A DECLARATION of lawless violence has been made by President Rodrigo Duterte last November 23, 2018 sending more soldiers to Samar, Negros Oriental, Negros Oriental, and the Bicol regions to quell the “sporadic acts of violence” of supposed lawless groups. This would be a cause for serious alarm and fear if it weren’t so farcical and absurd. What do you call a situation where government declares an emergency situation against itself?
Anyone who has been monitoring the news know that it is possible that the main perpetrators of these acts of violence largely emanate from the very forces or their shadowy minions that the president has now mandated to bring the peace.
The Sagay 9 massacre of peasants followed by the cold-blooded killing of their lawyer Atty. Ben Ramos in Kabankalan City are just some of the examples. There are reports that powerful families connected to landlord politicians were behind the massacre and the assassination. Paramilitary groups aligned with the military are known to participate in counterinsurgency operations even as they serve as private armies of landlords and/or politicians.
In the midst of widespread landlessness and hunger, both government and the landed class find common cause in regarding the occupy movement of the Sagay 9 victims who merely wanted to plant for sustenance on hacienda land during the dead season as insurgent acts. The principle of giving land to the tiller that Atty. Ben Ramos believed in ultimately cost him his life in the unchanging land of hacienderos and sakadas.
The theory that his death was a counterinsurgency move was bolstered by an incident during the funeral march to his final resting place on November 18, 2018. Progressive groups in a convoy on the way from Bacolod to Kabankalan were tailed by armed men on motorcycle and a vehicle who were later accosted and exposed to be military intelligence agents.
In other parts of Negros, particularly Escalante City, reports also come in that coastal barangays are swarming with government troops in the guise of looking for alleged Abu Sayyaf members. But just like in Samar and Bicol, the real target of the militarization of rural communities are leaders of progressive farmers and fisherfolk organizations and their members who fight to uphold peasant rights and . The killings in Guihulngan City also bear this dimension - not a few leaders of progressive people’s organizations have been felled.
The declaration of lawless violence becomes farcical and absurd in the light of these prior incidents. It actually provides a justification for the perpetrated violence in the past and provides a good cover for further violence in the present and the future. These are all done in the name of peace and order of the public,
Remember that in September 2016, in the wake of the Davao bombing, Duterte declared a state of lawless violence for the entire country. When the Marawi War took place in May 2017, the president then placed the whole of Mindanao under martial rule.The new declaration of the state of lawless violence in the Visayas and Bicol regions is merely a legal justification and cover for what is already taking place in these areas. It can also serve as a pretext for the eventual placing of the entire country under martial law.
It is a prospect that Duterte obviously thinks about a lot. In a recent public statement, he was quoted to have said that he actually does not need to place the entire country under martial rule because he can order the killing of anyone even without such legal cover. But the lawyer bully in him, learned from his strongman idol of decades before, prefers to issue edicts and promulgations to justify his bloodlust. These then serve as marching orders for the shock troops of this presidency to continue with their murderous ways under the climate of impunity made possible by the edicts of their principal.