BEFORE the Edsa people power uprising in February 1986, there was the declaration of martial law by then president Ferdinand Marcos in September 1972. Marcos used as pretext for his move the intensifying anti-government protest actions waged by militants, mostly students. It was a pretext because Marcos's real intention was to rule beyond 1973 when his second four-year term would have ended. The 1936 Constitution barred a president from running for reelection after serving two terms.
It wasn't that the martial law declaration didn't garner support from a chunk of the population. Those who thought that the country was descending into anarchy actually welcomed the imposition of military rule thinking it would restore “order” in the country. But this has been the pattern: the existence of widespread public dissatisfaction always precedes the shift from democratic rule to tyranny. A recent example is what is happening to our neighboring country, Thailand.
In May 2014, Thailand's military led by army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha took over power after months of political turmoil shook the country. Violent protest actions broke out in some parts of the country and the civilian leadership was split into factions. Not surprisingly, a big chunk of the population supported the military's move, even if it included an assault on the country's democratic setup, which is a constitutional monarchy. Interestingly, King Bhumibol Adulyadej supported the move.
The first thing that Chan-ocha did was declare martial law and suspend the “constitution of 2007, except for the chapter on the monarchy.” A military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) headed by General Prayuth was set up to run the country. Thailand's elected officials were ordered to report to the military “in order to keep peace and order.” Political gatherings were banned, curfew was imposed and a crackdown against dissenters launched.
While Chan-ocha promised to return Thailand to civilian rule, he didn't say when. In April 2015 or almost one year after the military takeover, Chan-ocha announced the lifting of martial law and the arrogating unto himself of absolute power based on the provisions of an interim constitution drafted by the coup leaders themselves. Thailand, according to some analysts, was descending into a dictatorship.
Article 44 of the interim constitution allows General Prayuth to override the decisions of any branch of government in the name of national security and absolve him of any legal responsibility for it. It allows security forces to continue to make arrests without court warrants and to detain people without charges. And what did General Prayuth say about the move? “Don't worry,” he said, “if you're not doing anything wrong, there's no need to be afraid.” Haven't we heard this line before?
In January this year, the Human Rights Watch, in its World Report 2016, noted that Thailand's military junta severely suppressed fundamental rights in that country last year. Brad Adams, Human Rights Watch's Asia director, has this to say: “Under military rule, Thailand’s human rights crisis has gone from bad to worse, and there seems to be no end in sight. The junta is jailing and prosecuting dissenters, barring public protests, censoring the media, and restricting critical political speech.”
What is happening in Thailand may happen to us but in a different way. A big chunk of the population, fed up with government's failure to curb rising criminality, seems willing to turn over the reins of this country to a leader who is peddling the lie that, in order to curb criminality, we must surrender our freedoms and allow fundamental rights to be violated. We seem to want to end up like Thailand, although not through a coup but via the ballot.
(khanwens@gmail.com/ twitter: @khanwens)