Martial Law victims attend the oral arguments on the hero's burial for the late President Ferdinand Marcos. Photo by LeAnne Jazul/Rappler

MANILA, Philippines – Victims of horrifying acts of torture during Martial Law recounted their painful experiences before Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno on Wednesday, August 31.

Etta Rosales, former chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) who experienced the atrocities of the dictatorship, recounted: "They had a gun and they threatened me to answer the question, otherwise they [would] shoot [me]."

She was also raped, tortured, and went through electric shock and Russian roulette.

Rosales is among the petitioners asking the Supreme Court to stop the burial of the late dictator at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, which President Rodrigo Duterte had allowed supposedly for the country to be able to move on from that period of history.

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Another petitioner in one of the cases, Trinidad Herrera, told the Chief Justice about her terrible experience under the dictatorship.

"'Pinatanggal nila ang aking blusa at 'nilagay ang linya ng kuryente sa suso ko. Pumasok pa ang kuryente sa katawan ko hanggang di ko na nakayanan," Herrera tearfully recalled during oral arguments on the petition against a hero's burial for the late president Ferdinand Marcos.

(They ordered me to remove my blouse and they applied electric shock on my breast. Electricity went through my body until I couldn't take it anymore.)

"They even put water on the floor so that the electricity would enter my body," she added in Filipino.

Another victim, Fe Mangahas, shared: "They would scare me again by touching me and breathing down my neck and then I felt something like naihi ako (I peed). I figured it was blood because at the time I did not realize I was two months pregnant."

"When they found out I was pregnant I was released, but I was asked to report weekly about my whereabouts. I had to do this every Saturday for a year," she added.

Other victims also detailed what they went through when they were captured by uniformed men.

Maria Christina Rodriguez said her captors burned her skin with cigarette. Her fingers were swollen because of bullet-pressing.

Maria Christina Bawagan said her thighs were hit until they looked like rotten vegetables. She was sexually abused, with her captors inserting objects into her vagina and touching her breasts while blindfolded. She said she may never know who exactly tortured her, but she clearly remembered their voice.

Each of these women remembered the exact date they were captured and went through the life-scarring experience.

Sereno asked the petitioners, who are claimants for compensation under Republic Act 10368 or the Human Rights Victims Reparations Act, to speak before the court. (READ: What the gov’t still owes Martial Law victims)

She told them, "The Court is listening."

Not about the money

During her interpellation of former Akbayan Representative Ibarra Gutierrez III, lawyer for one of the petitioning groups, Sereno asked if the monetary compensation for the victims was not sufficient.

Gutierrez responded: "No, your Honor, because the law explicitly acknowledges to recognize the [victims and their heroism and sacrifices]."

He also said that money is not equivalent to the restoration of dignity of the victims.

The late strongman's state burial, he said, would "prolong and extend" the suffering of the victims.

Human Rights Victims Claims Board (HRVCB) Chairperson Lina Sarmiento, who was one of the resource persons invited, said that out of over 75,000 claims, they have only finished processing 17,000.

HCRVB can only start distributing the compensation after every case has been settled because the P10 billion funds allotted will be divided according to the intensity of human rights violations experienced by each victim.

Sarmiento said they are hoping to finish the work before May 12, 2018, when their office expires.

Non-repetition

Also appearing as a resource person, CHR Chairperson Chito Gascon said the state has an obligation for "non-repetition" of the trauma they experienced during Martial Law.

"There is a commitment on the part of the state [to] non-repetition, [that] the victims should not be exposed to re-traumatization," he told Chief Justice Sereno.

Gascon stressed that local and international laws acknowledge reparations as a "positive act that the stake must undertake to [prevent] impunity." – Rappler.com

Other stories from the SC oral arguments on the Marcos burial cases:

</s>“Burying the dictator in the Libingan ng mga Bayani will not heal our wounded country.”

MANILA – Even as President Duterte said the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani (LNMB) is meant “to heal” the nation, his decision only opened an old wound, one that has to do with bringing the tyrant and his family to face punishment for their crimes against the people.

Outside the Supreme Court gate today, Aug. 31, that gaping wound divided demonstrators into two groups: those who oppose the LNMB burial, and those who support it. The demonstrations were held as the high court heard the oral arguments for the six petitions filed opposing the Marcos burial.

But the groups may as well be divided according to what they hold to be truths: victims and activists who say that Marcos was one of the most corrupt despot in the world who plundered the nation’s coffers and committed crimes against humanity, and the Marcoses and supporters who dismiss all these as lies.

 

 Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) and the Campaign against the Return of the Marcoses in Malacañang (Carmma) led martial law activists and other progressive groups to show support for the petitions against the Marcos burial in LNMB, which, they said, completes his family’s return to Malacañang – the consequence of the failure of post-martial law administrations to bring the Marcoses to justice.

“Along with the dictator’s remains, the Marcos family also wants to bury the memory of the crimes of martial law. They want to bury the lessons of history, specially the atrocities committed by the dictator. In burying the truth about Marcos. They hope that their family will rise again to occupy the highest post of the land,” said Renato Reyes Jr., Bayan secretary general.

Danny Dela Fuente, spokesperson of the Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (Selda), and one of the petitioners, said the Marcoses and their supporters have “refused to move on” because they long to return to power. The late dictator’s son and namesake, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. lost the vice presidency by a small margin to Leni Robredo in the recent elections.

“The Marcos family and their cronies could not move on from the fact that the Filipino people toppled the Marcos dictatorship due to its puppetry to the US, massive plunder of public funds, oppression of already impoverished Filipinos, and human rights abuses. The Marcos family could not move on from the fact that even the US Hawaii court found Marcos guilty of human rights abuses on 9,539 counts,” he said.

Dela Fuente said the Marcoses even refuse to accept Republic Act 10368, the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013, which gives financial compensation to martial law victims, using the $10 billion recovered Marcos ill-gotten wealth.

Several national leaders of progressive groups, such as Elmer “Bong” Labog, chairperson of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), attested to how they became victims of the Marcos dictatorship as youth activists.

 

 Labog was a 17-year-old freshman at the University of the Philippines Los Baños and a member of the Samahan ng Demokratikong Kabataan (SDK) when he and scores of other student activists were “invited” by Marcos to Malacañang on Sept. 23, 1972.

“PC (Philippine Constabulary) men came to the campus in truckloads, and brought us instead to Camp Vicente Lim,” he told Bulatlat, where they were tortured and detained for a year. Another massive arrest came in 1982, when hundreds of trade union leaders were arrested, including KMU leaders Crispin Beltran and Bert Olalia.

Before the oral arguments started, one of the petitioners, Trinidad Herrera-Repuno spoke at the program outside the SC gate and recalled how soldiers tortured her by electrocution, with wires tied to her thumb, and later to her nipples.

Dr. Beng Rivera-Reyes, secretary general of the Health Alliance for Democracy recalled how her Uncle Claudio was killed by soldiers as he went out at dawn to bring the carabao to pasture in their village in Capaz, Tarlac in 1979.

“It was a very quiet funeral, no one was speaking,” Reyes recalled, then only five years old. It was common to hear about other villagers getting killed, arrested or disappeared. After Marcos was ousted, she realized how such were meant to spread fear and repress the people.

But arrests, torture, killings and disappearances continue after martial law, said Evan Hernandez of Hustisya, whose daughter Beng was killed by paramilitary men and soldiers in 2002.

 “Marcos started it all,” she said. “And now he will be buried a hero?”

“You communists, listen up. If Marcos did not declare martial law, we would all be communists now. You were arrested because you were communists!” said a woman’s voice on a loud speaker on the side of the “loyalists.”

Among the Marcos loyalist groups were the foundation, Friends of Imelda R. Marcos, or FIRM-24 K. Its members came in uniform red shirts, from as far as Angono, Rizal province and Laguna. Several women in their sixties told Bulatlat that they are “Imelda supporters,” who have been meeting regularly in Luneta, Manila for the past 11 years. Other groups carried the initials “BBM,” such as the Buong Bansa Magkaisa.

 

 The Marcos loyalists danced and flashed the “V” sign, as they played blaring music accompanied by live drums. The activists played the song “Makibaka, huwag matakot” on their own sound system.

“Marcos, Hitler, diktador, tuta!” chanted the activists.

 “Marcos, Marcos pa rin,” chanted back the “loyalists.” One even shouted “Mabuhay ang (Long live) martial law!”

The scene was almost reminiscent of the time after the Marcos ouster, as their supporters tried to rally themselves to pave the way to bring the dictator and his family back to the country.

 “Burying the dictator in the LNMB will not heal our wounded country,” said a joint statement by the Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan, Institute of Social Order, and John J. Carroll Institute on Church and Social Issues. The groups said it “buries peace by erasing the memory o the violence that his regime inflicted on our nation.”</s>TWO JUSTICES of the Supreme Court on Wednesday challenged the petitioners seeking to stop the burial of former President Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, pointing out there are no clear rules on who should be buried in the military-owned cemetery.

Even wives of former secretaries of Defense are buried at the Libingan, contrary to the position of the anti-Marcos petitioners that only “heroes” should be buried there, Associate Justice Teresita Leonardo-de Castro said during oral arguments on six consolidated petitions against the internment.

“[S]pouses of Secretaries of National Defense are allowed to be buried there. Are they heroes? Can we say there are guidelines? There’s not even a body which will determine who are heroes, who should avail [themselves]of this privilege to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Is the Court the one to determine, in the absence of any guidelines [on]who are the bayani (heroes)?” de Castro said.

She was questioning defeated senatorial candidate Neri Colmenares, one of the human rights victims during the Marcos regime questioning the Duterte administration’s approval of the burial of the late strongman at the Libingan in Taguig.

“You have to explain what is meant by ‘bayani’ … based on existing rules, laws and regulations pertaining to this cemetery in Fort McKinley, now Fort Bonifacio, because there seems to be no established guidelines as to who are heroes, as to who are disqualified [to be buried in that cemetery],” de Castro said.

She also challenged the petitioners to prove their argument that the Libingan is the same as the “National Pantheon for Presidents of the Philippines, National Heroes and Patriots of the Country” ordered built by Republic Act (RA) 289.

“[O]r is it just a war memorial for which it was originally created?” she asked.

Will of the people

 Associate Justice Jose Perez likewise pointed out that RA 289 does not provide guidelines on who are “worthy of public emulation and inspiration.”

Petitioners, he noted, seem to want the high tribunal to bear the responsibility of proclaiming Marcos as not deserving of national esteem and therefore not worthy of burial at the Libingan, rather than leave it to the people.

Perez said President Rodrigo Duterte’s 16 million votes during the polls implies ratification or public approval, which empowers him to decide on the burial of Marcos.

During the campaign, Duterte, whose father served as a Cabinet official under Marcos, repeatedly said he would bury the late strongman at the military cemetery.

“Is that not a decision of the sovereign people themselves? And what the electorate voted in favor of, we will now nullify? Can you not say that it was the electorate, the sovereign people, who favor the burial [at the Libingan]?” Perez asked.

‘Not worthy’

 The petitioners, mostly Martial Law victims, focused on the argument that Marcos should not be given honors because he is considered a dictator.

“A dictator responsible for countless human rights violations does not deserve a place in the pantheon. The dishonored cannot join the honored; Marcos is not worthy of emulation and inspiration,” Colmenares said.

The former party-list congressman said Marcos should never be buried on publicly owned land.

Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, whose brother Hermon disappeared during Martial Law and was never found, said “far from being a hero, former President Ferdinand Marcos was a despot, an oppressor of the Filipino people, during the dark era of Martial Law.”

“A Marcos hero’s burial would glorify a dictator, distort history, aggravate the injustice to human rights violation victims and their families and mock the heroism of desaparecidos (disappeared) and other victims of Marcos’ atrocities,” Lagman added.

Bound by statutes

 Barry Guttierez, who represented Martial Law victims like former Commission on Human Rights (CHR) chairwoman Loretta Ann Rosales, said Duterte was constitutionally bound by statutes that recognize the Marcos regime’s atrocities, such as Republic Act 10368 that gave reparations to human rights victims.

Rosales and other victims, including Nilda Lagman-Sevilla, Ma. Cristina Rodriguez, Fe Mangahas, Hilda Narciso and Ma. Cristina Bawagan, took turns telling their stories.

CHR Chairman Jose Luis Martin Gascon said domestic and international laws impose upon the government the obligation of “non-repetition,” and Marcos’ burial at the Libingan would expose victims to “re-traumatization.”

Penciled by Imelda

 Close to the end of the oral arguments, former Interior secretary Rafael Alunan was summoned to read the agreement he had reached, on behalf of the Ramos administration, with the Marcoses on the return of the former President’s remains from Hawaii in 1993.

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo had said the agreement, in which Marcos was to be buried in his home province of Ilocos Norte, was no longer binding.

Alunan said the fourth paragraph of the memorandum of agreement was controversial because former first lady Imelda Marcos penciled the words “temporarily interred” on the document to replace “buried on the 9th of Sept.”

 Alunan said Mrs. Marcos countersigned it but he did not.

Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno ordered the Solicitor General to request an original of the agreement from former President Fidel Ramos.

Sereno adjourned the oral arguments and called for another session at 10 a.m. on September 7.</s>The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) has weighed in on the issue of whether former President Ferdinand Marcos is a hero by submitting to the Supreme Court (SC) 54 pages of attachments to its Consolidated Comment including 11 documents supposedly showing that Marcos was recognized by the government as a soldier, war hero and Medal of Valor recipient.

The documents were submitted in support of the OSG’s position that Marcos’ remains that have been unburied for more than two decades should be interred at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery).

According to the Solicitor General, Marcos was called to active duty on November 15, 1941 as a Third Lieutenant under the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE). He remained a professional soldier until he left the military service in 1963 with the rank of colonel.

The USAFFE was active from 1941 to 1946.

The OSG said Marcos earned his Medal of Valor for “prevention of the possible decimation of withdrawing USAFFE troops in a ‘suicidal action against overwhelming [Japanese] enemy forces,’ thus helping delay the inevitable fall of Bataan.”

Annex 14 referred to General Order No. 167 dated October 16, 1968, which contained a two-page narrative of Marcos’ stand together with his men defending Salian Junction along the Abucay Line against the advance of the Japanese forces.

“For five days from 22 to 26 January 1942, he [Marcos] and his men stubbornly held their position at the junction in spite of additional severe casualties suffered, and successfully blocked the enemy’s determined advance…,” according to the document.

The same document, signed by Lt. Gen. Alfonso Arellano, then Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) Chief of Staff, said Marcos only had “a hundred fighting men against a regiment of about 2,000 highly-trained and well-equipped Japanese troops” when they defended Salian Junction.

Other documents submitted by the Solicitor General to the High Court included checks from the Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB) and the Land Bank of the Philippines (LBP) that were issued to Marcos’ widow, former First Lady now Rep. Imelda Marcos of Ilocos Norte, in 2003 and 2004.

The PVB checks were supposedly for the pension of Marcos as a retired soldier while the LBP checks were issued as “payment of gratuity pay/Medal of Valor.”

Also attached to the OSG’s Consolidated Comment was a two-page Certification dated March 4, 1986, issued by the AFP General Headquarters and signed by Philippine Army Lt. Col. Antonio Martin citing records stating that “Colonel Ferdinand E. Marcos [was a]recipient of a ‘Medal of Valor,’ three ‘Distinguished Conduct Stars’ and two ‘Distinguished Service Stars,’ among others.”

The Medal of Valor is the Philippines’ highest military honor that recognizes acts of courage and bravery above and beyond the call of duty.

It is awarded by the President of the Philippines to members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and allied military personnel, including recognized guerrilla forces.

However, the Supreme Court is not expected to discuss whether or not Marcos was a war hero during the second round of oral arguments on September 7, according to two lawmakers.

The reason is that the SC “will not rule on a question of fact, that is whether the [Medal of Valor] is real,” Rep. Sherwin Tugna of party-list group Citizen’s Battle Against Corruption said.

“The [High Court] only decides on questions of law, not questions of fact,” Tugna pointed out.

The issue, Rep. Harry Roque of party-list group Kabayan also earlier said, is “whether he [Marcos] is entitled to be buried [at the Heroes’ Cemetery].”

The High Court recently stopped plans to bury Marcos at the Taguig cemetery, acting on a petition of victims of human rights violations against allowing interment of Marcos’ remains there.

Roque had filed a bill proposing to change the name of the Libingan ng mga Bayani to “Libingan ng mga Bayani at mga Dating Pangulo” (Cemetery for Heroes and Former Presidents) as a means to prevent public unrest in wake of opposition from some sectors to the planned burial of Marcos’ remains at the Hero’s Cemetery. ROMY P. MARIÑAS</s>President Rodrigo Duterte is now the most powerful President in the nation’s history—more powerful than the late former President Ferdinand Marcos ever was at the height of Martial Law. This appears to be the confident view of many political observers and well-known CEOs. This is because where Marcos needed to declare Martial Law to impose authoritarian rule, DU30 has done so without declaring Martial Law. He has done and is doing anything and everything he wants to do simply by insisting that his motive is “pure,” and that the end justifies the means. And there’s been nothing and no one to stop him.

Where Marcos needed to abolish Congress to do away with venal and useless politicians, DU30 simply decided to make them part of his adopted PDP-Laban in order to railroad everything he wants to acquire a semblance of legality—from the restoration of the capital sentence for heinous crimes, to the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility from 15 years old to nine, to the revision of the present Constitution according to the wishes of the President. Speaker of the House Pantaleon Alvarez gave a terrifying demonstration of this when he spoke before the Philippine Constitution Association at the Manila Golf Club on Tuesday evening.

Where Marcos needed a military tribunal to try Lim Seng, the Chinese illegal drugs manufacturer, for drug dealing, and to condemn him to death by musketry, DU30 only had to order the Philippine National Police to eliminate suspected drug pushers, (1,800 as of the latest count), and to jail 700,000 drug users, who have opted to surrender rather than get killed by the police or vigilantes. To sweeten the pot, he has offered a bounty of P2 million for every “drug lord” killed.

And where Marcos, who died 30 years ago, continues to be savaged by the so-called victims of Martial Law for acts committed by the State in self-defense, DU30 has refused to be intimidated by any threat of being held accountable for his current acts against drug suspects after he leaves the presidency. He nonchalantly tells those who denounce his methods that he “doesn’t give a damn,” he’s simply trying to solve a serious problem of his country.

The UN special rapporteur on summary executions (Agnes Callamard) has spoken, saying “claims to fight illicit drug trade do not absolve the government from its international obligations and do not shield state actors or others from responsibility for illegal killings.”

So have the US State Department, the White House, and Amnesty International on human rights. So has Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno on warrantless arrests and impunity. So have Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan and President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, former CBCP President and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Emeritus Oscar V. Cruz, and Manila Cardinal-Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle on the moral law and the right to life.

So have 300 international nongovernmental organizations, which signed a letter denouncing DU30’s policies and demanding that international drug control agencies state unequivocally that such killings “do not constitute acceptable drug control measures.”

While he relishes the honor and homage paid to him by the public and the local media, he has refused to be swayed by the critical nudging by the international press. TIME magazine has spoken. The New York Times has spoken. The Washington Post has spoken. The Los Angeles Times has spoken. The Economist of London has spoken. The Guardian and The Daily Mail have spoken. Japan Times has spoken. The South China Morning Post has spoken. CNN and Bloomberg have spoken. BBC has spoken. Al Jazeera has spoken. Russia Today has spoken. And so have we.

We have not heard from Suddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt, Die Zeit or Spiegel in Germany. Or from Le Figaro, Le Monde or L’Humanite in Paris. Or from Corriere della Sera, La Republica or La Stampa in Italy. And we may not hear much from People’s Daily or the English-language China Daily in Beijing.

Or from Yomiuri Shimbun with a circulation of 9,240,00, Asahi with 7,210,000 and with 3,300,000 in Tokyo. But we cannot simply ignore the sober message of the largest and oldest English language paper in Japan (founded in 1897).

In a recent editorial, Japan Times said, “The (Philippine) drug problem may well constitute a national crisis, but that cannot excuse the shredding of the rule of law and extrajudicial killings. Human rights extend to the guilty and the innocent alike.”

Quoting UN figures, the editorial said the Philippines had the highest metamphetamine use in East Asia in 2012, and according to the Philippine National Police chief, it has 3.7 million drug users. In 2013, the drug trade was worth $8.4 billion, and between 2010 and 2015, 623 government officials and employees were arrested on drug-related offenses; 6,000 anti-drug operations were conducted nationwide.

But it pointed out that Thailand under Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra waged a similar war on drugs, in which 3,000 innocent victims were killed without making a dent in the trafficking or use of illegal drugs.

“Loss of innocent lives or the settling of scores under the guise of cleaning up the drug trade is one problem,” the editorial said. “Even more worrying over the long run is the erosion of the rule of law in a country with a long history of abuse of power. Filipinos have struggled to reclaim their democracy and it has been a long and frustrating process. Duterte is only the most recent in a long line of autocrats who have been irritated by the inefficiencies of a democratically elected government. Corruption has been and continues to be a real problem in the Philippines. But the solution to that problem is rigid and neutral application of the law —not its disregard.”

DU30 tends to dismiss the world press as an inconvenience and irrelevancy. However, as president of a sovereign country with an active role in the world community, he has to deal with individuals, governments and institutions that cannot be indifferent or neutral to international public opinion. He would be meeting with some of them in Vientiane, Laos during the Asean summit conference next week, and hosting them or their successors at the Asean summit next year in Manila.

One of these will be US President Obama, who has expressed a keen desire to talk to him precisely about the things where he has, so far, dismissed as external “interference” the interest expressed by other governments and institutions. Obama will be leaving the White House by January 20 next year, but until then he carries a big stick.

This is one meeting the international media and the diplomatic community will be watching keenly.

I listened to Speaker Alvarez at the Philconsa monthly meeting on Monday evening, and came out of it feeling scared. In the one-minute invocation which I was asked to give, I offered a simple prayer: “As we prepare to address the many constitutional ills of our government, Lord, speak to us through our Speaker, and permit him not to stray so that we may not be left groping in the dark. In the dialogue that will follow, give us the courage to speak if the truth is with us, and give our honored Guest the curiosity to inquire if there are things You have revealed to the simple which You have hidden from the wise.”

In his speech, Alvarez did not refer to any infirmity of the present Constitution, which needs to be cured, other than the “highly centralized” unitary state that must now be replaced by a federal system, pursuant to the desire of the President. But in addition to changing the territorial structure from unitary to federal, Alvarez also spoke of changing the present bicameral Congress into a unicameral assembly or parliament under a system similar to the French. This means a thorough-going revision of the Constitution, not simply a matter of amending it. This is a task for the sovereign Filipino people, through their delegates in a constitutional convention, rather than for a rubber-stamp Congress.

But Alvarez said the President has decided that the proposed constitutional changes should come from the present Congress, convened as a constituent assembly (con-ass), in order to save on expenses, among other things. The President will also appoint a group of experts to draft the initial proposed changes, which, presumably upon his approval, will be submitted to the con-ass. The idea could not have frightened me if it had been presented as a proposal for mature deliberation and debate, but it was presented as something already carved in stone, because it’s what the President wanted.

This compelled me to ask the first question. I said that there’s no doubt we need to revisit the Constitution. It is technically flawed. However, in proposing any amendment to, or revision of, the Constitution, we have to be guided strictly by what the same Constitution says on how, and by whom, amendments or revisions should be proposed. Under Article XVII, only the Congress sitting as a con-ass, and the Filipino people, through a constitutional convention or by direct initiative, may propose constitutional changes. There is no mention of any role for the President.

And yet this point seemed completely lost on Alvarez. He made it unmistakably clear that the constitutional revisions that would be proposed, and the manner by which they would be proposed, were decreed by the President, like imperial edicts. What was scary was the cold finality with which he delivered his lines, like Augustine (in a nobler context) informing his flock that the Pope had ratified the condemnation of the Pelagian heresy, which denied the primitive state in Paradise and original sin, by the councils of Milevi and Carthage. Roma locuta; causa finitaest, said Augustine—Rome has spoken; the cause is finished.

Bar this Congress, let the people do their thing

Even without DU30’s overt intervention, the present Congress lacks the moral integrity and competence to propose anything on the people’s behalf. The present state of the Congress is surreal. The so-called House super-majority was cobbled after so many unprincipled opportunists migrated to DU30’s adopted party, which did not quite have five visible members before the election. Even the minority was formed with the tacit benediction of the majority. In the Senate, the only organic member of the PDP-Laban, Koko Pimentel, became the Senate president, while former Senate president Franklin Drilon, who should be leading the Senate minority in a morally sensitive environment, now manipulates Pimentel as Senate president pro-tempore.

The sovereign Filipino people cannot and must not allow this unprincipled and opportunistic Congress to propose a revision to the Constitution at the behest of a constitutionally excluded authority. DU30, being smarter than all his minions, should reject the devil’s temptation to get involved, as strongly as Christ rejected it at the desert, and let the people, who are ultimately wiser than their machine-elected “leaders,” do what the Constitution prescribes.
Female victims of the martial law dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos speak at the Philippine Supreme Court about how they endured torture during Marcos' regime.