What’s happening to our society?

Questions that keeps popping up like sore thunbs… clamoring for answers.

What’s happening to our society?  There seems to be a growing reliance on the use of guns in resolving disputes?  The police is increasingly using force to demolish urban poor houses and to brutalize rallyists who are only asking for change?  The soldiers are harassing, torturing and killing indigenous peoples and settlers in the countryside?  And so, hundreds of indigenous folks are forced to seek refuge in Davao City?

Indeed, it is true that there is a manifest tendency to resolve conflicts with the use of armed force.  In any form of dispute — even in interpersonal quarrels–  we witness how individuals are butchered like chickens or hogs.  We are appalled, but we are always enjoined to just stay calm.  The authorities would always say “There’s no reason to fear and panic, we’re on top of the situation.”

But in one’s heart, there is a growing fear and doubt about one’s safety and security in the streets as much as in the home.  The “culture of violence” is very much with us.  The incidence of left and right killings seems to be a daily fare.  So commonplace is it that it even surprises us if it is absent in the breakfast news on media.

Where does this culture of violence spring from?  What nurtures its prevalence in our society?  What is its driving force? 

The might of state power is particularly manifested in the aberrant condition called Martial Law, as  what happened during the Marcos dictatorial regime. As an aberration, the military apparatus assumes an extraordinary role in martial rule, taking over the political processes of government function under the direction of the dictator.  As such, it was a masked admission of the State’s inability to rule in the normal way.

Its font is the mentality that upholds the age-old dictum “Might is right.”  Even if modern society has long since discarded this world outlook that gives high preference to the supremacy of brute force over reason, it remains to be the reliable philosophical props of the state to maintain the status quo.  It is the State’s reason for being, providing the military with the premise as an apparatus of state power. It is the weapon of the ruling class in maintaining itself.  It is the ruler’s defender in his greed for power.

The fundamental question has always been “For whom is this peace and development program of the Aquino government?” 

In our current situation, a visible playing by the Aquino administration with martial rule is evident.  If we look at what happened in the intensified militarization of the countryside, we are reminded of the Marcos military in his dictatorial regime. Undoubtedly, the purpose and methodology between the militarization during Marcos’ rule and the militarization during the present Aquino administration are identical.  But under President Aquino, it is more deceptive because he disguises it with avowals of peace and development.

Our Lumad tribal and settler communities — have become aware and have determinedly resisted these so-called economic development aggressions in their areas.  And because of this, the reflex action of the Aquino government has been to unleash his military thugs and terrorize the rural people with intensifying militarization.

President Noynoy is playing dangerous flirtations with martial rule.  He must soon realize the military is not as easy to handle as the guns he is romancing with in his target shooting hobby.  These are real flesh-and-blood people whom his military has been subjecting to terrifying military abuses.

Now, thousands of our tribal people from the Agusan region are enduring utmost hardships and brutalities.  They have sought refuge at the provincial capitol of Agusan.  But the Governor whom we presume is your minion has refused to accommodate them.

And so, may we remind you Mr. President, that your hands are now smeared with the blood of our Lumads!  These are the descendants of the original inhabitants of this island.  You at the helm of government are scions of Chinese or Castilian migrants who have amassed wealth  through  cunning and manipulative ways.  But these Lumads of Agusan are our bloodlinks to our pre-conquest forebears!  They have prior birthrights to these islands, much much deeper than any other political family who had landgrabbed  this country and is now arrogantly insinuating unto itself the power and wealth of the Philippine nation.

Shame on you!

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