Cops’ Overkill vs Protesters Mirrors Crisis – Bayan Leader 

“The people are now at the end of the rope,” said Bayan vice chairperson Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo, “so it fears that any mass action may generate intense public support. This is the reason for the government’s increasing employment of violence in dealing with protesters.”

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat.com

A prominent activist leader believes that the Macapagal-Arroyo administration’s growing intolerance toward mass actions reflects a fear of public outrage that may be generated by the worsening political and economic crisis.

Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo, vice chair of the multisectoral Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance), said this in a “Gathering of Civil Libertarians and Democrats” held July 23 at the Quezon City Sports Club.

Araullo was herself still smarting from a brush with the police ten days earlier, when a rally at the Plaza Miranda in Quiapo, Manila – historically a place for public protests and officially declared a “Freedom Park” during the presidency of Corazon Aquino – was violently dispersed by the police. She was hit in the head with a 2x2 wooden club, and had to undergo seven stitches.

The Bayan leader was with a large group of protesters who were pressing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to pull out the Philippine military contingent in Iraq. The protest was part of a series of mass actions held throughout the country as a group of Iraqi resistance fighters threatened to behead their Filipino hostage, truck driver Angelo de la Cruz, unless Philippine troops were withdrawn from their country.

Militant groups filed criminal and administrative charges against the policemen involved in the break up of the Plaza Miranda rally.

Since late June, other mass protests, including a rally in Cebu City where Macapagal-Arroyo’s inauguration as president was held, were also attacked by the police. Scores of protesters were injured as they were beaten up by the riot police. Fire trucks also poured water cannons on the protesters.

Araullo and film director Joel Lamangan, both veterans of the First Quarter Storm of 1970 and the anti-fascist protests of the 1980s, noted that even during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos – who ruled with an iron hand for almost 20 years – mass actions were not dispersed on the scale seen in the Plaza Miranda mayhem.

Staring match

Said Lamangan: “During the Marcos years you could engage the police in a staring match at Plaza Miranda. But now it’s no longer the case.” The film director himself had a run-in with the police last June 29, when a rally by supporters of presidential contender Fernando Poe, Jr., protesting the alleged massive fraud committed by the administration camp in its election bid, was broken up by the police.

“The people are now at the end of the rope,” said Araullo, “so it (the administration) fears that any mass action may generate intense public support. This is the reason for the government’s increasing employment of violence in dealing with protesters.”

A statement read and distributed at the gathering stated: “We must assert the principle: the right to peaceful protest is the essence of democracy that no government may abridge. The ‘no permit, no rally’ line cannot be invoked by the police and civilian authorities to curtail the constitutionally-guaranteed rights of freedom of speech and assembly much less justify brutal attacks on demonstrators.

“We must remind the Arroyo government that it was catapulted to power by such a peaceful yet militant mass protest movement that President Arroyo, then vice president, lauded and supported. What was right then cannot now be turned upside down into a wrong.”

Supporters

The statement gathered more than a hundred figures from the speakers and the audience – who included film director Behn Cervantes, University of the Philippines professors Judy Taguiwalo, Bienvenido Lumbera, and Roland Tolentino; Bp. Ignacio Soliba of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI or Philippine Independent Church), and nationalist writer Renato Constantino, Jr.

Meanwhile, nationalist and labor advocate Amado Gat. Inciong, who also spoke at the gathering, said that at present rallies may no longer be effective as means of seeking government redress of grievances. “If you still think that rallies are effective ways of registering protest, forget it,” he said.

“So where else should we be headed for?” he added.

Lamangan suggested that the people start thinking of “more creative” ways of mounting protests. Bulatlat

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