EVERYWHERE and every day.
We are constantly barraged by the dead, mutilated bodies littering the streets, dark corners, slums and plantation fields.
Just last weekend, we were all shocked about the brutal massacre of defenseless farmers asserting their right to land in northern Negros. North Negros is notorious for countless massacres, salvaging, extrajudicial killings and trumped-up charges against activists.
Barely a few weeks earlier, there were killings of activists and farmer leaders also in the north and central Negros.
Everywhere, the cries of the victims’ kin and their friends for justice are simply deafening. The anger in their hearts is disturbing.
There are times I feel so unsettled whenever the issue catches my attention. Then I find myself asking so many questions, why it is happening all over again, why do the military and police are all over, are the killers and the so-called riding in tandem assassins are state security forces or private armies, where are this leading to?
Why the victims are mostly from poor strata and marginalized sectors of our society, the odd-jobbers, indigenous peoples, farmers, youth, students, children, women, and even people with disabilities are not spared?
Why is there a lower or negligible percentage of resolution of these cases? Is there now a state-imposed culture of impunity on the matter of extrajudicial killings!
Is our country being turned to a huge killing field, again, just like during the reign of Marcos? For what? For the sake of killings? To please the President who has repeatedly encouraged the open killing of the enemies of the state?
I must admit that in the first six months of PRRD, I appreciated all his demonstrations of a strong man rule, with the thought that it was necessary to quell opposition and all obstructions to his drive for change.
I even had the personal approval that under PRRD’s drive for social change, state-sponsored violence was necessary to stop the resistance of the “yellows.”
I was also elated on some occasions when I hear people on the streets celebrating the killings of alleged drug figures, criminals and crook officials.
I had these thoughts because I believe that state-violence is just under the condition where the people have taken power and that as a ruling power they should defend its sovereignty and its drive for real social change from the forces of counterchange exerting violence and non-violence resistance.
Of course, this was not the case of PRRD. It was not a people take over. He won big score against his opponents, but overall he won only by the plurality.
On to his second year, and with the declaration of Martial law in entire Mindanao, the state-sponsored violence took a different character, target and intensity.
I have studied the patterns. Most of its victims were the poor, administration critics, activists and other democratic forces who have long aspired and struggled for real social change.
The strongman posturing and state-sponsored violence are no longer part of PRRD’s drive for social change. It is becoming obvious that these are now the anti-change weapon, meant to preserve and perpetuate the old status quo, run by a new mix of military generals, corporate people and politicians.
In many cases, state violence is used to de-base reported CPA-NPA strongholds, dislocate indigenous people’s communities, drive away the homeless, silence critics, terrorize opposition, stop activists and impose a climate of terror.
The strongman has turned from good to terror. The target has shifted from the oligarchs to the poor. The method has turned from “persuasive tokhang” to brutal executions. The operations intensity has moved from low intensity to high-intensity conflict operations.
Under the present condition, I don’t believe anymore in the justness of a strongman rule under PRRD because it is now with different intentions and targets.
Indeed, the reign of terror and no let-up killings has taken over.
What and who could stop it from intensifying?
Let’s return to the basics of standpoint and perspective.