Tuesday 5 September 2017

"Resistance against the Remorseless"

"Resistance against the Remorseless"

(or Notes from a defiant nation against a remorseless order)


The Duterte regime's justification to continue the dreaded "operation Tokhang" is said to be disregarding human rights if not the constitution itself. For as time goes by, the present regime in pursuit of restoring order and stability, turns out to be toying with power by invoking fear, and justifying it as "security."

But that kind of situation, used as a basis to condemn the administration and his allies, is rather condemned no matter how its apologetics deemed as necessary if not an application of a "leadership principle" and redescribed as "rule of law".
And from these apologetics, assuming to be that they're carrying the consent of the governed as to be the moral justification of government, then that majority consent confers on the supplanting system less moral authority than the supplanted system had.

Though in this case, public opinion is for the most part evenly divided in the State's continuation of the Drug War and its likes, if there is any war to begin with. With fanatics justifying its bloodied exploits as an application of "leadership principles" over "rule of law", the once anti-narcotics war has becoming a war against the poor itself, especially when policemen threatening each and every community with a distorted view of the law- and actions such as the recent killing of innocents tagged as "addicts" or "misfits" hath made law and order itself far from its worth except those of provoking fear.

Worse, these scenarios, both legal and extralegal alike, turns out that the administration is eventually dismantling the hypocrisies of constitutionalism, trying to mellow the differences between "right" and "legal", or even "good" and "just"; hence a return of a power at its most purest form such as a destructive one. Words like "revolutionary government" becomes an alibi for an exercise for force politics as a way of sustaining the operations of the administration be it its creation of infrastructures and its killing machine.

And like Duterte's idolised predecessor, he and his clique, supported by its apologetics tries to slipped it in, like one or two tea or tablespoons at a time, like so much bad-tasting medicine, all in the name of restructuring society; and that alongside curbing illegal drugs, he and his gang as trying to rationalise everything controversial as if necessary, and, for the most part as according to fake reports and well-invested social media, making Filipinos accepted that and be interpreted as an "explosive kind of change". Everything that as if equated to the "yellows" or any other rival has to go by hook or by crook, and it is through president Rodrigo Duterte who's gonna lead in that kind of action. With statements whose words as mainly meant to threaten, if not to kill, many perceived the idea that sometimes a leadership principle is necessary to upheld "rule of law" regardless of its illegality such as condoning Extra-Judicial Killings and other forms of state-sponsored repression.

Strange but to think that in spite of all the system-sponsored catharsis as an imposition of justice, there are still people who rather doubt the sincerity of upholding justice and human rights under the present administration. And to think that fanatics insisting their distorted view of the law which is also a distorted "leadership principle" as "just", it is also justifying an act that its remorseless, bereft of conscience from those undertaking the regime's bloodied kind of action in a way Julius Streicher justifies his actions during the Nuremberg Trial.

But another strange inconsistency emerges. That in seeing reports about the poor getting killed and the at the same time seeing well off facing the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee with its proceedings, the concerned has subsequently demonstrated that the action the system (not just the regime) is bent on delivering justice. From it simply reinforces the idea how the law hath been distorted by a distorted leadership principle. Did they changed minds about the recent findings on the deaths of adolescents like Kian de los Santos or Carl Angelo Arnaiz? Nope- they still insist they are drug addicts or hold-uppers, misfits meant to be executed; or if found innocent- collateral damage.

And in it, it appears that the regime is like any other administration from the past, that it resorted to the jack-boot, disguise it how they may. For as democracy rather becomes bogus when all the powers of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines is increasingly concentrated in the hands of one man, no satrap had ever more powers than Rodrigo Duterte and his clique. No wonder why he had to dispose the really concerned in his cabinet and vowed to continue the repressive order. Lopez was removed, followed by Taguiwalo, there are others who remained but since they are aware and concerned, they are likely to be disposed.

Whatever the administration and its apologetics insist that change happened all over, the Philippines is still in bondage.

And that Jack-boot government deserves only one response from free people—resistance.