Disgusted with President Aquino’s speech on the 40th year commemoration of martial law, extolling the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) as the protector of the people compared to the AFP during martial law which terrorized the citizenry, the human rights group Karapatan yesterday lashed out at the President asking him instead to do justice to the martyrs of martial law (ML) including his father, the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., by putting an end to the culture of impunity and stopping human rights violations.
“We would like to remind the President that most, if not all, rights violations are perpetrated by the AFP and its stand-in, paramilitary groups. It is a shame how President Aquino criticized Marcos and martial law when the same things are happening under his government. He only gets away with these violations because there is no formal declaration of martial law,” said Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general.
Palabay said that extrajudicial killings, torture, forced evacuation that were highly identified with martial law still exist.
“It is the height of hypocrisy
and deception for Noynoy to rebuke the Marcos dictatorship for “salvaging” when there are more than a hundred victims of extrajudicial killings under his government, with his so-called protectors of the people as the perpetrators,” Palabay said.
She bared that her group had received another report yesterday on the killing of another tribal leader in Agusan del Sur. Genesis Ambason, 23, was allegedly shot and tortured to death by paramilitary men and soldiers of the 26th IB in Agusan on Sept. 13.
Ambason was a human-rights activist, who also actively campaigned against the entry of large-scale, foreign-owned mining corporations in their ancestral land. Mining investments are among President Aquino’s centerpiece programs.
Palabay added that “it is ridiculous to hear Noynoy Aquino disapprove of the checkpoints during martial law when the same proliferate today, especially in the rural areas; the rounding up and arrests of people who criticized the Marcos government when there are 385 political prisoners to date, 170 of them were arrested and detained under his two-year rule.”
“Certainly, there is dissonance between today’s realities and Noynoy’s statement when he said, “he didn’t want the people to go through the same sufferings his father experienced.” she said.
“No amount of wreath-laying and praises to the martyrs of martial law could give justice to those, including his father, who offered their lives to fight the dictatorship,  if Noynoy could not even work on the passage of the indemnification bill for the martial law victims – the simplest act of justice,” Palabay said.
“The problem is Noynoy Aquino and the past administrations after Marcos all learned that they need not declare Martial law to effect terror and quell protests against their anti-people and anti-national policies. All the past administrations after Marcos, from Aquino to Aquino, failed to dismantle or at least,  reorient the same structure that sustained martial law – the laws, the policies and programs, the armed forces.” Palabay said.
Anakpawis Rep. Rafael Mariano added that 40 years after the declaration of Martial Law, political, economic and social conditions during the dark years of the Marcos dictatorship continue up to this day.
“Present-day Philippine situation is reflective of the Martial Law-era. Social injustice and inequality prevail, widespread poverty and hunger persists, class struggles between the vast poor population and the ruling elite continue. Up to this day, millions of Filipinos are aspiring and struggling for genuine social change,” said Mariano.
“Victories fought for and achieved by the Filipino toiling masses and broad social sectors that led to the overthrow of Marcos in 1986 were squandered by the post-Marcos administrations of Corazon Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and now Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino. Marcos-era policies were implemented by administrations succeeding Marcos,” the solon added.
Mariano further claimed that the objective conditions that brought about Martial Law in 1972 – “the chronic social and economic crisis, human rights violations and an authoritarian government imposing unpopular, anti-people national policies are being memorialized by the current Aquino administration.”
“Up to this day, vast tract of lands are still owned by landlords while millions of Filipino farmers are still struggling against centuries-old landlessness. Record unemployment continue and workers endure more vicious attacks on the labor front including contractualization, wage freeze as the government adheres to neo-liberal dictates,” said the solon.
Contrary to Aquino’s pronouncement, Mariano said, the Cojuangco-Aquinos are not victims of Marcos but are actually political heirs of Marcos that benefited from the people’s struggle against the dictatorship.
Ever since the first People Power, he said, the Cojuangco-Aquinos, through the first Aquino presidency, used its newfound political power to safeguard the economic and political interests of the ruling elite.
“Now under the second Aquino regime of Noynoy Aquino, the Cojuangco-Aquinos are still refusing to give up and distribute Hacienda Luisita. There is no democracy and justice under this system,” said Mariano.
Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, nevertheless, said his department and the military establishment are working overtime to undo the ill effects of martial law.
Gazmin, erstwhile commander of the Presidential Security Guards during the Cory Aquino administration, said it was only fitting as both the DND and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were the two institutions deeply scarred by martial law.
“As enforcers of martial law, ostensibly in response to twin insurgencies, both the DND and AFP had to rehabilitate their value systems and to restore professionalism in their ranks following the end of the Marcos dictatorship in February 1986,” he stressed.
In line with these efforts, Gazmin said it is only fitting that the defense establishment be the one to refurbish the Aquino-Diokno Memorial in Fort Magsaysay, Palayan City, Nueva Ecija.
“This modest museum pays tribute to two great patriots, Sen. Benigno Aguino Jr. and Sen. Jose Diokno, and thereby depicts the triumph of the human spirit against the abuses spawned by absolute power — a lesson which should never be lost on the defense establishment,” he pointed out.
In their 30 days of detention in Fort Magsayay, Gazmin said, Aquino and Diokno personified the indomitability of the human spirit and left a lesson in the limits of power.
“The huge injustice inflicted on these two great Filipinos can never be undone, but the memorial in their honor in Fort Magsaysay, first built by the 7th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army in 2003, has been a significant step toward healing the wounds that estranged the Armed Forces from freedom-loving Filipinos,” he added.
Beyond rehabilitating the Aquino-Diokno Memorial, the DND has expanded the facility to include a new structure that houses the AFP Center for Human Rights Dialogue.
Gazmin said the facility is envisioned as a catalyst for deepening the appreciation of human rights among Armed Forces personnel — from cadets in the Philippine Military Academy to commissioned officers and enlisted personnel of the AFP’s major branches — by creating venues for regular interaction with other sectors.
“The Aquino-Diokno Memorial and the AFP Center for Human Rights Dialogue underscore the transformation of the AFP as one of the concrete gains from the EDSA revolution that ousted the dictatorship,” he added.
Gazmin said the center is also a facility that human rights advocates and stakeholders can use for their multi-sector gatherings and events.
“Such activities would provide a deeper context by which to understand what Aquino and Diokno stood for and also create a mechanism for sustaining interest in and support for the causes they championed,” the DND chief stressed.