Bannering Bonifacio
BY BERNARD KARGANILLA
Gloria’s complicity
‘Gloria Arroyo gave the Ampatuans free rein in Maguindanao.’
REMEMBER the Arroyo administration’s explanation why FernandoPoe Jr. got zero votes in most precincts in Maguindanao during the 2004 elections and why not a single opposition senatorial candidate won there in the 2007 elections?
It’s a cultural thing, administration apologists said. Voters in Muslim Mindanao consult with their leaders and at the end of the process a list of preferred candidates is made. Come election day, everybody votes for the collective choice. The practice may stand in sharp contrast to individual choice by atomized and autonomous voters in, say, the urban centers. But even if rooted in clan- or community-oriented politics, it is democracy nonetheless.
It’s a fairy tale, of course. Command votes, while outwardly based on kinship obligations, are at bottom possible only through harassment, intimidation and outright violence.
The Maguindanao massacre is but the latest proof that warlordism is fundamentally based on violence.
The Arroyo administration not only has played blind to this reality; it has also been reinforcing the myth that the rule of warlords like the Ampatuans is a legitimate exercise of political power.
The complicity of the administration in the depredations of the warlords, however, goes beyond the platitudes about the purported communal voting consensus in justifying the mockery of the electoral process.
These warlords get material support from the administration in exchange for the delivery of votes. On top of the local governments’ internal revenue allocations (IRAs), the warlords get a disproportionate portion of national government projects. Money is lavishly showered on them despite the national leadership’s knowledge that the funds are sure to end up in their pockets. It’s part of the deal.
More, the government provides a mantle of legitimacy to the private armies of these warlords. The armed followers are enlisted as militiamen. They are issued firearms and ammunition from the government arsenal while receiving regular allowance.
The structures of governance, in parallel, are turned into personal appendages of the local despots.
The police chief of Maguindanao is under investigation for command responsibility. Who picked the police chief and who approved the assignment? Same questions go about the military chief assigned to the area. Also the judges, the fiscals, the election registrar, the treasurer, the assessor, the provincial engineer, etc. in Maguindanao.
Gloria Arroyo gave the Ampatuans free rein in Maguindanao. She cannot wash her hands off the blood of the 52 people killed in cold blood by the Ampatuans’ henchmen.