Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has already done so much damage to our country. Political killings continue unabated with an alarming number of activists and journalists killed. Now she is out to aggravate the root causes of popular unrest with the strategy of all out war. Thisstrategy has been tried before, but failed to bring peace to our troubled land. It violates human rights and leads to loss of lives. It is a systematic attack on all the democratic gains our people have fought for and achieved since the days of the dictatorship.
DOJ Secretary Raul Gonzales stated the obvious when he said that “collateral damage” is unavoidable in all out war. Civilians, especially leaders and active members of people’s organizations, will bear the brunt of this strategy. Almost always, they are deemed suspects by the military assupporters of the armed guerrillas. The guerrillas have better chances of survival because they know how to elude and fight back when cornered, but the civilians are utterly vulnerable.
Peace is only possible where the demands of social justice are met. Instead of creating such an environment, the all out war strategy drives people to take up arms or support those who are organized for armed struggle. This is the lesson Marcos learned too late, a lesson his successors did not learn at all.
Allotting a billion pesos to an unreformed AFP will just line the pockets of crooked generals. The idealistic junior officers who are sincerely seeking to restore honor and heroism in their profession should try to stop this madness and unite with other democratic forces to oppose the fascistic trend of the Arroyo government.
We fully sympathize with the widows of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara in their private initiative to seek justice for their husbands, but we condemn the cynical use by the government of their cases to sow intrigues. Mrs. Kintanar filed an affidavit in 2003 and Mrs. Tabara in 2004,but the Department of Justice sat on their complaints until now, when it sees their propaganda value to cover up for the crimes of Gen. Palparan and blame the recent extra-judicial killings to internal conflicts on the Left.
However, we are dismayed by Jose Maria Sison’s statement in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (June 17, 2006) justifying the NPA’s killing of their former comrades Kintanar and Tabara as “acts of the revolution.” Inadvertantly perhaps, Mr. Sison lends a semblance of credibility to the government’s propaganda line that the Left is responsible for the spate of political murders.Laban ng Masa upholds the principle that political differences and ideological disputes should be resolved through civilized and intelligent debates, not through the physical extermination of adversaries.