Roco: GMA committing state terrorism

Presidential aspirant Raul Roco accused Malacañang yesterday of perpetrating "state terrorism" under the guise of restoring peace and order in the country.

In a statement, Roco said there are three methods by which the Arroyo administration is perpetrating "state terrorism."

The celebration yesterday of International Human Rights Day "provides a much-needed opportunity to warn about the current methods of state terrorism being perpetrated by the Macapagal-Arroyo administration against the Filipino people," he said.

Roco cited the night-time checkpoints, both fixed and mobile, throughout Metro Manila as another form of state terrorism. He said these checkpoints "ostensibly deter and capture kidnappers and bank robbers, but are actually victimizing law-abiding citizens."

"Kidnappers and bank robbers do their trade in broad daylight while people trying to earn an honest living often have to work until the wee hours of the morning," he added.

The second form of state terrorism, he said is the proposed implementation of a national identification (ID) card system.

While the government is pushing for the implementation of a national ID system to curb rising criminality and terrorist threats, Roco said this system will only become a source of corruption and a means by which innocent people can be victimized.

"Terrorists and criminals, like the Jose Pidals of this world, will always be able to obtain by legal or illegal means the documents needed to get a government ID. A national ID will require all Filipinos to carry an internal passport all the time, compromising their privacy, limiting their freedoms and exposing them to new forms of harassment," he said.

According to Roco, "one bureaucratic mistake" under the proposed national ID system could take away an individual’s right to move freely or be employed until the government has "fixed" their file.

Roco then said the President’s decision to lift the almost four-year moratorium on the death penalty is the third form of state terrorism that the government wants to institutionalize.

Over the past four decades that capital punishment was implemented, he said, the death penalty and executions have failed to deter crime.

"The solution to criminality is the full and effective enforcement of the law," Roco said. "The imposition of night-time checkpoints and a national ID system will only promote and reinforce the culture of violence prevailing in the country today."