committed under Operation Plan Bantay Laya or Operation Freedom Watch by the Macapagal-Arroyo regime. It is a five-year policy and program launched in 2002 as part of the government’s so-called “all-out war” against insurgency.

Operation Bantay Laya or OBL is the latest local application of the United States sponsored and Central Intelligence Agency brainchild “low intensity conflict” (LIC). It is a mode of war not just used against the revolutionary Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army – National Democratic Front of the Philippines or CPP-NPA-NDFP waging their armed struggle for national and social liberation. But is a policy that is also directed against unarmed militant organizations and civilians critical of the Arroyo regime. These legal organizations are accused by the AFP as collaborators, supporters or front organizations of the CPP-NPA-NDFP. As stated by the coward Gen. Jovito Palparan, its Number One implementor, OBL is intended to “reduce their numbers.”

Operation Bantay Laya declares it open season for militant sectoral organizations and legal institutions that have taken the cause of the poor and marginalized. Even church organizations and personalities have not been spared. The range of victims has broadened from farmers, workers, partylist members, community organizers, activists, to churchpeople, journalists and lawyers.

Another characteristic of OBL is red-baiting and smear campaign. This inevitably led to the blacklisting of progressive organizations and the drawing up of an “order of battle” of people targeted for “neutralization,” a euphemism for physical extermination or attack.

According to the Operations Intelligence Division (OID) Conceptual Framework of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the preparation of an Intelligence Project against a target personality or organization usually takes at least one year and the time frame for “neutralization” of a target is three months.

State policy

The extrajudicial killings are, therefore, well-planned, premeditated and the result of state policy. There is a pattern. It starts with the labeling, red-baiting or vilification of activists and militants. Then this is followed by open or covert threats and surveillance. Then the modes of killing and the circumstances of the attacks are similar, happening even near police or military establishments. And these are capped by a systematic cover-up or passing of the blame that condones, encourages, induces or tolerates these attacks.

The killings are not the handiwork of ordinary criminals. They are carried out through collaborative action among the armed and civilian agencies of the government and anti-communist fanatical mass organizations often set up, funded or supported in a variety of ways by the government. OBL declares its targets guilty without due process and the military acts as witness, judge and executioner rolled into one.

Of the more than seven hundred extrajudicial killings, none has been really solved. The victims and their family still cry out for justice.

The culture of impunity being imposed by the state continues to this day. And the law and the legal and judicial system engender or contribute to this impunity.

The shameful Task Force Usig and the dubious and incredible Melo Commission tasked to supposedly investigate the killings have not yielded truthful results. They have proven to be nothing but whitewashing machines of the government.

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