ADVERTISEMENT
Amid the national outrage and international concern raised over the March 7 “Bloody Sunday” killing of nine activists in the Southern Tagalog region, urgent calls are being addressed to the Supreme Court to do what it can, while it can, to protect the people’s constitutional rights.
The assumption that education at the basic level should go far beyond the conventional essentials should inform the country’s return to face-to-face classes. Because not everyone can go on to college — where it is presumed that imparting a commitment to civic responsibility and respect for the Bill of Rights are part of the curricula (but often are not) — developing among the young the capacity to make informed decisions as citizens charged with deciding the future of this country should be among the fundamentals of basic education.
The Calabarzon killings were actually the latest of the killings that have provoked such condemnation. Still unresolved are the killings of nine Tumandok indigenous community members in similar police operations in Panay Island last Dec. 30, the attempted slaying of the Tumandoks’ lawyer in Iloilo, as well as the killing by police anti-drug operatives of the mayor of Calbayog City.
This latest spate of attacks against activists came a mere nine weeks since the PNP launched a similar operation in Panay island. Nine people were killed and 17 were arrested by the police in several indigenous Tumandok communities on Dec 30, 2020.
US intervention throughout the globe over the past 120 years in the defense and furtherance of its economic, political, and military interests has not only imbued most Americans with the arrogant presumption that they know best what’s good for everyone else on earth. It has also legitimized the use of force as the main instrument of State policy
Criticized for its muddled, bumbling response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Duterte government has been trying to rev up its two priority wars – against insurgency and against illegal drugs – in the remaining 14 months of its term.
Without the informed participation of the stakeholders in governance, the 2022 elections could make the brazen despotism, the unremitting brutality, the shameless corruption and the gross incompetence that reign in officialdom permanent.
More importantly, the AFP said its own investigation could help the military improve its own rules, regulations and policies. In backing off, such a commendable objective was dropped.
It explains why it is abridging the people’s right to information: it is to prevent the citizenry from demanding that government truly address the roots of poverty by, among other means, curbing the dishonesty in public office that contributes to the hopelessness, hunger and despair that has led many Filipinos to take up the gun. His own regime is in that sense at cross-purposes with Mr. Duterte’s oft repeated promise to end corruption.
Both reactions provoke further criticism and even outrage not only from ordinary citizens but even from their fellow officials themselves. No one can blame those who, as a result, end up concluding that regime bureaucrats focus on non-essentials because the administration they’re serving can’t even articulate its own policies and actions.
President Duterte’s people need to get their act together and stop this game of putting innocent people’s lives and security at stake.
A community of readers and supporters that help us sustain our operations through microdonations for as low as $1.
Save as PDF