Opposition taking martial law extension to SC

MANILA, Philippines — Opposition congressmen vowed yesterday to challenge Wednesday’s decision of Congress to extend President Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao by one more year, up to the end of 2019.

“We strongly feel that there is no constitutional basis to extend martial law because there is no actual rebellion in Mindanao,” Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman told a news conference.

Lagman said many of their colleagues in the House of Representatives and concerned friends and citizens have cautioned them against challenging the extension, given the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Duterte’s May 2017 declaration and the tribunal’s voting trend in support of the administration.

However, Lagman said he and his opposition group believe that filing a case “will not be an exercise in futility because it will record in history our reaction and the reaction of the public to the martial law extension.”

“We also think that there is a factual scenario now completely different from what happened in Marawi City in the early part of last year,” he said.

Lagman pointed out that if the Supreme Court still sustains Duterte’s martial law extension request and congressional approval of it, “then let that too be recorded in history.”

The high tribunal dismissed the petition filed by Lagman and his opposition bloc and leftist lawmakers questioning the President’s May 2017 martial law declaration.

Before the declaration’s two-month constitutional life expired, Duterte asked for a six-month extension up to the end of last year, and again another extension of one year up to the end of this year. The newest request is a third extension.

Congress overwhelmingly approved at the 11th hour all three requests of the President to extend martial law in Mindanao.

During Wednesday’s joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate on Duterte’s third request, Lagman and opposition senators claimed that there is no actual rebellion or uprising in Mindanao that would warrant the continuation of martial law.

The Albay congressman cited the President’s pronouncement in October last year that government forces had quelled the uprising in Marawi City led by the Maute group of terrorists.

But Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, citing the assessment of the military and the national police, maintained that rebellion “still subsists” and that public safety necessitates the extension of martial law.

Lagman said martial law was extended not only in Mindanao but also in the joint House-Senate session on Wednesday, “when the freedom of expression of senators and representatives was restricted to three minutes for interpellation and one minute for the explanation of their respective votes.”

“While martial law was extended in Mindanao for another year or 8,760 hours, the congressional grant of the President’s initiative for another extension was consummated in barely four hours, which is 0.1 percent of the total new extended period,” he said.

Lagman said Congress, as a deliberative body, “must allow the free rein of interpellation and debate on crucial issues like a third extension of martial law in Mindanao, which may embolden anew the military to violate civil, political and human rights even as the citizens are cowed from expressing dissent.”

“The undue restriction on the right to interpellate and explain one’s vote follows the pattern of limitation designed by the executive (Malacañang) in forwarding the request for extension on the eleventh hour, thus depriving the Congress from fully deliberating on the merits of the requested extension and amply validate its proffered factual basis. Premeditated alacrity is anathema to democracy,” Lagman stressed.

A dangerous precedent

Other lawmakers who voted against said martial law is becoming a “new norm” to implement peace and order in a perceived lawless area.

Sen. Francis Escudero said progress and peace can be achieved even without resorting to military rule, which he said is an extraordinary measure.

Sen. Franklin Drilon also remarked the repeated extension of martial law appears to be the “new normal in Mindanao.”

Other opposition lawmakers argued that government forces could fight insurgents in remote rural areas and allow economic growth without martial law.

Left-wing lawmakers questioned a military claim that not one case of human rights violations has occurred under martial law in Mindanao.

Militant groups expressed fears that left-wing groups and human rights defenders will be targeted under martial law.

Commission on Human Rights (CHR) chairman Chito Gascon said normalizing martial law in Mindanao could set a dangerous precedent.

Gascon said martial law is not needed to address threats cited by the military.

“The government has the ability to exercise law enforcement powers to quell any threat without the need to invoke the extraordinary powers of martial law and more so now that the administrators have asserted that the Maute threat that has prompted the declaration has been quelled,” he said.

“There is a danger in ‘normalization’ of martial law,” he added.

The police and military have insisted they would protect human rights during the implementation of the extended martial law.

Concerns over martial law have been sparked in part by Duterte’s perceived authoritarian bent and the killings of thousands of suspects in a crackdown on illegal drugs that he launched after taking office in 2016.

Gascon said the government should look into reports of violations coming from human rights advocates on the ground, including displacement of people, arbitrary arrests, profiling, threats, torture and killings.

“The statement by the proponents of martial law that there have been no violations of human rights are far too sweeping without acknowledging the fact that there have been reports from the ground,” he added.

Communist rebels vowed to intensify attacks against government forces in response to the extension of martial law in Mindanao.

The military, under the leadership of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Lt. Gen. Benjamin Madrigal, said troops had been prepared to anticipate the attacks from the communist New People’s Army (NPA).

AFP spokesman Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo said the communist rebels are using the issue of martial law extension to justify their continuing attack against government forces.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) has also placed its forces on high alert mode following the threat from the NPA.

PNP chief Director General Oscar Albayalde said the NPA found a convenient excuse in the approval of martial law extension in Mindanao to renege on its earlier offer of a five-day truce during the yuletide season. – with Janvic Mateo, Roel Pareño, Edith Regalado, Jaime Laude, Emmanuel Tupas