xecutive Secretary
Eduardo Ermita’s advice to the AFP in the wake of protests against the
deployment of soldiers in slum areas is to have the latter shed their camouflage
uniforms and keep their automatic rifles out of public view.
And that’s supposed to address the charges of harassment of
residents and of openly campaigning against Leftist party groups?
That’s the problem with the current bunch of people at
Malacañang. All they consider is appearances. Change someone’s clothes and he
will emerge as a totally different animal.
Take Ermita, for example. Since he no longer sports stars on
his shoulders and has exchanged a general officer’s habiliment for a barong,
then he can no longer be considered a military man. Like Ermita, Defense’s
Hermogenes Ebdane, Transport’s Leandro Mendoza, Environment’s Angelo Reyes and
the clutch of retired AFP and PNP heads seeded in sub-Cabinet posts are all
civilians. So who says Gloria Arroyo has militarized government?
A week after the initial outcry against the putting up of
armed detachments, the AFP still cannot offer a coherent explanation for the
deployment. There are so many versions. The soldiers are undergoing training in
civil-military relations in preparation for sending them overseas as UN
peacekeepers/for assignment to the countryside. They are there to run after
criminals and communist rebels seeking an urban refuge. They are there because
slum dwellers are seeking protection from pesky Leftist party group campaign
workers.
The PNP instead of being shamed by the virtual admission that
its officers cannot preserve peace and order in urban poor communities, defended
the soldiers’ hijacking of law enforcement functions.
Has the PNP leadership forgotten that a police organization,
with a national scope and a civilian character, was precisely mandated by the
Constitution so as remove the fuzzy line between law enforcement and
counter-insurgency? And the reason for making that demarcation? Precisely to
prevent a repeat of violations of human rights during the martial law period.
Malacañang has said it will not inquire into the presence of
troops in the slums. It said the deployment was a tactical decision that is many
layers removed from policymaking, the rarefied domain of the AFP’s civilian
overlords. Behold the new Pilate.
At best, this stance is an abdication of responsibility. At worst, it is a
declaration of an open season in the metropolis on critics and dissenters.
