No more martial law: What do we do next?

For our Special Presentation tonight, we talk about a man who has helped our tourism industry a lot through his being the Chairman Emeritus of an organization called the National Association of Independent Travel Agencies (NAITAS) of the Philippines. I am referring to our good friend, Mr. Roberto Lim Joseph, Honorary Consul of Latvia. I first met Bobby Joseph during a discussion on the topic of Open Skies policy in this show and we have been good friends since then. So know more about the life and times of Bobby Joseph on SkyCable’s channel 15th at 8:00pm tonight.

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It’s exactly 9pm Saturday when I opened my laptop to do this column, as it is the exact time that Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo lifted Proclamation No. 1959, which she declared exactly seven days ago on December 5,2009. So today, while the Joint Session in Congress continues, any further discussion on Martial Law becomes moot and academic. Martial Law under the Cory Constitution is supposed to expire in 60 days so Pres. Arroyo actually had 53 more days to go if she really wanted to enjoy her military power as what most of the paranoid anti-martial law advocates believed.

But I’m willing to bet that the paranoid anti-martial law media would depict that the President was running scared of Congress revoking Martial Law hence she ordered the lifting in order to pre-empt any congressional action. Of course we know too well that this is not true. But then, despite the Martial Law in Maguindanao, the press had a grand time reporting all what the AFP has been doing, especially when large arms caches were uncovered.

The truth is, the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines already came up with a report that the areas where there was a massing of armed groups in the towns of Datu Unsay, Shariff Aguak, Ampatuan and Talayan had already been neutralized. The assumption of Vice Governor Ansaruddin Adiong as Acting Governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao also meant that civilian life has been restored and Martial Law was no longer needed or necessary.

While the Joint Congressional session is left with no more issues to debate, they will still hear the official report on Martial Law from Acting Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera. I’m sure that the anti-Congressmen and Senators would interpolate her; after all, it’s the season for grandstanding! Makes me wonder whether Liberal Party Presidential candidate, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino, III, would be present this time because he was conspicuously absent when the joint session opened last week to the point that Sen. Pres. Juan Ponce Enrile asked why he wasn’t around.

Indeed, Noynoy Aquino was one of the first Presidentiables to denounce Martial Law in Maguindanao based simply on the fact that his dad, Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr. suffered greatly when Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos declared Martial Law on September 21, 1972. This proves to you that Noynoy doesn’t check his facts before he makes a statement, which is very dangerous if he becomes President. Noynoy didn’t even consult his allies like Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña who totally supported the President’s declaration in Maguindanao as the only way to stop rebellion there.

The most vocal and noisy anti-Martial Law groups - aside from the political opportunists like Noynoy Aquino, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago or Sen. Rodolfo Biazon - are the leftist groups led by Partylist Rep. Satur Ocampo and Liza Maza who warned the people that Martial Law in Maguindanao was merely a ruse to declare Martial Law in the entire country. Well, the scenario that was borne out of he paranoid minds of those people who have a common bond in their hate for GMA obviously did not materialize.

But the lifting of Martial Law hasn’t stopped Sen. Santiago from her usual ranting. She still insists that a “bolder” Martial Law beyond Maguindanao is in the offing so that Pres. Arroyo can “seize power and preempt the national elections.”

Now that Martial Law in Maguindanao has been lifted, we must learn the lessons we can get from it. First off is the reality that despite their having a Martial Law hangover, the Cory Constitutionalists that created the 1987 Constitution still put in a Martial Law provision in our basic law. So if you Martial Law haters really dislike Martial Law, then I urge you to ask for Charter Change (cha-cha) via a Constitutional Convention (con-con), as this is the only venue where we can legally extinguish Martial Law from the face of our basic law. But then, those who are against Martial Law are also against cha-cha. So how can our country move forward when these people are in a state of highly-confused minds?

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