Interesting Times

We are under interesting times. Last September 19, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a military coup. Last September 21, the Philippines commemorated the 34^th anniversary of the declaration of martial law by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. During martial law’s commemoration, the resounding lesson and message was for us not to fall into the trap of letting martial law reign all over again.

Amidst the continuing political killings, however, activists are saying the country is under an “undeclared martial law.” Despite the sermons on respecting human rights and sanctity of life that Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo got from many leaders in Europe during her recent state visit there, the political killings continue.

Political analyst Bobby Tuazon also cited the well-placed positions of former military officers in key cabinet posts. Tuazon thus asks whether the civilian bureaucracy under Ms Arroyo is now under militarist control.

During the commemoration of martial law last 21 September, which turned into a national protest against political killings and the legitimacy of Arroyo’s government, protesters have warned that Ms Arroyo will go the way of Thaksin if she continues “charting the same path of corruption and repression taken by both Marcos and Thaksin.”

In Baguio City, various groups, including the religious sector, from Northern Luzon gathered also for “unity and solidarity” to “urge all freedom-loving Filipinos to break silence into song and transform fear into a people’s movement for justice.”

Asked about hopes for peace and unity for this benighted land, Bishop Carlito Cenzon of the Baguio-Benguet Diocese told us that it was time for this country’s leadership to learn how to deal and relate with dissenters. Dissenters, he said, include political activists, critical journalists, and protesting workers and students. Allowing the free market of ideas, even dissenting opinions and hard-hitting criticisms, is the real essence of democracy, according to the good bishop. For him, respecting political dissent is one indicator of a healthy democracy.

Democracy, the bishop said, is participation of the people and by the people in governance for the common good. Curtailing democracy, he said, is courting chaos. Democracy can work only through more participation of various stakeholders, including dissenters. “Not through gold and guns,” he said.

As in Marcos’ martial law reign and during Joseph Estrada’s administration, journalists are now threatened with libel suits. Worse, some were shot to death. The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines reports that First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo has filed 42 libel suits against journalists, many of them veterans of Marcos martial law regime who celebrated their new-found freedom after EDSA I.

We are indeed under interesting and threatening times. And history seems to be repeating itself probably because we have yet to learn our lessons well. Or maybe we have refused to learn at all.