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Monday, September 20, 2004
Speak out: Sept. 21: A day of protest against Marcos
By REV. STEVE BERDIN
Chairperson, PCPR-Cebu
WE IN the Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR), along with the human rights group Karapatan, declares Sept. 21 as a “Day of Protest Against Marcos-style Repression, Economic Attacks and Corruption.”
The Arroyo Government is guilty of committing Marcos-style corruption and economic attacks through a series of tax measures, further cuts in social services, lay-offs of hundreds of thousands of government employees, and possible sale of remaining government-controlled corporations to evade the fiscal crisis.
Its “Bayanihan Fund” scheme doesn’t address the real causes of the crisis. It does not relieve her government of accountability for her collusion with foreign monopolies and bank usurers that are the real culprits and aggravating factors for the crisis.
President Arroyo now leads the biggest debtor regime making the largest debt payments of Philippine history. At least P695 billion of the 2005 national budget will be allotted to debt payment (roughly 92 % of government revenues). It is P542 billion this year (80.4 % of government revenues) and P470 billion in 2003 (75 % in government revenues).
With the bulk of the people’s money going to debt servicing, it is no surprise at all that our economy is left in the doldrums. The masses are deprived of basic social services to make up for the worsening budgetary deficits. Wages are kept low while prices of staple goods are allowed to skyrocket—the better for corporate profiteers and corrupt bureaucrats to make a killing at the expense of our people.
Now, the Arroyo Government even has the temerity to raise new taxes and make the people shoulder the burden of the fiscal crisis through such ineffectual schemes as the Bayanihan. The people know better from the collective learning gleaned since the Marcos era on how to address the root cause of the crisis, but the government is not listening.
Worse, instead of heeding the call of the people for genuine agrarian reform and nationalist industrialization, the government responds with brute force to silence the people’s clamor for thoroughgoing reforms. Like Marcos, Arroyo is resorting to brutal violations of civil and political rights in the face of the people’s rallies against incessant price hikes, unjust wages and other economic attacks against the poor.
PCPR joins Karapatan in demanding justice for victims of continuing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. In less than three years of Arroyo’s reign, Karapatan documented 3,133 cases of violations, victimizing 172,821 individuals, 17,201 families, 77 communities and 240 households. In August, three Bayan Muna members in Manila were abducted by suspected state agents and have not been seen since.
Even the ranks of church workers are not spared by this Marcos-style repression. On Sept. 3, the convent of the Missionary Sisters of Mary (MSM) in Butuan City was raided by police elements in the guise of hunting for bandits. There is persistent military harassment against Sr. Leonora Hayag, MSM program directress of the Indigenous People’s Apostolate of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Butuan City, for defending the rights of the lumad. The same pattern of harassment also continues to be employed against Sr. Mary John Dumaog, program head of the RGS-Tribal Filipino Ministry in San Luis, Agusan del Sur.
As the nation commemorates martial law, we continue to demand prosecution of all military and police elements involved in numerous cases of rights abuses. We condemn Arroyo’s total disregard of human rights victims as exemplified by her promotion of notorious Col. Jovito Palparan, who terrorized the people of Mindoro with impunity. In the cities, Arroyo is committing Marcos-style repression by allowing police and military attacks on rallies, workers’ strikes, and other peaceful assemblies.
As we call on the government to restructure its economic policies to fit the needs of the people, we also urge all church people to provide a moral beacon in carving paths for societal renewal. Indeed, the times call for a critical discernment and the churches must be vigilant in asserting human rights in the face of Marcos-style repression, corruption and all-around economic assaults of the Arroyo government.
(September 20, 2004 issue)
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