Pagbabago! on Proclamation 1959: Arroyo's scheme to stay in power and escape acoountability in the Ampatuan Massacre

Pagbabago! People’s Movement for Change is in solidarity with the people in opposing Proclamation No. 1959 that placed Maguindanao under Martial Law. Pagbabago is also calling on members of Congress to cross party lines and revoke Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s martial law in Maguindanao .

We urge our legislators not to legitimize a patently unconstitutional move that by all indications is part of a grand scheme by the Arroyo administration to perpetuate itself in power as well as to cover-up its accountability in the Ampatuan massacre.

We believe that justice for the 57 victims of the gruesome massacre must not be used as an excuse to justify Martial Law, which the Filipino people have strongly rejected in the past as an attack on the basic principles of democracy and human rights.

We take the position that justice for the Ampatuan massacre victims could be immediately served under current laws and processes without resorting to Marcosian tactics of suspending the writ of habeas corpus and imposing Martial Law. The delayed arrest of the Ampatuans is not because of the supposed threat of rebellion by the warlord clan’s armed supporters but because the Arroyo administration was not keen to deliver justice to begin with.

It alarms us that through military takeover, the Arroyo administration, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and the Philippine National Police (PNP) are undermining the various parallel and independent civilian efforts to probe the massacre. At present, human rights advocates, lawyers, and journalists are pursuing their own investigations that could point not only to the Ampatuans and their private army, but to the government and military as well. How, for instance, did the caches of government-owned high-powered firearms and boxes of ammunition and election paraphernalia end up in the hands of the warlord clan? What exactly are the political favors that the Ampatuans did for the Arroyo administration? Such issues and questions have been effectively pre-empted by Proclamation 1959.

We share the fear of many sectors that if left unchallenged, the imposition of Martial Law in Maguindanao could just be a prelude to similar declarations of military rule in other parts of the country in the immediate future and even to a failure of elections in 2010. Such apprehension is founded on the propensity of this administration to systematically suppress dissent at the expense of civil and political liberties all in the name of maintaining its hold to power. Before Proclamation 1959, there was the calibrated pre-emptive response (CPR) against protest actions, the Presidential Proclamation 1017 or the state of national emergency, the so-called Human Security Act (HSA), and the pseudo-legal attacks and harassment of progressive leaders and organizers.

Proclamation 1959 sets dangerous standards for declaring martial law. We will not forget that among the charter changes proposed by the Arroyo administration are precisely to make martial law easier to declare such as through merely perceived "imminent danger".

The Arroyo clique’s record of seeking to remain in power and enjoy the economic spoils of office and of the AFP-PNP in brazenly violating human rights are among the worst the country has ever seen. With the ambitious Arroyo having only a few months left in power, the public is fully justified in suspecting a sinister self-serving agenda underlying all the administration’s maneuvering.

Pagbabago! strongly denounces the unjustifiable declaration of martial law in Maguindanao. We call on the public to oppose Arroyo's martial law and to remain vigilant against the Arroyo administration’s schemes to stay in power. We are one with the call of many sectors: never again to martial law! #

References: Ms. Bibeth Orteza (#09177913132)
Prof. Roland Tolentino (#09179055420)
Fr. Joe Dizon (#09209081994)