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

Vol. V,    No. 10      April 17- 23, 2005      Quezon City, Philippines

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State Violence

Is state violence the mindset among security forces that think (according to the journalist Arlyn de la Cruz) in terms of “On whose side are you? Are you with us or are you with the enemy?”

By Elmer A. Ordoñez
Posted by Bulatlat

Sifting through my files recently I came across a thin volume entitled State Violence (1987), published by the Philippine Social Science Council, and edited by Ponciano Bennagan of the state university.

As the cliché goes, reading State Violence filled me with a sense of déjà vu—what with all the reports coming in about the assassination of party-list and mass organization leaders/members and the killing of church and the media people.

State Violence includes papers by four UP social scientists (Bennagen, Carolina Hernan­dez, Rosario Cortes, Armando Malay Jr.), Jose W. Diokno, and Jose Maria Sison—all read at a seminar-workshop in May 1986, a few months after the toppling of the Marcos dictatorship and the assumption of a “revolutionary government” headed by Corazon Aquino.

But the volume itself came out in 1987 in the wake of new human rights violations such as the assassination of Rolando Olalia, Lupao and Mendiola massacres of peasants (following which Diokno resigned as commissioner of human rights), and the breakdown of peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front.  Indeed, an auspicious time.  And when reckoning came, the record of human-rights violations by the state-coercive apparatus under President Aquino appeared to have exceeded that of the Marcos period.

Since then we have seen no let-up of human-rights violations by the state—a situation that has, in fact, worsened with the killing of striking workers at the Hacienda Luisita, the killing of the media and church people and mass activists, and the military issue of an “enemy list” that includes NGOs, media and church groups and other legitimate organizations.

Under martial law it was all-out war of the state against the “opposition,” armed or unarmed, underground or legal. But under a supposedly democratic regime, what are we to think of state violence against citizens of the republic?  Is it just due to the “recalcitrance of a few,” as Professor Carolina Hernandez said then, that state violence has recurred? Or is it the mindset among security forces that think (according to the journalist Arlyn de la Cruz) in terms of “On whose side are you? Are you with us or are you with the enemy?” Not much different from US President George Bush’s formulation: “You are either with us or against us” in his war on terror that our government has fully aligned itself with.

Hernandez noted that “state violence is more vicious and malevolent because, unlike other forms of violence where individuals are involved, victims cannot look up to the instrumentalities of the state that are obligated to mediate, mitigate and redress the effects of violence.” Is this why, to date, none of the crimes against party list and journalists has been solved. Not one torturer or gross violator of human rights during the past regimes starting with the dictatorship has been charged or convicted. Even the financial reparation of human-rights victims during martial law has been pending for so long.

The “state” has been defined as a neutral agency in the service of the people (Cortes), or an agency for the rule of law (Diokno) or an executive committee of the ruling class (Sison).  In the Philippine context, it appears that Sison’s definition holds true for the state where big business and landowners (like Hacienda Luisita) can count on the protection of state troopers.  Bennagen as delegate to the 1987 convention sought to change this popular notion of the state as protector of the rich in constitutional debates.

Indeed, attempts of the dispossessed to change structurally the conditions of their poverty are always met with state repression.  Hence, members and allies of blacklisted people’s organizations and crusading journalists are now seen as targets for elimination.

In 1986 Jose Diokno asked: “What are we to do? We know the causes—or some of them—of state violence in our culture.  Let us eliminate as many of those causes as we can.  Let us take advantage of the drafting of a new constitution to insist that government represent also the poor and the have-nots. Let us give priority to their needs. Let us have a land that is free from foreign bases and from nuclear power. Let us have a country in which, we, and not the foreigners, decide what is good for us; and let us respect each other’s beliefs and ideologies, regardless of how much we may disagree with them. Above all, let us expand our organizations and let us remain united.  Against a united people, no force is strong enough to prevail. Not even state violence.” A checklist indeed for what still has to be done. From The Other View, The Manila Times / Posted by Bulatlat with the author’s permission

*The author is a professor emeritus of the University of the Philippines and a former vice president of the Lyceum University. 

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