Press Statement
April 24, 2020
The Movement Against Tyranny is greatly alarmed at President Rodrigo Duterte’s bristling threat to impose martial law on the pretext of the communist threat and the rebels’ alleged attacks on government troops involved in Covid-19 operations.
Just a few months ago, the President and generals of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) were one in declaring the CPP-NPA as a spent force, citing the thousands of supposed rebel surrenderees under the government’s “whole of nation” counterinsurgency program. To ascribe to the rebel group widespread lawless violence or rebellion enough to justify the imposition of martial law is highly doubtful.
As to the allegation that the rebels are deliberately targeting ongoing Covid-19 response efforts, the President himself clarified that the targets are not the medical or relief workers themselves but their armed security escorts. Meanwhile, the CPP-NPA claims that their actions were defensive actions in response to AFP combat operations that have nothing to do with Covid-19. In any case, such accusations and counter accusations have to be verified and, if possible, properly addressed through existing mechanisms under the GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).
In the first place, with Duterte eschewing the peace talks and declaring all-out war against the rebels, isn’t it hypocritical for him to use an incident in that ongoing war as a reason for declaring martial law?
We reiterate that there is no legal or moral basis for declaring martial law at this time. Government’s attention, energy and resources should be focused on health measures to contain Covid-19 and mitigate the impacts of such health measures. The least thing we need are militarist and tyrannical outbursts from the President.#
