This BGlante is adding his hoarse voice in this wilderness that has become the talk of the town. Though we are thousands of miles away from where the action is, we feel that as a law abiding Filipino citizen, we should not keep our mouth shut, just because we are far from the maddening crowd.
What happened in Maguindanao and the subsequent declaration of martial law in the area is everybody's concern. Our concern though we are so far away from a war-torn province, was premised on our heightened fears that sooner or later the Maguindanao incident may be used as a stepping board to a wider military rule.
While we do not wish to sound alarmist, we cannot help but quiver at the thought that this present government is resorting to such extreme measure as martial law because that's an attractive option to stay in power beyond its term limit.
All indications point that this government is using all the tricks in the books to perpetuate itself in power.
For example just what kind of crap is this government propagating when it justifies Maguindano's martial law on the basis of "rebellion in the offing". Our limited knowledge in law is that one of the elements for martial law to be declared is that there should be an actual rebellion happening in a particular territorial integrity.
And what is this yarn that excludes the so-called territories controlled by the Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) when Maguindanao was placed under martial law?
Why exempt the MILF? Is it not an armed group out to carve its own Bangsamoro land in Mindanao?
If there's any group guilty of rebellion, it's no other than the MILF due to its secessionist objectives. How many crimes were committed by the MILF against civil authority in Mindanao? But did it merit the attention it deserved as the government did against the warlords of Maguindanao?
The official line is that the MILF-held turf is not within the ambit of martial law jurisdiction because of the on-going peace talks.
We beg to disagree this government argument.
For one, the MILF is considered an enemy of the state and therefore it should be subjected to the same harsh treatment as those who are out to undermine the authority of the government to implement the rule of law and not the rule of men. Just like the Ampatuans in Maguindanao. When they treat the province of Maguindanao as their own private kingdom, the government lost no time in declaring martial law before the clan's atrocities escalate into a full-grown conflagration.
Is there anything the ordinary civilian did not know as to why Maguindanao is placed under martial law?
Our suspicion is that there's more than meets the eye in the Maguindanao martial law.
The principal intent as parroted by government mouthpieces is that the military is out to quell the looming rebellion. Our repartee is that is not the military out to quell a "squealing rebellion". What we are saying here is the long held secret that the Ampatuans had been keeping all these years since the 2004 and 2007 elections. If reports were to be believed, accordingly, the Maguindanao polls in those two past electoral exercises were marred with incidents of fraud. To our mind, is not the Arroyo administration doing everything to stop the Ampatuans from singing like canaries as a result of their connivance to steal the two elections past in Maguindanao?
Under normal circumstances, search warrants when applied should stipulate what kind of items are supposed to be seized.
Under martial law, search warrants are dispensed with just as anybody can be put behind bars on the basis of a warrantless arrest.
In this case, it would be foolhardy for the military to include evidence of fraud in the 2004 and 2007 elections in the search warrant application, unless the applicant is willing to lose his job. Or unless the applicant is stricken by his conscience that enough is enough of this elaborate charade.
This leads us to the suspicion that just what kind of grandiose zarzuela this government is doing in Maguindanao when it declared martial law?
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