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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Wenceslao: No permit, no rally policy
By Bong O. Wenceslao
Ask any veteran street parliamentarian and they will tell you a "no permit, no rally" policy is nothing but an empty rule. So President Arroyo, or whoever is advising her to adopt that policy recently, must be naïve-or fooling herself.
Even Ferdinand Marcos, with his dictatorial powers, eventually failed to prevent the holding of rallies.
Rallies have their own dynamics and no outside force can stop them or hold them off for so long. Of course, the police can enforce the "no permit, no rally" policy if the rally participants are few or docile.
But they are helpless when facing a big crowd of determined rallyists, which describes the forces that are ranged against Arroyo.
Besides, there's a multiplier effect to the dispersals done by government on peaceful protest actions. Every time the expression of legitimate grievance is stymied or rallyists get hurt or are arrested, the rage builds up and encompasses a bigger number of people. Arroyo should be told that in the long run, she will be made to pay for her folly.
***
As expected, the conservatives are clapping while President Arroyo is clamping down on dissent. By that I mean specifically business groups.
I do think the President picked up this idea of imposing a "no permit, no rally" policy from traders in Makati who complained that their businesses have been affected by the anti-Arroyo rallies.
These are actually the very same type of people who supported Marcos' declaration of martial law on Sept. 21, 1972 supposedly to curb lawlessness. And these are the very same groups who refuse to give an inch to the workers, whether in Congress or in regional wage boards, when they demand for an increase in the minimum wage.
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There's an interesting twist in the case of National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, who was ordered detained by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee for contempt. Incidentally, one of the members of that committee is Sen. Aquilino Jr., who was once jailed in Cebu by the Marcos dictatorship. That means the jailed is now the jailer.
What I find revealing is Pimentel's lack of compassion as a jailer.
Instead of giving Gonzales, who may undergo heart surgery, the benefit of the doubt, he is insinuating that he is playacting. To think that Pimentel was once a human rights lawyer.
TEXTREAX. From Vic Baguio of Matab-ang, Cordova, Cebu: "If you are a real hero like Haydee Yorac, government won't hesitate to bury you at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. If you are not, then you remain refrigerated until the R134-A freon gas is exhausted."
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ 0927-2055064)
(September 28, 2005 issue)
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