A martial law vs oligarchs?
It’s like using a shotgun against a fly — this martial law versus the Ampatuans. The magnification of the horrific murders has been systematic, in order to justify this sledgehammer on a pinhead act. Mainstream media have grown increasingly sensational, so much so that they now zero in on the 200 that are said to have been killed in this warlord clan’s two-and-a-half-decades reign (thanks to Cory Aquino’s appointment of Ampatuan Sr. as a local “people power” OiC there). But what is 200 in light of the thousands the MILF has killed over the past two decades? Come to think of it, how many has our exploitative, profit- and greed-driven economic system under the Yellows killed with deprivation, poverty, hunger, and disease since the 1986 counter-revolution? Martial law will always be one of the instruments used by any state or government to restore law and order. The only question is who or what it is aimed at. In the current instance, Gloria Arroyo’s minions say that she has only declared a “state of martial law.” But, as Alan Paguia keeps pointing out, this is not just a grammatical puzzlement but an impossibility because a “state of martial law” is no longer a declarative action but a simple statement of fact. It’s a puzzlement too that a Harvard law graduate such as Teddy Locsin would support this weird declaration signed by Eduardo Ermita. Weirder too is that this self-proclaimed “libertarian” was unbearably emoting like a cardboard actor in his interview with GNN as the joint congressional session on ML was being covered. As for the invectives he hurled against Digs Dilangalen, why, should we still be surprised? Meanwhile, ABS-CBNnews.com highlighted the Ampatuans as “billionaires in the 3rd poorest province.” No surprise there. But maybe they can also look at the other clans that have been similarly given unrestrained power through their IRAs. And, while the Ampatuans may have a billion or two, that’s not very far from what the ZTE-NBN wheeler-dealers have gotten; or the packagers of the Code-NGO PeaceBonds scam; or the Impsa deal brokers, who didn’t even have to “kill” for it (well, not quite). Last Sept. 25, we said that the Tribune business story of “Listed firms’ profits surge 45 percent to P193-B in 1st half” translated to an additional profit of up to P200 billion for the entire year for the top corporations in RP — and this, for a country that was recently ranked as the 5th hungriest country in the world! Worse, up to 35 percent of RP’s population is already suffering from abject hunger. One reflection of such dire strait is tuberculosis — a disease of poverty and hunger. Its mortality rate here is at 45 per 100,000 (or 40,000 per year). That’s how many of our countrymen the oligarchs and their puppet officials kill with their bankrupt governance and economic policies. So, you see, hunger DOES kill. We should never de-personalize this because the oligarchs and corporate executors are as flesh-and-blood as the Ampatuans are. What they bring forth — grotesque murders of an untold number of men, women and children each day — are essentially the same. Much as I’d like to name these murderers in designer suits, the Tribune now has enough defamation suits to contend with. On balance though, not all businesses are exploitative. Many small and medium-to-large scale enterprises are also suffering. But surely, this has leapt significantly this year in the wake of the Wall Street sub-prime mortgage collapse. And even though that event seems far back in the past now, the reality is still very vivid: Unemployment in the Philippines continues to rise as exports continue their rapid fall. Total merchandise exports fell 25 percent while major agricultural products like coconut lost 22 percent. The BSP trumpeted another survey indicating upbeat consumer confidence. That’s bull. I went shopping for a jacket and salesgirls of the two malls I went to reported of weak sales compared to last year, which makes them doubly worried. Despite worsening poverty and hunger, the national budget deficit this year will be around P320 billion with nothing to show for: No new infra, no new social benefits. And while the economy continues to fall apart, Congress decides to debate the undebate-able Maguindanao martial law issue. It’s undebate-able because the basis cited is merely a phantasmagoria. A real world scenario would entail as simple a response as Erap’s “all-out war” without requiring any extraordinary powers. Arroyo knows the illusory nature of her ML order; that’s why she’s not affixing her signature to any of the documents pertaining to it — not that this would absolve her but just to add to the obfuscation. She knows Congress needs to perform, so she put up another circus for the clowns to play. The law profession joins the comedy, too, with Bernas issuing his usual pontification. Miriam Santiago, this time, is more realistic. She says it’s just the numbers (read: the money). And, in the midst of the outrage over the mass murder of journalists, the NUJP’s Joe Torres at the La Liga Policy Institute forum narrated that the high number of journalists who accompanied the Mangudadatus in their CoC-filing can be attributed to the fact that many (not all) were there for much-needed income. One orphaned child said her journalist-mother went because they needed tuition money. Thus, we must get together to push for the creation of a National Commission on the Media and Press, to get statutory funding for the strengthening of the independence and vitality of our media institutions. If at all this results in concrete economic support for the journalism sector, then this “Ondoy” of tears for our fallen journalists will not be in vain. (Tune in to 1098AM, Sulong Pilipinismo, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Global News Network, Destiny Cable Channel 21, Talk News TV, Tuesday, 8:15 p.m. to 9 p.m. on “2009 Issues: A Summing Up” Part I; also visit http://hermantiulaurel.blogspot.com) |
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(Reprinted with permission from Mr. Herman Tiu-Laurel)
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