BLAMING THE COMMUNISTS

This has been, for quite a time, the favorite scapegoat of the Arroyo Administration. It’s as if every national problem is the handiwork of exiled communist leader Joma Sison. Yes, portraying the communists as the “bad guys” keeps a strongly divided military “united” (in terms of having a common enemy) and at the same time diverts the attention of the public away from the scandals rocking this administration.

That the CPP-NPA is obsessed at overthrowing the government is no secret. Just like any rebel movement, it espouses the armed struggle as the only effective means to change the status quo. Of course, it is the inherent right of the state, through the armed forces, to defend and preserve its system of government. That is why we have been witnessing this decades-old conflict with no end in sight and with no clear victory on either side.

Despite the AFP’s relatively superior firepower, it has been unsuccessful in eradicating its most despised enemy. Reports indicate that after the latter’s initial slump in the 1990s due to a falling out with some leaders who rejected the Joma’s reaffirmist stance, membership in the CPP-NPA has since then increased to a considerable degree. Boosting the leftist movement was the introduction under the 1987 Constitution of the party-list system such that leftist groups like Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and Gabriela, to name a few, were able to enter into mainstream politics by being elected as party-list representatives in the Lower House.

Now, this is where the problem lies. The AFP, instead of fighting the CPP-NPA in the mountains, has opted to point its guns at the hapless student activists, farmers, labor leaders, lawyers, and journalists who are members of these militant organizations. The government maintains the view (although it won’t admit) that since they sympathize with the ideological cause, they can be legitimate targets for assassination, harassment and espionage. For example, the AFP makes no distinction between the late Farly Alcantara, the student activist who was killed outside the gate of the school premises and Ka Roger Rosal, the elusive CPP-NPA spokesman whose capture is every aspiring general’s dream. Up to now, it refuses to recognize that activists are non-combatants whose only weapon is to protest and whose only shield is to expose the excesses of the powers that be.

Granting for the sake of argument that these groups are merely fronts of the CPP-NPA, should that deprive them of their constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law? Of due process and equal protection of the laws? Is mere membership in a hardline leftist organization a crime under the Revised Penal Code or under any special penal law for that matter? Unless and until there is proof of overt acts that a particular activist is engaged in rebellion, mere belief in the concept of armed struggle is as harmless as any other belief. Stated otherwise, there’s a whale of difference between FREEDOM TO BELIEVE and FREEDOM TO ACT ON ONE’S BELIEF. The first is absolute. The second is not. And even if we were to assume that the military has proof of connivance between the “legal” and “underground” left, that still does not authorize them to take the law into their own hands. What is happening at the moment is they have become the violators of the system of law and justice they have sworn to uphold and protect. (picture courtesy of akribong bayan)