Photo credit: ABS CBN News
By the Movement Against Tyranny
May 23, 2018
On the first anniversary of the Marawi siege, the Movement Against Tyranny is calling on the President or Congress to lift martial law in Mindanao and allow Marawi and other parts of the island to pursue rehabilitation and development in a free, just and democratic manner.
We recall that Pres. Duterte himself declared Marawi liberated from the Maute-Abu Sayyaf Group as early as October last year. The government’s claim of having quelled the rebellion and widespread acts of lawless violence in Marawi makes martial law unnecessary and unjustifiable.
Absent an actual rebellion or invasion, the government can maintain peace and order, keep the bureaucracy running, and provide public services without resorting to martial law.
The continuation of martial law can only worsen the injustices suffered by the people of Marawi and other affected areas. There has been little explanation on how an attempt to serve an arrest warrant led to a war that razed the Philippines’ Islamic City and snuffed more than thousand lives. There has been no probe to determine whether the “terrorists” killed were really involved in the fighting or civilians caught in war’s cruel grip. Meanwhile, scores of families continue to search for missing kin.
The past year has also shown that martial law is now simply an excuse to crack down hard on activists, political dissenters, lumad organizations, peasant associations and labor groups fighting for their rights and interests.
The latest incident involving the killing of Bayan Muna leader Ariel Maquiran in Panabo City by suspected agents of the 16th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army is symptomatic of this state of affairs. Maquiran was shot multiple times in broad daylight by several assailants. Prior to his killing, he was summoned by the military for his alleged involvement in a 2017 NPA attack on the facilities of Lapanday Foods Corp.
Since the imposition of martial law, the Karapatan human rights group has documented 49 cases of politically-motivated extrajudicial killings, 22 cases of torture, 116 victims of frustrated killings, 89 victims of illegal arrest and detention, and 336,124 victims of indiscriminate gunfire and aerial bombings in Mindanao. It said 979 civilians were forced to “surrender” as rebels in ceremonies staged by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Once again, we call on the President and Congress to end this militarist approach to Mindanao’s complex problems rooted in oppression, exploitation and discrimination.
We also call on the government to allow a fair, unhindered investigation on the abuses linked to martial law during and after the Marawi war.
Government reliance on force and military action to achieve its goals, its hostility towards efforts to seek accountability for human rights violations and current moves to shut out non-state stakeholders from involvement in the rehabilitation of their homeland only pushes Mindanao and the nation into the abyss of tyranny.#
