JGL Eye

By JOSEPH G. LARIOSA

(© Journal Group Link International)

Civil Disobedience Antidote to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Her Generals

C HICAGO (JGLi) – As May 10 presidential elections roll around, talks of election failure are gaining some traction.

While Oplan August Moon has stayed deeper into the background after its planned launching on August 6 last year appeared to have been deferred, subsequent developments have shown that the planned military coup could still not be completely ruled out.

The Oplan August Moon was supposed to start with the junking of General Victor Ibrado as Philippine Armed Forces Chief Staff. This was going to be followed by the takeover of key military commands by members of the Philippine Military Academy Class of 1978 that adopted President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) as honorary member.

Then, martial law was going to be imposed for six months while Arroyo’s bright boys would tinker with the Constitution to enable Arroyo to overstay in power.

Martial law was later imposed -- in Maguindanao and a neighboring province -- following the massacre of 57 people, including 31 journalists. It was not in a nationwide scale, however, that planners of Oplan August Moon had envisioned.

With the takeover of PMA Class of 1978 in key military posts, including Ibrado’s replacement by Gen. Delfin Bangit on course, it is safe to assume that the objective of the military loyalists of Arroyo to keep her in power is still very much in place.

I hate to say this that if GMA and her minions are really bent on hanging on to power, the Filipino people should brace themselves for a protracted bloody civil war if a third peaceful People Power will not end GMA’s reign.

It reminds me of Bangladesh when it was still part of eastern Pakistan when the Pakistan central government refused to recognize the election of the Awami League as a majority winner in Parliament in the 1970 elections and was blocked from taking office.

OPERATION SEARCHLIGHT

P akistan President Yahya Khan arrested Awami League President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on March 26, 1971. Khan launched Operation Searchlight,  a sustained military assault on East Pakistan. Yahya's methods were extremely brutal and bloody. The violence of the war resulted in many civilian deaths. The war was directed against the intellectuals, the Hindus, and about ten-million refugees escaped to neighboring India. An estimated three-hundred-thousand to three-million were massacred.

The violence resulting from Operation Searchlight led to the war of liberation by the guerilla-turned General Mukti Bahini against Pakistani "occupation" forces in Bangladesh. The aid of Indian Army to Mukti Bahini caused the Pakistan Army’s unconditional surrender on December 16, 1971.

Of course, if GMA and her generals will not adopt the tactics of Operation Searchlight and if the 3rd People Power will not force GMA and her generals out of office, the Filipino people have other options to take.

Like what President Rahman did, the Filipino people can adopt the “non-cooperation” movement against the military and political establishment to press GMA and her generals from clinging to power.

The Filipino people can shut down all the government and semi-government offices, public transport, businesses, schools and colleges.

They can stop paying taxes and all monetary transactions with the government; cut of all communication with the government, and support, whoever would be the legitimate winner in the May 10, 2010, so-called “failed” elections.

ROOTED IN HISTORY

C ivil disobedience had worked in India when it was led by the Mahatma Gandhi and in South Africa when it was led by Nelson Mandela.

According to Gandhi, "Civil disobedience is the inherent right of a citizen to be civil, implies discipline, thought, care, attention and sacrifice.”

The 1986 Philippine Freedom Constitution brought about by the first People Power recognized that “the new government was installed through a direct exercise of the power of the Filipino people assisted by units of the New Armed Forces of the Philippines.”

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—The Declaration of Independence of the United States

T his “people power” provision, no doubt, was sourced from the second part of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, which was very explicit when it declared that the people has a “right to revolution”: the “people have certain rights, and when a government violates these rights, the people have the right to “alter or abolish” that government.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn (sic), that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

 (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net) # # #

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