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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