By Raul Pangalangan
First posted 01:37am (Mla time) May 26, 2006
Inquirer
BOTH Amnesty International and Commission on Human Rights Chair Purificacion Quisumbing are correct. It is not enough for the Philippine government to just say: No, our guys didn’t kill all those communists, journalists and oppositionists. It is not enough for them to say: Go ahead, punk, prove it in court. How can the victims’ families run after the suspects, unless the police find and arrest them first?
Malacañang’s arguments actually resemble the typical defense resorted to by dictatorships of two decades ago against “enforced disappearances” -- what Latin Americans called the “desaparecidos.” Anti-government activists would be abducted and tortured, and the evidence forever erased by the simple cruel expedient of executing the prisoner and hiding the corpse (hence, the Filipino term, “salvaging” -- I suppose, referring to the macabre task of unearthing the corpses).
The activists “were disappeared,” to use jargon, precisely so that the government -- when the accusing finger points its way—can simply shrug its shoulders. Indeed, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez’s quip -- “You have to be sure what is the reason -- a drinking spree or because of a woman…” -- was already a stock response by many governments even then.
Yet, in 1989, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights actually held Honduras responsible for the disappearance of a student activist, Manfredo Velasquez Rodriguez, at the National Autonomous University of Honduras. The court relied on exactly the same logic used by Amnesty and Quisumbing: that the abduction (in Honduras) -- and the killings (in the Philippines) -- fit a historical pattern.
The Court’s language was uncanny. “Those disappearances followed a similar pattern, beginning with the kidnapping of the victims by force, often in broad daylight and in public places, by armed men in civilian clothes and disguises, who acted with apparent impunity … It was public and notorious knowledge … that the kidnappings were carried out by military personnel or the police, or persons acting under their orders....The disappearances were carried out in a systematic manner [especially considering that the] victims were usually persons whom Honduran officials considered dangerous to State security.”
The court said that the state’s obligation under the human rights covenants is not just “to respect” human rights but “to ensure [these rights] to all individuals within its territory….” That creates the duty “to organize the governmental apparatus … so that they are capable of juridically ensuring the free and full enjoyment of human rights.”
Significantly, the court contrasted the evidentiary threshold in state responsibility versus that in individual liability. “[T]he violation can be established even if the identity of the individual perpetrator is unknown. What is decisive is whether a [human rights] violation … has occurred with the support or the acquiescence of the government, or whether the State has allowed the act to take place without taking measures to prevent it or to punish those responsible.”
Stated plainly, the charge was not that the government killed Manfredo but that it failed to give him justice. The blame thus cast, the “Who, me?” defense suddenly collapses.
What bothers me about the cold-blooded murder of Fernando “Dong” Batul, fierce critic of local politicos, radio broadcaster and former Puerto Princesa City vice mayor, is the privatization of terror and the localization of fear.
Today, even political slaughter has been devolved to private hit men and decentralized to provincial goons. Let the loyal warlords in the provinces do what they must, and find the hoodlums who meet their price. This dovetails Malacañang’s style of deciding policy on the basis of the latest behest by either a “padrino,” or political patron, or which momentary need, if answered, will sway the poll surveys.
But what bothers me even more is the lack of outrage, of indignation. Filipinos were up in arms over the spoon-and-fork incident at a Canadian school. (I saw a film clip of that boy -- he had his thumb close to the base of his spoon, an absolute no-no if you ask the Filipino etiquette police!) Many Filipino Catholics were furious at “The Da Vinci Code.” (I haven’t read the book or seen the movie, but because of you, zealous objectors, I now promise to do both!) We love to speak of the human rights revolution that was Edsa People Power I, yet we remain unmoved by grieving mothers, wives and children we see almost regularly in the headlines.
So it has worked, the strategy of decimating the Philippine Left. Isolate them, remind people of their links to armed strife and of their own killing fields. Cut them down one by one, push them back underground, and then accuse them of having turned their back on peace.
So it has worked, the strategy of going after individual critics, politically significant to attract media attention and project fear, but not too high up, like Ninoy Aquino, lest it spark the next conflagration. It’s “kill one, scare 1,000.”
So it has worked, the strategy of detaching politics from life. They who are in power tell us to avoid all talk about power: Leave it to us, and just stick to workaday concerns. This triggers a cycle: politics is drained of substance and is taken over by “trapos” [traditional politicians]. In their hands, communal politics is then robbed of its soul, we all shun it even more, and the trapos have the field all to themselves.
Clever. Far too clever. Heartless schemers, their sharp minds bereft of conscience. To defeat them, we must be shrewd before we can be compassionate. That is our curse: that to win, we risk becoming like the enemy.
* * *
Comments to passionforreason@gmail.com
©2006 www.inq7.net all rights reserved
Friday, May 26, 2006
Monday, March 06, 2006
Red Herring
by Sarah Raymundo
Presidential Proclamation 1017 was lifted by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo exactly a week after it was imposed. Along with her few rabid supporters like Mike Defensor, Norberto Gonzalez and Raul Gonzalez, GMA projected the peaceful demonstrations held on the 20th anniversary of the People Power as a conspiracy between the rebelling faction of the military and the CPP-NPA-NDF. This conspiracy, in GMA’s tall tale is designed to end in a scenario of catastrophic magnitude. Thus, Proclamation 1017 was justified on grounds of an ominous conspiracy. This, of course, was just GMA’s way of supplementing her lack of control over a situation that she herself set off. Her attempt to cling to power is palpably desperate and despicable.
What was really at stake in Proclamation 1017 is the fabrication of a state of emergency to counter the urgent demand of the Filipino people for Macapagal-Arroyo to step down from a fraudulent presidency. It was therefore imperative for the Arroyo administration to throw its weight around by displaying acts of human rights violation as when it violently dispersed the peaceful rallies at the EDSA Shrine, EDSA-Santolan and Ayala. The arrest of Representative Crispin Beltran, Professor Randy David, the House-bound party list representatives Teddy Casino, Liza Maza, Rafael Mariano, Satur Ocampo and Joel Virador, and the threat to capture forty six others are concrete instances intended to inflict imperious pressure. She wanted to convince everyone that the stakes are so high that it is no longer possible for her to be constrained by the law. Does she perhaps live in a spectral space that is sheltered from the law?
Macapagal-Arroyo’s acts are far from whimsical. Thus, some remarks on the political and ethical dimension of her action are in order. Proclamation 1017 unduly empowered the police and the military in a way that was quite vague. It is precisely this vagueness that lent an omnipotent ring to Proclamation 1017. Mrs. Arroyo meant to be vague and forceful at the same time. The efficacy of force, after all, lies in the suspension of questioning and not in the gaining of consent. As usual, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo feigned composure as she ignored the overwhelming protests coming from various sectors including the Senate. Without the slightest training in the performing arts, Mrs. Arroyo made a fool of herself on national TV, as always. Her failure in acting out her pretend act is a slippage that must not escape analysis.
Mrs. Arroyo’s failed pretend act is revealed by her iron-fisted proclamation, on the one hand, and her paranoid attitude towards the activists and her critics on the other. Furthermore, this failure is a symptom of Arroyo’s over-identification with that entity called the State. She neither has the intellectual nor the politico-ethical acumen to tell the difference between her own dubious interests and the appropriate function of the various institutions that comprise the State. No wonder she dismisses the efforts of the mass movement to bring about progressive change by challenging existing institutional dysfunctions as an anarchic challenge to the government. She is too ill-equipped to understand that the mass movement’s clamor for her ouster is part of its genuine efforts to reform and transform existing institutions like the government to make it function for the interest of the majority. Whenever the people decry electoral fraud, corruption and foreign plunder, they actually want to save our institutions from people like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. But Arroyo’s over-identification with the State can only make her label hopeful citizens as “Enemies of the State” whose actions deserve her suspension of the ethical dimension of leadership. No doubt, Arroyo’s over-identification with the State has turned her into the personification of the system’s excess that threatens the system itself.
Meanwhile, the imposition of Proclamation 1017 and its subsequent lifting bears within itself an ideological lie: that a cold-blooded leader like Macapagal-Arroyo had to do the dirty job of suspending our civil liberties for a moment in order to preserve it for a lifetime.
The lie does not stop there. What are we to make of Arroyo’s crackdown on suspected communists? What is new in this operation is that the Arroyo regime is now more open about its plan for its communist suspects. What Zizek asks of the conduct of the U.S.War on Terror, specifically its less hypocritical behavior towards terrorist suspects, must be asked of GMA’s modified behavior towards her communists suspects. If Gloria Macapagal Arroyo means only to conduct a crackdown on the left, why is she telling us so? Why doesn’t she go on arresting and even killing her suspects as she has been doing? Zizek explains that “what is proper to human speech is the gap between the enunciated content and its act of enunciation. Imagine a couple who have a tacit agreement that they can have discreet extramarital affairs; if, all of a sudden, the husband openly tells the wife about an affair, she would have good reason to wonder why he was telling her. The act of publicly revealing something is not neutral; it affects the reported content itself.”
But what is really at stake in GMA’s publicized anti-communist crackdown? Are we perhaps witnessing a change in the post-national constellation of the political forces in contemporary society? Is the triumphalist claim that the socialist project failed and that the only possible world is one that is structured by the capitalist mode of production is fast becoming obsolete? This seems to be what Macapagal-Arroyo implies in her frantic communist witch-hunt.
What is there in the statement of a crackdown on suspected communists that made the Arroyo regime enunciate it publicly? The problem is not so much the content of the statement. After all, killings of trade union leaders and activists have been conducted way before proclamation 1017.
The problem with Mrs. Arroyo is that she makes threatening statements for all of us to hear in thecontext of a democratic republic. Isn’t this lamentable? In a democracy, nobody is supposed to beincriminated by virtue of his/her political beliefs, may this be an adherence to religious fundamentalism, liberalism or even communism. The exercise of free thought and action is vital in the continued functioning of a democratic society.
The real wager in Arroyo’s game is the construction of a bogey, an’ other’ to which a particular identity like her administration may turn every time it fails. The usefulness of the communist crackdown for the Arroyo regime lies not in it’s a actual accomplishment but in its mere public announcement. It seems to say that if “covert communist activities” cannot escape the panoptic gaze of Mrs. Arroyo, then non-communists who criticize her openly are automatically an open target for state repression and violence. Interestingly, the Arroyo regime has come up with a comprehensive propaganda that documents the alleged alliance between the “renegade” officers of the military and the CPP-NPA-NDF. In the light of the aborted withdrawal of the majority of the military, it is easy to understand why Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo resorts to a preposterous narrative such as this. In identifying the defiant members of the military with the CPP-NPA-NDF she is able to construct a singularity that otherwise does not exist considering the contrasting principles that those involved adhere to. Arroyo’s emphasis on the “singularity of evil” is a tactical move for her to deny the fact that the discontent with her administration is now diffused and widespread.
What makes Arroyo’s measure even more detrimental to the construction of a genuine democracy is its patent dualistic spin on the forces that constitute the present situation: the good/her friends and evil/”enemies of the state.” This postulation is dangerous because “the justification of oppression,” as Hodge suitably puts it, “depends on the view that people can be measured on a scale of good and evil.” People like Arroyo who seem convinced that she can measure other people “on the scale of good and evil assume that the measurement can be done objectively and that it is justifiable to place restriction to those judged to be less good or more evil than themselves. After all, evil is something we would be better off without. So too for the people judged as more evil. In extreme cases, they should be killed; in other instances, they should at least be controlled and their power of rights reduced. The objective result is oppression of the people consistently so viewed and treated, although to the oppressors this result is nothing more than the furtherance of good through the suppression of evil. Without the framework of dualism, these justifications have no moral foundation on which to rest (1992:104).”
It is the duty of every responsible citizen to protect the ethical and political standards that guide our engagement in social life. And it is only through the urgent call for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to step down that we can raise our political and ethical standards which plummeted upon her acts of terror. Only when these standards are properly laid down can we, as a people, construct concrete steps towards the elimination of poverty and the practice of genuine freedom and social justice.
Presidential Proclamation 1017 was lifted by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo exactly a week after it was imposed. Along with her few rabid supporters like Mike Defensor, Norberto Gonzalez and Raul Gonzalez, GMA projected the peaceful demonstrations held on the 20th anniversary of the People Power as a conspiracy between the rebelling faction of the military and the CPP-NPA-NDF. This conspiracy, in GMA’s tall tale is designed to end in a scenario of catastrophic magnitude. Thus, Proclamation 1017 was justified on grounds of an ominous conspiracy. This, of course, was just GMA’s way of supplementing her lack of control over a situation that she herself set off. Her attempt to cling to power is palpably desperate and despicable.
What was really at stake in Proclamation 1017 is the fabrication of a state of emergency to counter the urgent demand of the Filipino people for Macapagal-Arroyo to step down from a fraudulent presidency. It was therefore imperative for the Arroyo administration to throw its weight around by displaying acts of human rights violation as when it violently dispersed the peaceful rallies at the EDSA Shrine, EDSA-Santolan and Ayala. The arrest of Representative Crispin Beltran, Professor Randy David, the House-bound party list representatives Teddy Casino, Liza Maza, Rafael Mariano, Satur Ocampo and Joel Virador, and the threat to capture forty six others are concrete instances intended to inflict imperious pressure. She wanted to convince everyone that the stakes are so high that it is no longer possible for her to be constrained by the law. Does she perhaps live in a spectral space that is sheltered from the law?
Macapagal-Arroyo’s acts are far from whimsical. Thus, some remarks on the political and ethical dimension of her action are in order. Proclamation 1017 unduly empowered the police and the military in a way that was quite vague. It is precisely this vagueness that lent an omnipotent ring to Proclamation 1017. Mrs. Arroyo meant to be vague and forceful at the same time. The efficacy of force, after all, lies in the suspension of questioning and not in the gaining of consent. As usual, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo feigned composure as she ignored the overwhelming protests coming from various sectors including the Senate. Without the slightest training in the performing arts, Mrs. Arroyo made a fool of herself on national TV, as always. Her failure in acting out her pretend act is a slippage that must not escape analysis.
Mrs. Arroyo’s failed pretend act is revealed by her iron-fisted proclamation, on the one hand, and her paranoid attitude towards the activists and her critics on the other. Furthermore, this failure is a symptom of Arroyo’s over-identification with that entity called the State. She neither has the intellectual nor the politico-ethical acumen to tell the difference between her own dubious interests and the appropriate function of the various institutions that comprise the State. No wonder she dismisses the efforts of the mass movement to bring about progressive change by challenging existing institutional dysfunctions as an anarchic challenge to the government. She is too ill-equipped to understand that the mass movement’s clamor for her ouster is part of its genuine efforts to reform and transform existing institutions like the government to make it function for the interest of the majority. Whenever the people decry electoral fraud, corruption and foreign plunder, they actually want to save our institutions from people like Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. But Arroyo’s over-identification with the State can only make her label hopeful citizens as “Enemies of the State” whose actions deserve her suspension of the ethical dimension of leadership. No doubt, Arroyo’s over-identification with the State has turned her into the personification of the system’s excess that threatens the system itself.
Meanwhile, the imposition of Proclamation 1017 and its subsequent lifting bears within itself an ideological lie: that a cold-blooded leader like Macapagal-Arroyo had to do the dirty job of suspending our civil liberties for a moment in order to preserve it for a lifetime.
The lie does not stop there. What are we to make of Arroyo’s crackdown on suspected communists? What is new in this operation is that the Arroyo regime is now more open about its plan for its communist suspects. What Zizek asks of the conduct of the U.S.War on Terror, specifically its less hypocritical behavior towards terrorist suspects, must be asked of GMA’s modified behavior towards her communists suspects. If Gloria Macapagal Arroyo means only to conduct a crackdown on the left, why is she telling us so? Why doesn’t she go on arresting and even killing her suspects as she has been doing? Zizek explains that “what is proper to human speech is the gap between the enunciated content and its act of enunciation. Imagine a couple who have a tacit agreement that they can have discreet extramarital affairs; if, all of a sudden, the husband openly tells the wife about an affair, she would have good reason to wonder why he was telling her. The act of publicly revealing something is not neutral; it affects the reported content itself.”
But what is really at stake in GMA’s publicized anti-communist crackdown? Are we perhaps witnessing a change in the post-national constellation of the political forces in contemporary society? Is the triumphalist claim that the socialist project failed and that the only possible world is one that is structured by the capitalist mode of production is fast becoming obsolete? This seems to be what Macapagal-Arroyo implies in her frantic communist witch-hunt.
What is there in the statement of a crackdown on suspected communists that made the Arroyo regime enunciate it publicly? The problem is not so much the content of the statement. After all, killings of trade union leaders and activists have been conducted way before proclamation 1017.
The problem with Mrs. Arroyo is that she makes threatening statements for all of us to hear in thecontext of a democratic republic. Isn’t this lamentable? In a democracy, nobody is supposed to beincriminated by virtue of his/her political beliefs, may this be an adherence to religious fundamentalism, liberalism or even communism. The exercise of free thought and action is vital in the continued functioning of a democratic society.
The real wager in Arroyo’s game is the construction of a bogey, an’ other’ to which a particular identity like her administration may turn every time it fails. The usefulness of the communist crackdown for the Arroyo regime lies not in it’s a actual accomplishment but in its mere public announcement. It seems to say that if “covert communist activities” cannot escape the panoptic gaze of Mrs. Arroyo, then non-communists who criticize her openly are automatically an open target for state repression and violence. Interestingly, the Arroyo regime has come up with a comprehensive propaganda that documents the alleged alliance between the “renegade” officers of the military and the CPP-NPA-NDF. In the light of the aborted withdrawal of the majority of the military, it is easy to understand why Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo resorts to a preposterous narrative such as this. In identifying the defiant members of the military with the CPP-NPA-NDF she is able to construct a singularity that otherwise does not exist considering the contrasting principles that those involved adhere to. Arroyo’s emphasis on the “singularity of evil” is a tactical move for her to deny the fact that the discontent with her administration is now diffused and widespread.
What makes Arroyo’s measure even more detrimental to the construction of a genuine democracy is its patent dualistic spin on the forces that constitute the present situation: the good/her friends and evil/”enemies of the state.” This postulation is dangerous because “the justification of oppression,” as Hodge suitably puts it, “depends on the view that people can be measured on a scale of good and evil.” People like Arroyo who seem convinced that she can measure other people “on the scale of good and evil assume that the measurement can be done objectively and that it is justifiable to place restriction to those judged to be less good or more evil than themselves. After all, evil is something we would be better off without. So too for the people judged as more evil. In extreme cases, they should be killed; in other instances, they should at least be controlled and their power of rights reduced. The objective result is oppression of the people consistently so viewed and treated, although to the oppressors this result is nothing more than the furtherance of good through the suppression of evil. Without the framework of dualism, these justifications have no moral foundation on which to rest (1992:104).”
It is the duty of every responsible citizen to protect the ethical and political standards that guide our engagement in social life. And it is only through the urgent call for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to step down that we can raise our political and ethical standards which plummeted upon her acts of terror. Only when these standards are properly laid down can we, as a people, construct concrete steps towards the elimination of poverty and the practice of genuine freedom and social justice.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Analysis: A Test For Democracy
The Arroyo administration has a recipe for dictatorship – calibrated pre-emptive response, Executive Order No. 464, the proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution and the Anti-Terrorism Bill pending before Congress. Proclamation No. 1017 was a test case. The declaration of the state of emergency shows what President Arroyo is capable of.
BY BENJIE OLIVEROS
Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly newsmagazine
(www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org)
Vol. VI, No. 5, March 5-11, 2006
When President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued Proclamation No. 1017 placing the country under a “state of national emergency,” she drew a lot of flak from different sectors of society. Some called it an act of desperation to silence her critics. Others called it an act of betrayal to the spirit of EDSA coming as it is on the 20th commemoration of People Power 1, when the Filipino people toppled a dictatorship. It has been also called an attempt to impose martial law once more.
Proclamation No. 1017 itself was vague. Lawyers said it was merely a description of a situation. It referred to a conspiracy of “some elements of the political opposition with the extreme left, represented by the NDF-CPP-NPA and the extreme right, represented by the military adventurists,” who seek to bring down the government…is hindering the growth of the economy and sabotaging the people's confidence in government and their faith in the future of this country.” It also mentioned that “the claims of these elements have been recklessly magnified by certain segments of the national media.” It ended with President Arroyo calling on the Armed Forces of the Philippines “to maintain law and order throughout the Philippines, prevent or suppress all forms of lawless violence as well any act of insurrection or rebellion and to enforce obedience to all the laws and to all decrees, orders and regulations promulgated by (Arroyo) personally or upon (her) direction.”
Even as the government was hard put at explaining that it merely intended to save the republic from the “unholy alliance” of the left and the right, nobody seemed to believe it. The Arroyo administration immediately cancelled all EDSA celebrations and rally permits issued for February 24. Consequently, it attempted to disperse all rallies on that day even if these were conducted peacefully.
To lend credence to the administration’s claims, it immediately arrested former Philippine Constabulary Chief Ramon Montaño and Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) Party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran. It also tried to arrest Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Satur Ocampo, Teddy Casino and Joel Virador; Anakpawis Representative Rafael Mariano and Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Liza Maza who are all now under the “protective custody” (read: detention) of the House of Representatives.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) raided the printing press and office of the The Daily Tribune and stationed soldiers to guard Channels 2 and 7.
Subsequently, it filed a case of rebellion against 15 people including those mentioned above, Magdalo officers, and other personalities associated with Bayan Muna. It came out with a list of 50 persons it accused of being connected with the CPP-NPA-NDFP with pending arrest warrants.
PNP Director General Arturo Lomibao also issued a warning against media agencies to abide by a set of guidelines to be issued by the PNP. He warned that the police would be monitoring media broadcast and publications and would not hesitate to take over media agencies that violate these guidelines.
The selection of targets of the Arroyo administration revealed its intention to silence its most consistent critics. The legal left proves to be a thorn on the side of the administration. But its proposition that the legal and underground left are the same is both absurd and dangerous. This is the very reason for the killing of leaders and members of progressive party-list groups in areas outside the National Capital Region (NCR).
The legal left was a convenient scapegoat, a warning sample and a test case. With the arrest of individuals identified with the left, the Arroyo administration thought that it had proven its conspiracy theory; and it had sent a signal to its critics that it would not tolerate dissent.
The Arroyo administration tried to gauge the reaction of the public to these arrests. It did not arrest former President Cory Aquino, although it warned that it would arrest her if she joined the rally last February 24. It also did not arrest former Vice-President Teofisto Guingona and other personalities of the opposition for it would have projected an image that it was similar to the Marcos dictatorship, which might not sit well with the general public.
The case of The Daily Tribune was likewise the same. It served as a warning sample and a test case. There were also reports that all television programs of Bro. Eddie Villanueva of Bangon (Rise up) and the award-winning radio program Ngayon Na, Bayan! (Now, People!) of Kodao Productions were taken off the air. It did not raid the big ones such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It also did not close down all media agencies like Marcos did since doing so could backfire on the Arroyo administration.
But the manner by which the raids and arrests were made indicated that the Arroyo administration is capable of running roughshod over civil liberties and the people’s rights. Although there was no suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the arrests were made on the basis of old or trumped-up cases. New charges of sedition and rebellion were subsequently filed in court. But these did not pass the proper procedure of preliminary investigation to determine probable cause. It was a case of “arrest first, seek evidence later.”
The Arroyo administration has lifted the state of national emergency a week after declaring it. The business community and foreign investors, including the American Chamber of Commerce, were persistent in their call for its lifting saying that the proclamation is bad for business. Likewise, Proclamation No. 1017 generated protests from a broad sector of people, including those in government such as the Senate and its employees.
However, the Arroyo administration, through Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Raul Gonzales, announced that the guidelines for media coverage will still be enforced and that they will continue monitoring the media. It is preparing charges of inciting to sedition against Tribune publisher Niñez Cacho-Olivares and columnists Ike Señeres and Herman Tiu-Laurel.
Also, it had already made a mockery of the justice system by its policy of “arrest first, seek evidence later”. It is expected that the government will still use this illegal method as Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita admitted that the “crackdown” on government opponents and critics will continue even after the lifting of Proclamation No. 1017.
It has its calibrated pre-emptive response and Executive Order No. 464 in place. Its proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution and its Anti-Terrorism Bill pending before Congress will further constrict civil liberties and people’s rights. Its recipe for a dictatorship is ready and the mechanisms are being put in place.
The only obstacle to the Arroyo administration’s plans of imposing its will is the people’s dissent. Proclamation No. 1017 could have been harsher, been imposed longer, and it could have been a formal declaration of martial law had the Arroyo administration not fear the people’s reaction. The Arroyo administration was right to hesitate.
The initial reaction of the different groups holding a rally when Proclamation No. 1017 was announced was not to call off its activities but to assert the freedom of assembly by converging at Ayala.
The reaction of the party-list representatives being hunted down by government was not to go into hiding but to assert their rights.
The raid at The Daily Tribune and the warnings of the PNP did not deter media from doing its coverage. Media people gathered at Newsdesk Café on February 26 to render a collective voice against these attacks on press freedom.
Proclamation No. 1017 was not able to successfully generate a “chilling effect” as intended by the government. Rather it galvanized the people into action.
In this respect, People Power 1 or EDSA 1 was not a total failure. The militant reactions to Proclamation No. 1017 and the collective shouts of “Never Again to Martial Law” manifested the most valuable lesson and gain of People Power 1.
But all freedom-loving Filipinos must not stop even as Proclamation No. 1017 was lifted.
The declaration of the state of emergency shows what President Arroyo is capable of. Currently, its spin doctors are continuously raising the coup bogey and it warned that it may again declare a state of national emergency anytime.
To confront this continuing challenge to civil liberties and people’s rights, freedom-loving Filipinos must be able to collectively show its will and muster its capabilities to fight for democracy and effect genuine change. Bulatlat
© 2006 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
BY BENJIE OLIVEROS
Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly newsmagazine
(www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org)
Vol. VI, No. 5, March 5-11, 2006
When President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued Proclamation No. 1017 placing the country under a “state of national emergency,” she drew a lot of flak from different sectors of society. Some called it an act of desperation to silence her critics. Others called it an act of betrayal to the spirit of EDSA coming as it is on the 20th commemoration of People Power 1, when the Filipino people toppled a dictatorship. It has been also called an attempt to impose martial law once more.
Proclamation No. 1017 itself was vague. Lawyers said it was merely a description of a situation. It referred to a conspiracy of “some elements of the political opposition with the extreme left, represented by the NDF-CPP-NPA and the extreme right, represented by the military adventurists,” who seek to bring down the government…is hindering the growth of the economy and sabotaging the people's confidence in government and their faith in the future of this country.” It also mentioned that “the claims of these elements have been recklessly magnified by certain segments of the national media.” It ended with President Arroyo calling on the Armed Forces of the Philippines “to maintain law and order throughout the Philippines, prevent or suppress all forms of lawless violence as well any act of insurrection or rebellion and to enforce obedience to all the laws and to all decrees, orders and regulations promulgated by (Arroyo) personally or upon (her) direction.”
Even as the government was hard put at explaining that it merely intended to save the republic from the “unholy alliance” of the left and the right, nobody seemed to believe it. The Arroyo administration immediately cancelled all EDSA celebrations and rally permits issued for February 24. Consequently, it attempted to disperse all rallies on that day even if these were conducted peacefully.
To lend credence to the administration’s claims, it immediately arrested former Philippine Constabulary Chief Ramon Montaño and Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) Party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran. It also tried to arrest Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Satur Ocampo, Teddy Casino and Joel Virador; Anakpawis Representative Rafael Mariano and Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Liza Maza who are all now under the “protective custody” (read: detention) of the House of Representatives.
The Philippine National Police (PNP) raided the printing press and office of the The Daily Tribune and stationed soldiers to guard Channels 2 and 7.
Subsequently, it filed a case of rebellion against 15 people including those mentioned above, Magdalo officers, and other personalities associated with Bayan Muna. It came out with a list of 50 persons it accused of being connected with the CPP-NPA-NDFP with pending arrest warrants.
PNP Director General Arturo Lomibao also issued a warning against media agencies to abide by a set of guidelines to be issued by the PNP. He warned that the police would be monitoring media broadcast and publications and would not hesitate to take over media agencies that violate these guidelines.
The selection of targets of the Arroyo administration revealed its intention to silence its most consistent critics. The legal left proves to be a thorn on the side of the administration. But its proposition that the legal and underground left are the same is both absurd and dangerous. This is the very reason for the killing of leaders and members of progressive party-list groups in areas outside the National Capital Region (NCR).
The legal left was a convenient scapegoat, a warning sample and a test case. With the arrest of individuals identified with the left, the Arroyo administration thought that it had proven its conspiracy theory; and it had sent a signal to its critics that it would not tolerate dissent.
The Arroyo administration tried to gauge the reaction of the public to these arrests. It did not arrest former President Cory Aquino, although it warned that it would arrest her if she joined the rally last February 24. It also did not arrest former Vice-President Teofisto Guingona and other personalities of the opposition for it would have projected an image that it was similar to the Marcos dictatorship, which might not sit well with the general public.
The case of The Daily Tribune was likewise the same. It served as a warning sample and a test case. There were also reports that all television programs of Bro. Eddie Villanueva of Bangon (Rise up) and the award-winning radio program Ngayon Na, Bayan! (Now, People!) of Kodao Productions were taken off the air. It did not raid the big ones such as the Philippine Daily Inquirer. It also did not close down all media agencies like Marcos did since doing so could backfire on the Arroyo administration.
But the manner by which the raids and arrests were made indicated that the Arroyo administration is capable of running roughshod over civil liberties and the people’s rights. Although there was no suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the arrests were made on the basis of old or trumped-up cases. New charges of sedition and rebellion were subsequently filed in court. But these did not pass the proper procedure of preliminary investigation to determine probable cause. It was a case of “arrest first, seek evidence later.”
The Arroyo administration has lifted the state of national emergency a week after declaring it. The business community and foreign investors, including the American Chamber of Commerce, were persistent in their call for its lifting saying that the proclamation is bad for business. Likewise, Proclamation No. 1017 generated protests from a broad sector of people, including those in government such as the Senate and its employees.
However, the Arroyo administration, through Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Raul Gonzales, announced that the guidelines for media coverage will still be enforced and that they will continue monitoring the media. It is preparing charges of inciting to sedition against Tribune publisher Niñez Cacho-Olivares and columnists Ike Señeres and Herman Tiu-Laurel.
Also, it had already made a mockery of the justice system by its policy of “arrest first, seek evidence later”. It is expected that the government will still use this illegal method as Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita admitted that the “crackdown” on government opponents and critics will continue even after the lifting of Proclamation No. 1017.
It has its calibrated pre-emptive response and Executive Order No. 464 in place. Its proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution and its Anti-Terrorism Bill pending before Congress will further constrict civil liberties and people’s rights. Its recipe for a dictatorship is ready and the mechanisms are being put in place.
The only obstacle to the Arroyo administration’s plans of imposing its will is the people’s dissent. Proclamation No. 1017 could have been harsher, been imposed longer, and it could have been a formal declaration of martial law had the Arroyo administration not fear the people’s reaction. The Arroyo administration was right to hesitate.
The initial reaction of the different groups holding a rally when Proclamation No. 1017 was announced was not to call off its activities but to assert the freedom of assembly by converging at Ayala.
The reaction of the party-list representatives being hunted down by government was not to go into hiding but to assert their rights.
The raid at The Daily Tribune and the warnings of the PNP did not deter media from doing its coverage. Media people gathered at Newsdesk Café on February 26 to render a collective voice against these attacks on press freedom.
Proclamation No. 1017 was not able to successfully generate a “chilling effect” as intended by the government. Rather it galvanized the people into action.
In this respect, People Power 1 or EDSA 1 was not a total failure. The militant reactions to Proclamation No. 1017 and the collective shouts of “Never Again to Martial Law” manifested the most valuable lesson and gain of People Power 1.
But all freedom-loving Filipinos must not stop even as Proclamation No. 1017 was lifted.
The declaration of the state of emergency shows what President Arroyo is capable of. Currently, its spin doctors are continuously raising the coup bogey and it warned that it may again declare a state of national emergency anytime.
To confront this continuing challenge to civil liberties and people’s rights, freedom-loving Filipinos must be able to collectively show its will and muster its capabilities to fight for democracy and effect genuine change. Bulatlat
© 2006 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
Crisis and Disintegration of the Arroyo Fascist Regime
“Ang sagot sa dahas ay dahas, kapag bingi sa katwiran.” [The answer to force is force if the other party is deaf to reason.] – JOSE RIZAL, national hero of the Philippines
BY THE PHILIPPINE CULTURAL STUDIES CENTER
Posted by Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly newsmagazine
(www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org)
Vol. VI, No. 5, March 5-11, 2006
The end of the Arroyo fascist regime is fast approaching. It is bound to implode in one big catastrophic upheaval that will unleash violence and murderous abuses symptomatic of the decay of the bankrupt neocolonial system. Or it will exit peacefully if disciplined mass mobilization in the Metro Manila area and elsewhere can prevent the regime’s deployment of whatever armed elements it can use to postpone its ruin. To be sure, U.S. intervention – military and diplomatic – will try to save its lackeys, or sacrifice them for a new set of servants who will do Washington’s bidding –U.S.-tutored military officers and unscrupulous business technocrats tied to transnational financial-corporate interests. Either way, there is no escape from the intensifying crisis of a moribund clientelist system ridden with irresolvable contradictions.
Events seem to be unfolding with a vengeance. Since her access to government power through the flawed 2004 electoral exercise, Gloria Arroyo has turned out to be a huge disappointment to those who supported her in People Power II as an alternative to Estrada. Arroyo was definitely not a Cory Aquino with the charisma of the martyred Ninoy. Arroyo’s experience in politics conformed to the routine career of a member of local oligarchic dynasties; but her clan grew rich primarily from bureaucratic and business manipulation, not landlord exploitation. Today, criminal linkages surround her family and cronies. She might appear for some to resemble Ferdinand Marcos – without the savvy and pretense to intellectual substance of the latter. Despite U.S. tutelage, Arroyo’s managerial mode and policies demonstrate an essentially autocratic style of governance wholly subservient to the dictates of the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and the Washington Consensus.
Right from the beginning, Arroyo’s ascendancy was characterized by rampant human rights violations. She presided over an unprecedented series of political assassinations of journalists, lawyers, church people, peasant leaders, women activists, and workers. The human rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) has documented the brutalization of 169,530 individual victims, 18,515 families, 71 communities and 196 households. Arroyo has been tellingly silent over the killing and abduction of countless members of opposition parties and popular organizations. Most of those killed or “disappeared” belong to progressive groups such as Bayan Muna (People First), Anakpawis (Toiling Masses), Gabriela, Anakbayan (Nation’s Youth), Karapatan, KMU (May 1st Movement), and others. They were protesting Arroyo’s repressive taxation, collusion with foreign capital tied to oil and mining companies that destroy people’s livelihood and environment, fraudulent use of public funds , and other anti-people measures. Such groups and individuals have been tagged as “communist fronts” by Arroyo’s National Security Advisers, the military and police; the latter agencies have been implicated in these ruthless atrocities. Just as what happened to the torturers of the Marcos regime, no one has been brought to trial and found responsible for any of the killings and other outrageous brutalities.
Meanwhile, Arroyo has hired a U.S. lobbying firm, Venable, for national governance. The US firm will ostensibly raise money for the modernization of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines). It will also propose crucial amendments to the Constitution so as to allow foreign ownership of land, public utilities, and the mass media. Arroyo is also heeding the Bush administration’s strategy of devising Anti-Terrorism Laws and National ID Systems to suppress the articulation of grievances by the poor, deprived majority. Because of severe unemployment, soaring prices of oil products and basic commodities, unjust salaries and wages, increased tax burdens, chronic corruption in government, insufficient and costly social services, lack of genuine land reform, alarming proliferation of gambling, drugs, and State violence against ordinary citizens, millions of Filipinos, including landed elite, businessmen and professionals, have called for Arroyo’s resignation (see March 2005 survey of Pulse Asia; Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 4, 2005).
Since 2004, Arroyo’s administration suffered a stunningly rapid erosion of support from the traditional comprador and oligarchic segments of the ruling bloc. On one hand, the ousted Estrada camp has really never reconciled itself to its loss of power, given its populist tendencies and residual nationalist leaning. On the other hand, the Arroyo clique failed to offer a viable compromise to those excluded, given its dependence on bureaucratic corruption, extortions from business and other criminal activities. Never really interested in popular mobilization, the Arroyo clique has relied on bribery and other mendacious machinations. It operates with a narrow circle of parasitic generals, “trapos” (traditional politicians), and mediocre hirelings from media and academy. Its popular base is non-existent. Its influence on landlord oligarchs and the Makati elite has always been superficial and precarious, mediated by brokers like Fidel Ramos, Jose de Venecia, and assorted confidence tricksters. In short, Arroyo’s mode of governance has always been fundamentally unstable, unconsolidated, and opportunistic.
One of the first signs of the vulnerability of Arroyo’s position may be found in her yielding to the massive popular demand for withdrawal of Filipino troops in Iraq following the Angelo de la Cruz kidnapping. Of course, she tried to exploit its “nationalist” potential. But her continuing servility to Bush’s imperialist aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, together with her obedience to the WTO neoliberal program of privatization and deregulation, reinforced her utter dependency on global forces that only served to undermine her authority, her claim to represent the Filipino nation. Arroyo followed Fidel Ramos in implementing the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), together with other onerous treaties, thus maintaining U.S. control of the Philippine military via training of officers, logistics, and dictation of policies toward the Moro insurgents as well as to the New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas. This is the profound legacy of the persisting colonial subjugation of the Philippines and the instrumentalization of the local bureaucracy and military to carry out U.S. imperial strategy in the first half of the twentieth-century up to Cold War anti-communist policies and the current “war against global terrorism.” Without U.S. support, the Filipino elite cannot sustain the oppression and exploitation of the propertyless workers, peasants, and middle strata now driven to flee and settle in other lands.
This explains why the AFP continues to pursue a fanatical anti-communist program today even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the capitalist reversal in China and in Eastern Europe. Its Christian chauvinist orientation militates against any pluralist outlook or even multiculturalist sympathy for the plight of the Bangsa Moro people and other indigenous communities (Igorots, Lumad) who have organized and armed themselves to fight for justice and dignity, for regaining their ancestral habitats. But this AFP subservience to Washington does not insure the absence of internal rifts and breakdown of “professionalism” due to abuses and corruption of the politicized officer ranks (see Alfred McCoy’s book, Closer Than Brothers, Yale University Press, 2000). This is a pattern which has almost become institutionalized for lack of any genuine democratic, nationalist ethos, given the function of this organ of government (established by the U.S. colonial authority) to suppress the revolutionary forces of the first Philippine Republic, the Moro Sultanate resistance, and numerous peasant insurrections (including the Huk uprising) constantly reproduced by the fierce class divisions in a semi-feudal and neocolonized formation.
We can thus understand the “Hello Garci” episode, following the Oakwood “Mutiny,” as a symptom of the internal divisions in the AFP and the loss of Arroyo’s full control. Whatever sliver of moral legitimacy Arroyo’s administration still possessed then, gradually dissolved in the AFP squabbles caused by this exposure. Not even her successful attempt to stop impeachment proceedings in Congress could really repair the rupture of political legitimacy dating back to the May 2004 elections. The “Hello Garci” scandal may be read as a symptom of the advanced disintegration of the comprador-landlord hegemony eviscerated by the Marcos dictatorship, temporarily revived by Cory Aquino, and given extension by Fidel Ramos’ mock-utopian resuscitation of Marcosian rhetoric. Arroyo cannot rescue this coalition of conflicting political forces because of lack of the abundant foreign subsidies that Ferdinand Marcos then enjoyed. This is worsened by the depletion of natural resources and educated social capital (due to emigration, breakdown of schooling, etc.) and the strict limits of local capital accumulation (no independent industrial ventures) due to the pressures of globalization and the US “war” to re-establish its global hegemony by systematic torture and unrelenting bombing.
Arroyo has no other way out. The Economic Crisis of 1997-1998 destroyed any illusions of the Philippines becoming a new Asian Tiger. While Ramos and Estrada offered compromises to the working people and the intelligentsia, they failed to halt the advance of the armed struggle in the countryside and the national-democratic social movements in the cities. Civil society continues its resurgence despite State/military repression. With a profit-centered neoliberal hegemony in control, the unimpeded impoverishment of the countryside has resulted in mass exodus to the cities and outward, hence a million Filipinos leave every year for jobs abroad. The failure of the neocolonial regimes of Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo is also evidenced by the continuing Bangsa Moro insurgency led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the breakdown of the MNLF-Misuari accommodation. Hence the need of the U.S. after the 9/11 attack to stigmatize the New People’s Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines as terrorist organizations, capitalizing on the repulsive acts of the Abu Sayyaf and the pervasive climate of fear following the bombings in Bali, Indonesia, and elsewhere. This will not stop the disintegration of the neocolonial order and the defeat of U.S. interventionary salvaging of its Frankenstein monster.
Structural conditionalities continue to extract enormous debt payments to the World Bank and other financial consortiums, draining two-thirds of the social wealth of the Philippines and depriving education and other social services of sorely needed funds. Neoliberalizing schemes enforced by U.S.-dominated agencies (WTO, IMF) continues to inflict havoc and misery on the majority of 86 million Filipinos. It has bred criminality, worsened corruption, inflamed reactionary Christian fundamentalism, and exposed everyone to the wrath of natural disasters (witness the Leyte flood, a repeat of previous devastating calamities in Luzon and elsewhere). It has contributed to the staging of the Wowowee tragedy, a glaring symptom of how the iniquitous system gambles the dreams of the desperate millions. Marcos’ institutionalization of “the warm body export” in 1974 to tax the poor and relieve labor-peasant unrest has structured the economy to be wholly dependent on regular remittances of Overseas Filipino Workers, the main source of dollar earnings required to pay the foreign debt. The remittance topped $18 billion last year, giving the impression that the country was becoming prosperous. Arroyo prematurely celebrated this index of an economic recovery entirely contingent on the unpredictable fluctuation of the global labor market. This infamous “warm body export” has led to nearly ten million Filipinos displaced to 140 countries, chiefly as OCWs (Overseas Contract Workers) in poorly paid jobs (mainly as domestics, caregivers, and semi-skilled labor), often victimized by unscrupulous racist employers, abandoned by their own government to fend for themselves – an average of five OCW corpses arrive each day at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. These “New Heroes” (“mga bagong bayani” to Cory Aquino) are now clamoring for Arroyo’s ouster.
Relentless corruption, cynical manipulation, and the outright lack of any concern for the people’s welfare have distinguished Arroyo’s unconscionable rule from its inception. Faced with the loss of moral and political legitimacy, Arroyo has institutionalized a pattern of terror throughout the country since taking the reins of government. Particularly with the election of party-list representatives from BayanMuna, killings, abductions and outright harassment of anyone criticizing the government have intensified. The Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace has confirmed that the majority of human rights violations have been committed by the AFP, the Philippine National Police, and the CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Government Units). And this could not have occurred without the tacit or covert approval of Arroyo and her advisers. As the Promotion of Church People’s Response put it in their Feb. 24 Statement: “GMA cheated her way to victory in the May 2004 elections, using public funds to secure votes in her favor and rig the election results… GMA’s record of political killings and violations of civil liberties, especially with her Calibrated Preemptive Response scheme, is now the worst since the downfall of Marcos.”
Having reviewed the history of this current conjuncture, we take the position of denouncing President Arroyo’s flagrant violation of the Philippine Constitution via the pretext of a “National Emergency.” In truth, it is Arroyo’s emergency. This has been convincingly demonstrated by the lawyers of CODAL (Counsels for the Defense of Liberties) and the Catholic Bishops. Arroyo’s suppression of civil liberties and democratic freedoms imposed by Proclamation 1017, carried out by the military and police, opens the way to militarist brutal dictatorship similar to Ferdinand Marcos’ authoritarian rule. Unlike Marcos, however, Arroyo does not have the full support of the comprador and landlord oligarchy; Ramos, Estrada, Aquino and other factions of the ruling class that they represent have demanded her resignation. Clearly these groups, with obvious support from the U.S., would prefer “business as usual”—a managed transition to a legitimate administration elected by the majority, with a program of economic and political reforms to solve rampant graft and corruption, endemic unemployment, deepening poverty and hopelessness of the masses. Can such a transition be peacefully administered by the traditional politicians (such as De Venecia) with U.S. patronage?
Utilizing the pretext of a coup by right, left and other anti-Arroyo forces, Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017 chiefly to intimidate, harass and selectively punish her critics. With her emergency powers, she has arrested all the duly-elected representatives of Bayan Muna, thus intimidating others who might voice criticism and protest. Her police and military have suppressed street demonstrations and public rallies, raided the offices of newspapers and other media, and threatened the arrest of hundreds, including such prestigious members of political dynasties such as Jose “Peping” Cojuangco. It appears, however, that Arroyo is using the usual “divide-and-rule” tactic, isolating the “communist” elements, frightening their allies, and threatening others with “warrantless arrests.” Arroyo and her advisers believe that we are still engaged in the Cold War, fighting agents of the Soviet Union and Communist China. However, this bogey of a “coup” conspiracy fails to convince people because those arrested do not include the military officials that the regime has named as complicit in the plot to overthrow the Arroyo clique. Arroyo surely cannot afford to alienate the military hierarchy she depends on; but can she fool all the honest nationalist officers whose sympathies are with the people? Systematic State terror has been unleashed on the progressive and nationalist sectors of the citizenry. Clearly the hand of the U.S. and its agents has been exposed in directing this selective dragnet, even as the U.S. Embassy continues to refuse to surrender four American soldiers charged by the Philippine Court with rape. Meanwhile, thousands of U.S. Special Forces and their mighty warships are standing by, just in case….
Exposed for cheating, lying, and stealing the people’s money, Arroyo’s fascist rule can no longer claim even a semblance of legitimacy. Nor can the State apparatus controlled by Arroyo claim the authority that solely emanates from the Filipino people, assuming that a constitutional democratic republic is still the framework of order and security. The Arroyo regime’s moral rottenness and political decay have precipitated its total repudiation and condemnation by the Filipino masses.
We call on all conscienticized Filipinos, democrats and nationalists to unite and rally against the Arroyo fascist group imposing terror on the whole country. Civil liberties promulgated in the 1987 Constitution and by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights can only be guaranteed by public demonstrations, street rallies, strikes, and other visible manifestations of the exercise of social and civic rights. We call on all peoples around the world concerned with justice, democracy, and human dignity to express solidarity with the Filipino people in overthrowing the Arroyo regime, releasing all political prisoners, and restoring full and genuine sovereignty to the Filipino people. Posted by Bulatlat
© 2006 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
BY THE PHILIPPINE CULTURAL STUDIES CENTER
Posted by Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly newsmagazine
(www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org)
Vol. VI, No. 5, March 5-11, 2006
The end of the Arroyo fascist regime is fast approaching. It is bound to implode in one big catastrophic upheaval that will unleash violence and murderous abuses symptomatic of the decay of the bankrupt neocolonial system. Or it will exit peacefully if disciplined mass mobilization in the Metro Manila area and elsewhere can prevent the regime’s deployment of whatever armed elements it can use to postpone its ruin. To be sure, U.S. intervention – military and diplomatic – will try to save its lackeys, or sacrifice them for a new set of servants who will do Washington’s bidding –U.S.-tutored military officers and unscrupulous business technocrats tied to transnational financial-corporate interests. Either way, there is no escape from the intensifying crisis of a moribund clientelist system ridden with irresolvable contradictions.
Events seem to be unfolding with a vengeance. Since her access to government power through the flawed 2004 electoral exercise, Gloria Arroyo has turned out to be a huge disappointment to those who supported her in People Power II as an alternative to Estrada. Arroyo was definitely not a Cory Aquino with the charisma of the martyred Ninoy. Arroyo’s experience in politics conformed to the routine career of a member of local oligarchic dynasties; but her clan grew rich primarily from bureaucratic and business manipulation, not landlord exploitation. Today, criminal linkages surround her family and cronies. She might appear for some to resemble Ferdinand Marcos – without the savvy and pretense to intellectual substance of the latter. Despite U.S. tutelage, Arroyo’s managerial mode and policies demonstrate an essentially autocratic style of governance wholly subservient to the dictates of the World Bank, IMF, WTO, and the Washington Consensus.
Right from the beginning, Arroyo’s ascendancy was characterized by rampant human rights violations. She presided over an unprecedented series of political assassinations of journalists, lawyers, church people, peasant leaders, women activists, and workers. The human rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) has documented the brutalization of 169,530 individual victims, 18,515 families, 71 communities and 196 households. Arroyo has been tellingly silent over the killing and abduction of countless members of opposition parties and popular organizations. Most of those killed or “disappeared” belong to progressive groups such as Bayan Muna (People First), Anakpawis (Toiling Masses), Gabriela, Anakbayan (Nation’s Youth), Karapatan, KMU (May 1st Movement), and others. They were protesting Arroyo’s repressive taxation, collusion with foreign capital tied to oil and mining companies that destroy people’s livelihood and environment, fraudulent use of public funds , and other anti-people measures. Such groups and individuals have been tagged as “communist fronts” by Arroyo’s National Security Advisers, the military and police; the latter agencies have been implicated in these ruthless atrocities. Just as what happened to the torturers of the Marcos regime, no one has been brought to trial and found responsible for any of the killings and other outrageous brutalities.
Meanwhile, Arroyo has hired a U.S. lobbying firm, Venable, for national governance. The US firm will ostensibly raise money for the modernization of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines). It will also propose crucial amendments to the Constitution so as to allow foreign ownership of land, public utilities, and the mass media. Arroyo is also heeding the Bush administration’s strategy of devising Anti-Terrorism Laws and National ID Systems to suppress the articulation of grievances by the poor, deprived majority. Because of severe unemployment, soaring prices of oil products and basic commodities, unjust salaries and wages, increased tax burdens, chronic corruption in government, insufficient and costly social services, lack of genuine land reform, alarming proliferation of gambling, drugs, and State violence against ordinary citizens, millions of Filipinos, including landed elite, businessmen and professionals, have called for Arroyo’s resignation (see March 2005 survey of Pulse Asia; Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 4, 2005).
Since 2004, Arroyo’s administration suffered a stunningly rapid erosion of support from the traditional comprador and oligarchic segments of the ruling bloc. On one hand, the ousted Estrada camp has really never reconciled itself to its loss of power, given its populist tendencies and residual nationalist leaning. On the other hand, the Arroyo clique failed to offer a viable compromise to those excluded, given its dependence on bureaucratic corruption, extortions from business and other criminal activities. Never really interested in popular mobilization, the Arroyo clique has relied on bribery and other mendacious machinations. It operates with a narrow circle of parasitic generals, “trapos” (traditional politicians), and mediocre hirelings from media and academy. Its popular base is non-existent. Its influence on landlord oligarchs and the Makati elite has always been superficial and precarious, mediated by brokers like Fidel Ramos, Jose de Venecia, and assorted confidence tricksters. In short, Arroyo’s mode of governance has always been fundamentally unstable, unconsolidated, and opportunistic.
One of the first signs of the vulnerability of Arroyo’s position may be found in her yielding to the massive popular demand for withdrawal of Filipino troops in Iraq following the Angelo de la Cruz kidnapping. Of course, she tried to exploit its “nationalist” potential. But her continuing servility to Bush’s imperialist aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, together with her obedience to the WTO neoliberal program of privatization and deregulation, reinforced her utter dependency on global forces that only served to undermine her authority, her claim to represent the Filipino nation. Arroyo followed Fidel Ramos in implementing the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), together with other onerous treaties, thus maintaining U.S. control of the Philippine military via training of officers, logistics, and dictation of policies toward the Moro insurgents as well as to the New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas. This is the profound legacy of the persisting colonial subjugation of the Philippines and the instrumentalization of the local bureaucracy and military to carry out U.S. imperial strategy in the first half of the twentieth-century up to Cold War anti-communist policies and the current “war against global terrorism.” Without U.S. support, the Filipino elite cannot sustain the oppression and exploitation of the propertyless workers, peasants, and middle strata now driven to flee and settle in other lands.
This explains why the AFP continues to pursue a fanatical anti-communist program today even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the capitalist reversal in China and in Eastern Europe. Its Christian chauvinist orientation militates against any pluralist outlook or even multiculturalist sympathy for the plight of the Bangsa Moro people and other indigenous communities (Igorots, Lumad) who have organized and armed themselves to fight for justice and dignity, for regaining their ancestral habitats. But this AFP subservience to Washington does not insure the absence of internal rifts and breakdown of “professionalism” due to abuses and corruption of the politicized officer ranks (see Alfred McCoy’s book, Closer Than Brothers, Yale University Press, 2000). This is a pattern which has almost become institutionalized for lack of any genuine democratic, nationalist ethos, given the function of this organ of government (established by the U.S. colonial authority) to suppress the revolutionary forces of the first Philippine Republic, the Moro Sultanate resistance, and numerous peasant insurrections (including the Huk uprising) constantly reproduced by the fierce class divisions in a semi-feudal and neocolonized formation.
We can thus understand the “Hello Garci” episode, following the Oakwood “Mutiny,” as a symptom of the internal divisions in the AFP and the loss of Arroyo’s full control. Whatever sliver of moral legitimacy Arroyo’s administration still possessed then, gradually dissolved in the AFP squabbles caused by this exposure. Not even her successful attempt to stop impeachment proceedings in Congress could really repair the rupture of political legitimacy dating back to the May 2004 elections. The “Hello Garci” scandal may be read as a symptom of the advanced disintegration of the comprador-landlord hegemony eviscerated by the Marcos dictatorship, temporarily revived by Cory Aquino, and given extension by Fidel Ramos’ mock-utopian resuscitation of Marcosian rhetoric. Arroyo cannot rescue this coalition of conflicting political forces because of lack of the abundant foreign subsidies that Ferdinand Marcos then enjoyed. This is worsened by the depletion of natural resources and educated social capital (due to emigration, breakdown of schooling, etc.) and the strict limits of local capital accumulation (no independent industrial ventures) due to the pressures of globalization and the US “war” to re-establish its global hegemony by systematic torture and unrelenting bombing.
Arroyo has no other way out. The Economic Crisis of 1997-1998 destroyed any illusions of the Philippines becoming a new Asian Tiger. While Ramos and Estrada offered compromises to the working people and the intelligentsia, they failed to halt the advance of the armed struggle in the countryside and the national-democratic social movements in the cities. Civil society continues its resurgence despite State/military repression. With a profit-centered neoliberal hegemony in control, the unimpeded impoverishment of the countryside has resulted in mass exodus to the cities and outward, hence a million Filipinos leave every year for jobs abroad. The failure of the neocolonial regimes of Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo is also evidenced by the continuing Bangsa Moro insurgency led by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and the breakdown of the MNLF-Misuari accommodation. Hence the need of the U.S. after the 9/11 attack to stigmatize the New People’s Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines as terrorist organizations, capitalizing on the repulsive acts of the Abu Sayyaf and the pervasive climate of fear following the bombings in Bali, Indonesia, and elsewhere. This will not stop the disintegration of the neocolonial order and the defeat of U.S. interventionary salvaging of its Frankenstein monster.
Structural conditionalities continue to extract enormous debt payments to the World Bank and other financial consortiums, draining two-thirds of the social wealth of the Philippines and depriving education and other social services of sorely needed funds. Neoliberalizing schemes enforced by U.S.-dominated agencies (WTO, IMF) continues to inflict havoc and misery on the majority of 86 million Filipinos. It has bred criminality, worsened corruption, inflamed reactionary Christian fundamentalism, and exposed everyone to the wrath of natural disasters (witness the Leyte flood, a repeat of previous devastating calamities in Luzon and elsewhere). It has contributed to the staging of the Wowowee tragedy, a glaring symptom of how the iniquitous system gambles the dreams of the desperate millions. Marcos’ institutionalization of “the warm body export” in 1974 to tax the poor and relieve labor-peasant unrest has structured the economy to be wholly dependent on regular remittances of Overseas Filipino Workers, the main source of dollar earnings required to pay the foreign debt. The remittance topped $18 billion last year, giving the impression that the country was becoming prosperous. Arroyo prematurely celebrated this index of an economic recovery entirely contingent on the unpredictable fluctuation of the global labor market. This infamous “warm body export” has led to nearly ten million Filipinos displaced to 140 countries, chiefly as OCWs (Overseas Contract Workers) in poorly paid jobs (mainly as domestics, caregivers, and semi-skilled labor), often victimized by unscrupulous racist employers, abandoned by their own government to fend for themselves – an average of five OCW corpses arrive each day at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. These “New Heroes” (“mga bagong bayani” to Cory Aquino) are now clamoring for Arroyo’s ouster.
Relentless corruption, cynical manipulation, and the outright lack of any concern for the people’s welfare have distinguished Arroyo’s unconscionable rule from its inception. Faced with the loss of moral and political legitimacy, Arroyo has institutionalized a pattern of terror throughout the country since taking the reins of government. Particularly with the election of party-list representatives from BayanMuna, killings, abductions and outright harassment of anyone criticizing the government have intensified. The Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace has confirmed that the majority of human rights violations have been committed by the AFP, the Philippine National Police, and the CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Government Units). And this could not have occurred without the tacit or covert approval of Arroyo and her advisers. As the Promotion of Church People’s Response put it in their Feb. 24 Statement: “GMA cheated her way to victory in the May 2004 elections, using public funds to secure votes in her favor and rig the election results… GMA’s record of political killings and violations of civil liberties, especially with her Calibrated Preemptive Response scheme, is now the worst since the downfall of Marcos.”
Having reviewed the history of this current conjuncture, we take the position of denouncing President Arroyo’s flagrant violation of the Philippine Constitution via the pretext of a “National Emergency.” In truth, it is Arroyo’s emergency. This has been convincingly demonstrated by the lawyers of CODAL (Counsels for the Defense of Liberties) and the Catholic Bishops. Arroyo’s suppression of civil liberties and democratic freedoms imposed by Proclamation 1017, carried out by the military and police, opens the way to militarist brutal dictatorship similar to Ferdinand Marcos’ authoritarian rule. Unlike Marcos, however, Arroyo does not have the full support of the comprador and landlord oligarchy; Ramos, Estrada, Aquino and other factions of the ruling class that they represent have demanded her resignation. Clearly these groups, with obvious support from the U.S., would prefer “business as usual”—a managed transition to a legitimate administration elected by the majority, with a program of economic and political reforms to solve rampant graft and corruption, endemic unemployment, deepening poverty and hopelessness of the masses. Can such a transition be peacefully administered by the traditional politicians (such as De Venecia) with U.S. patronage?
Utilizing the pretext of a coup by right, left and other anti-Arroyo forces, Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017 chiefly to intimidate, harass and selectively punish her critics. With her emergency powers, she has arrested all the duly-elected representatives of Bayan Muna, thus intimidating others who might voice criticism and protest. Her police and military have suppressed street demonstrations and public rallies, raided the offices of newspapers and other media, and threatened the arrest of hundreds, including such prestigious members of political dynasties such as Jose “Peping” Cojuangco. It appears, however, that Arroyo is using the usual “divide-and-rule” tactic, isolating the “communist” elements, frightening their allies, and threatening others with “warrantless arrests.” Arroyo and her advisers believe that we are still engaged in the Cold War, fighting agents of the Soviet Union and Communist China. However, this bogey of a “coup” conspiracy fails to convince people because those arrested do not include the military officials that the regime has named as complicit in the plot to overthrow the Arroyo clique. Arroyo surely cannot afford to alienate the military hierarchy she depends on; but can she fool all the honest nationalist officers whose sympathies are with the people? Systematic State terror has been unleashed on the progressive and nationalist sectors of the citizenry. Clearly the hand of the U.S. and its agents has been exposed in directing this selective dragnet, even as the U.S. Embassy continues to refuse to surrender four American soldiers charged by the Philippine Court with rape. Meanwhile, thousands of U.S. Special Forces and their mighty warships are standing by, just in case….
Exposed for cheating, lying, and stealing the people’s money, Arroyo’s fascist rule can no longer claim even a semblance of legitimacy. Nor can the State apparatus controlled by Arroyo claim the authority that solely emanates from the Filipino people, assuming that a constitutional democratic republic is still the framework of order and security. The Arroyo regime’s moral rottenness and political decay have precipitated its total repudiation and condemnation by the Filipino masses.
We call on all conscienticized Filipinos, democrats and nationalists to unite and rally against the Arroyo fascist group imposing terror on the whole country. Civil liberties promulgated in the 1987 Constitution and by the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights can only be guaranteed by public demonstrations, street rallies, strikes, and other visible manifestations of the exercise of social and civic rights. We call on all peoples around the world concerned with justice, democracy, and human dignity to express solidarity with the Filipino people in overthrowing the Arroyo regime, releasing all political prisoners, and restoring full and genuine sovereignty to the Filipino people. Posted by Bulatlat
© 2006 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
Monday, January 16, 2006
THE OTHER VIEW: The Academe and Elite Politics
By Elmer A. Ordoñez
The Manila Times
Saturday, January 14, 2006
IDEALLY the university is a place for research, teaching and extension (off campus) service and occupies a traditionally revered (now tenuous) position as the "conscience" of the nation, sometimes "agent of social change."
At least this was how UP presidents (like Rafael Palma, Bienvenido Gonzalez, Salvador P. Lopez and even Jose Abueva) saw academe's role. Palma, Gonzalez and Lopez ran afoul with the powers that be and were eased out of office before the end of their terms.
Left intellectuals actually see academe as part of the "ideological state apparatus" of the ruling class which (together with the coercive agencies of the state) manages to reproduce or perpetuate its hegemony.
Hence, the first president, an American, Murray Bartlett, said at his investiture that the state university's function was to produce Filipino English-speaking professionals and bureaucrats. Scholars, called pensionados, were sent to the US and came back to serve in the
colonial regime.
After Osmeña and Quezon there was a succession of presidents who studied law in UP like Jose P. Laurel, Manuel Roxas, Elpidio Quirino and Ferdinand Marcos. More recently two other presidents were in UP—Fidel Ramos (MA) and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (PhD). The executive
departments, judiciary and Congress at some time were dominated by UP alumni.
The UP itself has had at its helm and faculty mostly its own graduates. Study abroad (mainly US schools) for most of them rounded up their Western education.
The postwar US-sponsored scholarships (like Fulbright, Smith-Mundt, Ford, and Rockefeller) for faculty and administration in top US schools ensured a continuous supply of "properly oriented" faculty and researchers easily co-opted by the elite-controlled national government.
Hence, it is not surprising that select units of the UP like its schools of economics, public administration, agriculture and fisheries were awash with grants and various forms of aid. UP Los Baños boasts of its higher number of PhDs than those in some units like science and
engineering in Diliman because of the "generosity" of funding agencies, including the IMF-World Bank.
Hence, it is also not surprising that a former UP president (who had long advocated a federal system of government) was asked to head a handpicked constitutional commission (itself composed of many allies of the regime) which would do the bidding of the appointing power.
Expectedly the proposals were tailor-made for a President now struggling to survive.
Tinkering with the 1987 Constitution (by no means perfect) at this stage runs the risk of abolishing provisions for broader representation in Congress like the party-list and reviving parity rights (this time for all foreign investors) by opening up the national patrimony and sensitive areas like media and education for TNCs. The elite see party-list representation as superfluous, even dangerous to their interests, but they also know how to use it by forming surrogate party-list groups.
Neoliberalism is now the dominant thinking among economic planners and managers, many of whom are UP products. Hence, free trade, liberalization, globalization and privatization—even as these have wrought havoc on local manufacturers, farmers, fisherfolk and other productive forces in the country.
Now come two controversial proposals: no-election in 2007 (ensuring the tenure of a perceived corrupt and illegitimate regime) and abridgment of civil liberties by coining the phrase "responsible exercise" of freedom of speech, press and assembly—when there are enough laws (like those on libel and public order) to check "irresponsible" exercise of those rights. The elite at this point seem inclined to more repressive measures and fascistic methods reminiscent of the martial-law period.
The academe would do well to steer clear of dubious projects of the regime fighting for its survival in the face of growing opposition from those below. While tainted by the prostitution of some of its best minds, the university still harbors people (faculty, students and workers) who understand the roots of the impasse we are in and have aligned themselves with the interests of the vast majority who live in poverty and misery because of elite politics—marked by patronage, corruption and plain misgovernance.
In 2008 the UP constituency will celebrate its centenary and may well take the opportunity to reconfigure themselves—not as ideologues and subalterns of a decaying elite-controlled state but as scientists, intellectuals and artists in the service of a long-suffering people.
Copyright (c) 2001 The Manila Times
The Manila Times
Saturday, January 14, 2006
IDEALLY the university is a place for research, teaching and extension (off campus) service and occupies a traditionally revered (now tenuous) position as the "conscience" of the nation, sometimes "agent of social change."
At least this was how UP presidents (like Rafael Palma, Bienvenido Gonzalez, Salvador P. Lopez and even Jose Abueva) saw academe's role. Palma, Gonzalez and Lopez ran afoul with the powers that be and were eased out of office before the end of their terms.
Left intellectuals actually see academe as part of the "ideological state apparatus" of the ruling class which (together with the coercive agencies of the state) manages to reproduce or perpetuate its hegemony.
Hence, the first president, an American, Murray Bartlett, said at his investiture that the state university's function was to produce Filipino English-speaking professionals and bureaucrats. Scholars, called pensionados, were sent to the US and came back to serve in the
colonial regime.
After Osmeña and Quezon there was a succession of presidents who studied law in UP like Jose P. Laurel, Manuel Roxas, Elpidio Quirino and Ferdinand Marcos. More recently two other presidents were in UP—Fidel Ramos (MA) and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (PhD). The executive
departments, judiciary and Congress at some time were dominated by UP alumni.
The UP itself has had at its helm and faculty mostly its own graduates. Study abroad (mainly US schools) for most of them rounded up their Western education.
The postwar US-sponsored scholarships (like Fulbright, Smith-Mundt, Ford, and Rockefeller) for faculty and administration in top US schools ensured a continuous supply of "properly oriented" faculty and researchers easily co-opted by the elite-controlled national government.
Hence, it is not surprising that select units of the UP like its schools of economics, public administration, agriculture and fisheries were awash with grants and various forms of aid. UP Los Baños boasts of its higher number of PhDs than those in some units like science and
engineering in Diliman because of the "generosity" of funding agencies, including the IMF-World Bank.
Hence, it is also not surprising that a former UP president (who had long advocated a federal system of government) was asked to head a handpicked constitutional commission (itself composed of many allies of the regime) which would do the bidding of the appointing power.
Expectedly the proposals were tailor-made for a President now struggling to survive.
Tinkering with the 1987 Constitution (by no means perfect) at this stage runs the risk of abolishing provisions for broader representation in Congress like the party-list and reviving parity rights (this time for all foreign investors) by opening up the national patrimony and sensitive areas like media and education for TNCs. The elite see party-list representation as superfluous, even dangerous to their interests, but they also know how to use it by forming surrogate party-list groups.
Neoliberalism is now the dominant thinking among economic planners and managers, many of whom are UP products. Hence, free trade, liberalization, globalization and privatization—even as these have wrought havoc on local manufacturers, farmers, fisherfolk and other productive forces in the country.
Now come two controversial proposals: no-election in 2007 (ensuring the tenure of a perceived corrupt and illegitimate regime) and abridgment of civil liberties by coining the phrase "responsible exercise" of freedom of speech, press and assembly—when there are enough laws (like those on libel and public order) to check "irresponsible" exercise of those rights. The elite at this point seem inclined to more repressive measures and fascistic methods reminiscent of the martial-law period.
The academe would do well to steer clear of dubious projects of the regime fighting for its survival in the face of growing opposition from those below. While tainted by the prostitution of some of its best minds, the university still harbors people (faculty, students and workers) who understand the roots of the impasse we are in and have aligned themselves with the interests of the vast majority who live in poverty and misery because of elite politics—marked by patronage, corruption and plain misgovernance.
In 2008 the UP constituency will celebrate its centenary and may well take the opportunity to reconfigure themselves—not as ideologues and subalterns of a decaying elite-controlled state but as scientists, intellectuals and artists in the service of a long-suffering people.
Copyright (c) 2001 The Manila Times
Friday, November 25, 2005
UP Staff, Professors Protest Non-payment of Back COLA
About 1,000 administrative staff and professors in different campuses of the University of the Philippines (UP) staged pickets from Nov. 21 to 25 to protest the UP administration’s refusal to pay unpaid cost-of-living allowance (COLA). The strikers, who are members of the All-UP Workers Alliance (AUPWA), have been demanding the release of their COLA since 2001.BY BULATLAT
About 1,000 administrative staff and professors in different campuses of the University of the Philippines (UP) staged pickets from Nov. 21 to 25 to protest the UP administration’s refusal to pay their back cost-of-living allowance (COLA).
The strikers, who are members of the All-UP Workers Alliance (AUPWA), have been demanding the release of their COLA since 2001, Buboy Cabrera, one of their leaders, said in an interview.
The AUPWA is composed of the unions of the rank and file (All-UP Workers Union) and the faculty (All-UP Academic Employees Union). Cabrera, who works at the UP Press in the Diliman campus, is president of the All-UP Workers Union.
Along with other government workers, UP administrative staff and professors have been calling on the national government to give back the COLA that was integrated into their basic salaries in line with the implementation of the Salary Standardization Law in 1989. However, it was not until 1999 that the law’s implementing rules and regulations got published.
Government employees have struggled for the release of their back COLAs from 1989 to 1999. Cabrera said other state colleges and universities like the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) and the Rizal Technological University (RTU) have issued back COLA to their employees.
Cabrera said the Board of Regents, UP’s highest policy-making body, decided in 2003 to defer the payment of back COLA until the Supreme Court (SC) decides on the issue. Early this year, the SC ruled that the payment of the back COLA is legal.
“But UP has not paid our back COLA,” said Cabrera. “The UP administration cites a Department of Budget and Management (DBM) memorandum stating that only government-owned and -controlled corporations are covered by the Supreme Court decision and not national government agencies which include UP.” The Supreme Court decision, Cabrera said, makes no such distinction.
He added, “President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo issued an order to release P1 billion ($18.5 million, based on an exchange rate of P54.15 per US dollar) for payment of back COLA, only to suddenly take it back.”
The strikers went on mass leave on Nov. 22 and 24. There was also a series of vigils through the week, as well as negotiations with the UP administration.
All-UP Academic Employees Union President Judy Taguiwalo, a professor at the College of Social Work and Community Development (CSWCD), said it was time to take the fight to a higher level. “For three years, the All-UP Workers Alliance has done many ways to send its message to the UP administration and the national government like dialogues, open letters and a rally at the DBM.”
Cabrera said the AUPWA will be holding consultations among its members in the coming days to plan for its next protest activities, among which is participation in a nationally-coordinated rally for the release of back COLA scheduled on Dec. 7.
The AUPWA also participated in the “People’s Procession” for truth, justice and human rights held in Manila Nov. 25. Bulatlat
© 2005 Bulatlat ■ Alipato Publications
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Friday, November 11, 2005
All-Government Employees’ COLA Coalition's: MANIFESTO OF UNITY
The following Manifesto of Unity by the "All Government Employees COLA Coalition was adopted by the convenors during its 2nd meeting held at the CSWCD, U.P. Diliman on November 8, 2005.
WHEREAS, the Congress enacted Republic Act No. 6758 otherwise known as the Salary Standardization Law (SSL) for Government Employees effective July 1, 1989;
WHEREAS, section 12 of the said law provides for the consolidation of allowances and compensation into the basic salary of government employees except for those allowances enumerated therein and those that may be determined by Department of Budget and Management (DBM);
WHEREAS, to implement the quoted provision that DBM will determine such other allowances/and or additional compensation that may be deemed integrated into the basic salary, Sec. Diokno issued DBM Corporate Compensation Circular No.10, DBM National Compensation Circular Nos. 56 & 59 integrating among others the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) into the basic Salary;
WHEREAS, the DBM failed to inform the employees concerned by way of publication, and as required by law, its plan to integrate the COLA into the basic salary;
WHEREAS, the DBM published DBM CCC No. 10 only on March 16, 1999 and DBM NCC no. 59 and 56 only on May 3, 2004;
WHEREAS, since the time the law on salary standardization became effective, we as government employees have been unlawfully deprived of our COLA;
WHEREAS, salaries of the vast majority of government employees fall below the ever-rising cost of living, resulting in increasing economic hardship for the rank-and-file;
WHEREAS, the unlawful deprivation of COLA further eroded the living standards of government employees;
WHEREAS, the Supreme Court in the case of Philippine Ports Authority employees vs. Commission on Audit (G.R. 160396) held in favor of the grant of COLA to the employees of PPA covering the period from July 1, 1989 to March 16, 1999;
WHEREAS, under the doctrine of stare decisis, the ruling of the Supreme Court in the case of PPA vs. COA shall be applicable to all government employees because we are all similarly situated with the PPA employees, the issue being non-publication of DBM Circulars which were supposed to integrate COLA into the basic salaries;
WHEREAS, the National Government should pay COLA not only to the employees of the GOCC and GFIs but also to the employees in the National Government Agencies under the principle of equal protection of the law;
WHEREAS, in a Cabinet meeting on September 9, 2005, Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered the DBM to release P1 billion as initial “staggered payment” of the unpaid COLA of government employees;
WHEREAS, said order was rescinded following a recommendation by DBM that payment of COLA be deferred;
WHEREAS, the DBM, in its National Budget Circular 2005-502, dated October 26, 2005, continues to prohibit the payment of the COLA of national government agency employees based on the argument that COLA was already integrated into the basic salary and that payment of the same will allegedly cause double compensation;
WHEREAS, said argument was already thrown out by the Supreme Court in the case of PPA vs. COA;
WHEREAS, Malacanang’s continued refusal to pay the back COLA constitutes a denial of justice to government employees nationwide, who have long clamored for restitution;
WHEREAS, government employees nationwide have banded together to form the All-Government Employees’ COLA Coalition;
WHEREFORE, the Coalition hereby demands the following:
1) The immediate payment by the National Government of the unpaid COLA of national and local government agency, state universities and colleges, government-owned and controlled corporation and government financial institution employees;
2) That each individual employee entitled to back COLA be provided with an individual computation of the amount due him/her, based on official payroll records;
3) The allocation by National Government of a budget for the payment of said COLA.
Convenors:
Alliance of Health Workers (AHW)
Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT)
Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (COURAGE)
Manila Public School Teachers Association (MPSTA)
Quezon City Public School Teachers Association (QCPSTA)
All-UP Workers Union
All-UP Academic Employees Union
Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital Employees Union
National Children Hospital Employees Association
San Lazaro Hospital Employees Association - AHW
Tondo Medical Center Employees Association - AHW
National Orthopedic Hospital Workers Union - AHW
National Center for Mental Health Employees Association - AHW
Makati Public School Teachers Association
Department of Labor and Employment Employees Union - COURAGE
Social Welfare Employees Association of the Philippines - COURAGE
Department of Education Employees Union
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