BY SONNY MELENCIO
MANILA — While President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo formally lifted the week-long "state of rebellion" she had declared on May 7, the "terror effect" remains. The police and army are still maintaining checkpoints around this city and security forces are still searching the urban poor communities for those they consider "troublemakers".
The mainly urban poor demonstrators who marched on the Malacanang palace on May 1 in protest at Arroyo's assumption of power from former president Joseph Estrada were unarmed; they collected stones and wooden clubs on the way in order to defend themselves.
They could have been allowed to demonstrate in front of the palace gates, but they weren't. Those who tried to climb the walls could simply have been arrested, but they weren't.
Instead the military adopted a "disperse at all costs" policy, which cost lives. According to reports, at least four demonstrators and two police officers died; other reports estimate 10-20 demonstrators killed.
While pro-Estrada trapos (traditional politicians) used the demonstrators for their own selfish aims, the Arroyo regime bears full responsibility for the killings of unarmed demonstrators. The angry actions of the protesters were themselves a direct reaction to attacks made on them during their march by security forces.
The government's reaction has only worsened the situation. First, it sought to portray the demonstrators as drug-crazed drunks, increasing mass frustration. Then, it used the "Malacanang Attack" as a pretext for declaring a "state of rebellion", on the grounds that the march was part of a coup attempt.
A state of rebellion allows the president to curtail human and democratic rights in the interest of quelling the so-called rebellion and allows warrantless arrests.
The declaration was promptly used to ban rallies in Manila, not only by pro-Estrada forces but also by all those critical of Arroyo, which includes the left. According to government spokespeople, rally organisers and participants, whether for or against the government, "will either be arrested or dispersed".
Some radical and militant groups — such as Bayan Muna, the KMU and Akbayan — applauded the state of rebellion declaration. They argue that it upholds the "rule of law" and defends the gains of "Edsa 2", the mass January demonstrations on Manila's main avenue which forced Estrada to step down and hand government to Arroyo.
But the state of rebellion is a military solution — a solution that places much power in the hands of a trapo government. The state of rebellion is not the "rule of law"; it is rather a continuation of the rule of state repression.
In contrast, the Socialist Party of Labour has called for the convening of a people's consultative assembly, in which various people's organisations and NGOs can work to put forward a people's agenda for resolving the crisis, something the government, the congress and the senate cannot and will not do.
There is widespread disenchantment with the Arroyo government. The masses are becoming fed up with desperate, worsening poverty and have no forum in which to air their grievances.
The support by many urban poor people for Estrada does not mean anything except support for his promises — and an expectation that once Estrada is returned to the presidency, the promised benefits will come.
If the poor are stopped from marching to Malacanang, if the streets are barricaded against them, if they are tear-gassed and shot at just for trying to demonstrate, does the government expect that the people to just keep silent or to applaud those in power?