“The red-taggers will try to scare us from our advocacy and our struggle for what is right, but we must not allow our hearts to be terror-fied. Even as their fear tactics and terrorist mongering further fan the flames of conflict and civil unrest, we instead stand together, with courage and clear minds, and continue to struggle for peace.”
Those were the brave words of Bishop Gerardo A. Alminaza of the San Carlos diocese in Negros Occidental, who last Thursday addressed a forum (“No Justice, No Peace”) at the Philippine Christian University in Manila.
The word “terror-fied” was coined by the Catholic prelate, who recently experienced what he called a “barrage of red-tagging.”
“As peace advocates, our eyes are wide open to the social unrest that plagues the countryside,” he told his audience. He urged them “to address the root causes of the armed conflict,” spawned by the “realities of inequity… result[ing] from historic injustice, colonialism and foreign domination and a long-established system of political elitism.”
He acknowledged that “religion, especially Christian religion, has been part and parcel of the historic experience of subjugation and domination.” But, invoking Jesus Christ’s association with ordinary people and the marginalized, Alminaza stressed: “Our charism… empowers us as changemakers, as mobilizers of righteousness… healers of wrongs and… proponents of genuine peacebuilding.”
Noting that the new administration has been silent on this issue till now, the bishop urged it “to desist from militarist tactics, including unsubstantiated terrorist designation as a means to dehumanize revolutionaries and deny them due process, human rights and protection under international humanitarian law.”
Red-tagging, terrorist-labeling and even formal terrorist designation that are bereft of substantive grounds are all counter-productive to genuine peacebuilding, he stressed. “Instead, we urge a return to the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.”
Recalling the recent episode when he was red-tagged, he said it stemmed from his Lenten statement with Pilgrims for Peace, wherein he appealed that detained NDFP peace consultant Frank Fernandez must not be convicted on the charges against him “using evidence that, by all appearances, was planted during his arrest.” In an earlier statement, he had noted how “engaging Frank [a former fellow priest in Negros] in the work of peace negotiations and peace building could be a fruitful endeavor, rather than relegating his time to waiting under detention.”
Many others aside from him have suffered from being “viciously attacked and red-tagged,” Alminaza pointed out. Such fear-mongering “is not only wrong, it is morally indefensible.”
“Even more,” he declared, it is “clearly a maneuver intended to fortify the status quo.”
It was wrong for the Anti-Terrorism Council to designate the National Democratic Front of the Philippines as terrorist, he said, because the designation lacked substantiated grounds; it is counterproductive to peace negotiations and peacebuilding; and it has been misused “to further violate human rights and international humanitarian law, oppress communities, harass and repress individuals [exacerbating] a context already rife with social unrest.”
“I stand firm to calmly recommend that a ‘linguistic ceasefire’ may be in order,” he stated. He urged government leaders “to step back from the construct of terrorism – to refrain from utilizing controversial anti-terrorism legislation and the tactics of ‘all-out war’ peddled by the (US) and other western powers – and work instead on addressing the root causes of the armed conflict and civil strife.”
Because of his unwavering views, he said, “I was labeled and attacked …but I took a deep breath in prayer and simply continued speaking the truth.” He recalled the 14 Negros farmers who were slain in the Oplan Sauron SEMPO’s “one-time, big time” police-military operations on March 30, 2019. Two of the victims were from his parish in Canlaon City, part of the Diocese of San Carlos.
“I imagined the fright and terror of families being awakened before or near the break of dawn and the unbelievably similar police reports of ‘nanlaban’ killings. They had no due process, no legal counsel, no court hearings. Red-tagging and terrorist-branding can kill, HAVE KILLED.”
Because “life is at stake,” he enjoined the peace advocates to keep speaking the truth. “We must calculate when to duck for cover, but also when to jab back with the truth… Our best response to fear-sowing governance is to struggle together in solidarity for genuine peace.”
The struggle for peace is a positive, life-affirming one.
“The struggle for peace pulsates through communities that claim their human rights. It vibrates in peasant organizations that assert their dignity and their call for land to the tillers. It cadences with the successful bungkalan of farmworkers who stave off hunger during tiempo Muerte or with the awarding of land titles to tenant farmers through agrarian reform.”
He attested: “The struggle for peace is music in the ears of a God who wants our participation in transforming the world towards justice and wholeness.”
Sadly, where there is no justice, there is no peace. The island of Negros is an example, Alminaza said. The poverty incidence there is consistently higher than the national figure. In 2015, the national poverty incidence was 16.5 percent of families; it was 38.7 percent in Negros Oriental and 21.9 percent in Negros Occidental. But then the island is “rich” in terms of the number of cities there because “this was a way for hacienda landlords, also often installed as local government officials, to exempt their lands from agrarian reform.” He cited the harrowing photos of starvation in Negros, circulated worldwide 50 years ago: yet, “even today, the hardship of peasants and farmworkers is utterly shocking, with malnutrition, hunger and starvation wages all-too-common.”
Still, despite the dangers, the people of Negros struggle on, Alminaza again attested. “They do not simply accept inequitable distribution of our country’s resources. They are awakened to the situation and seek justice.”
“Their stories of struggle,” he reflected, “should stir in us the desire to join in transforming the world towards wholeness.”