Law luminaries vs. Gloria's facism

DIE HARD III
Herman Tiu Laurel
6/24/2005



A few days ago the printing press contracted by the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) for its posters, protest and education paraphernalia, was raided by the Interpol Unit of the NBI. Thousands of posters and leaflets were confiscated for what the NBI claimed to be subversive or seditious content. The materials consists of a poster with a Medusa-haired Gloria Arroyo dubbed as President Evil, said to be a video game character popular among kids today. The snake-hair carried tags like “deregulation”, “privatization”, “VAT”, etc. It said nothing about overthrowing the Republic.

The other posters included a Darna figure breaking the steel chains wrapped around her, with the caption about freedom from debt and nothing more. If anything should be thought about this poster it should be that it’s a service to the public and the country, pushing for liberation from the debt trap. It is heartening to see then that the legal community, led by the U.P. Law School, has joined hands with the victimized NGOs in raising the battle cry against these police state or fascist methods now being employed by the authorities under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

There was fire even in the calmest speeches of the lawyers present at the press conference conducted, courtesy of U.P. Law Dean Pangalangan, at the U.P. Law Center. One after another, lawyers spoke against the “chilling effect” of the police state actions being exercised by the authorities in clear over-reaction to the political crisis in the wake of the Gloria-Garci tapes. Dean Pangalangan and Prof. Randy David were present, sandwiching the chair of FDC Princess Nemenzo, as well as Lidy Nakpil, J.B. Bautista, and representatives from many more sectors and groups.

If the NBI and Gloria wanted to chill and instill fear in the public by their Gestapo display, the effect seems to have been the reverse. The fighting spirit of the civil libertarians seems instead to have flared into fervent trumpet calls to rise and defend the Filipino’s human rights and freedoms enshrined in its Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The reaction of the legal luminaries and community seems to have chilled the feet of the NBI as it has filed no charge or arrested any person in connection with the raid, probably realizing that their actions cannot stand in court.

Still, the NBI has in its hands thousands of posters and leaflets that the FDC would like to take back immediately. The NGO, with the lawyers, will be taking legal action against the NBI. I hope they can name the individual NBI agents involved as filing cases against them will jeopardize their retirement benefits, one thing these people understand and fear. The lawyers were also clearly up in arms over the repressive acts of Gloria’s government on the Gloria-Garci tape issue, and cited the arguments against the moves of the DOJ as patently illegal and abusive.

The array of legal and academic luminaries, and representatives from various organizations made their manifestos to the press and media. No aspect of the NBI and Gloria-Garcia issues was left unexamined, leaving everyone with a clear impression that the state under Gloria is already jackboot trampling over the Bill of Rights. As a person representing the often passed-over but real Edsa Tres movement, I had to say that this fascist face of Gloria is not new, and the trampling of civil liberties and the Constitution a fact since the first days of Gloria’s regime.

I recalled how over a dozen protesters were shot and killed at the Edsa Tres eruption in front of Malacañang on May 1, 2001; and how Gloria declared a state-of-rebellion, an animal that does not exist in any of our statutes. I forgot to mention that Gloria, in her first few months, already set up one of the hallmarks of her new fascist state – the electric fencing of Malacañang. I concluded by saying how happy I am that the depth and expanse of Gloria’s fascism is now being grasped by more and more Filipinos, particularly the intelligentsia and the better educated classes.

I also added that political fascism as we see in Gloria is more fundamentally an offshoot of more insidious but devious fascism; that is, financial and economic fascism. Political fascism is a handmaiden to impose financial and economic extraction from a people for a few, and in our case it is for the “corporatocracy”. Remember the shocking business stats released just a few days ago: Top listed corporations profits increase by 51%. These are the telcos, oil and power companies who refuse to pay taxes and uses Gloria to pass on all the burdens on the people’s shoulders.

The Gloria-Garci tape controversy shows this corporatocracy supporting the purveyors of lies and electoral swindle, with Bill Luz, Joe Concepcion, Donald Dee, icons of the Makati Business Club like Christian Monsod and international financial agents like ING parroting the lie of “protest fatigue”, seeking alibis and rationalizations for Gloria’s constitutional transgressions instead of joining the clamor for truth. Then there’s clerico-fascism, with so-called constitutional expert Jesuit Joaquin Bernas pooh-poohing Gloria’s election transgression as mere “impropriety” at worse.

The financial-economic or Big Business interests have never had it so good as these times under Gloria, yet their support for her at this critical time is at best uncertain and faltering. She’s just too clearly unsalvageable.

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