"Calibrated Preemptive Response"

From the Malaya Editorial:

OUR government respects the rights of our people to assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances. However, these rights, as guaranteed by the Constitution, are not absolute."

"They can only be exercised in a peaceful manner and always in consideration of the welfare of the majority of our people."

This, as formulated by Gloria Arroyo, is the underpinning of her policy of breaking up "illegal assemblies" and arresting their leaders and participants. A more fraudulent idea we have not come across since the time of Ferdinand Marcos.

Let’s see why it is a shell game.

When Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita last week first floated the idea of "calibrated preemptive response," we immediately noticed that in proposing to crack down on street protests he was not only talking about the administrative requirements that must be met to secure a rally permit. Incoherent as he was, he was broadly hinting that street protests could be banned in the name of the greater good of society.

The easy refutation of Ermita’s claim, of course, lies in the Bill of Rights. These rights are enshrined in the Constitution not to promote the well-being of the society or the interest of the majority. They are there to protect the minority, nay, even the lone individual if his opinion runs run counter to those held by the 85 million souls living on these islands. Even if only 10 citizens shout at the top of their voice that Gloria is a liar, a cheat and a thief, the Bill of Rights is there precisely to guarantee their right to air their sentiments.

And that’s where the fraud comes in. We are faced not by the J. S. Mill’s classic problem on liberty – of protecting the minority from the majority or of the individual from the state.

What we are facing is the problem of an illegitimate government that the overwhelming majority wants replaced. Gloria does not speak for the majority, much less the people. All this talk about the society’s clamor to be left alone to pursue its members’ business of earning a living is a lie.

All Gloria wants is to keep the power she has stolen. She has shown that she would not allow decency, morality and the laws to stand in her way.

What we are now facing is the emerging tyranny of a usurper. Banning street protests is indeed a calibrated response. She wants to cow the people to acquiesce to her continuing rule. If the people resist, she can invoke emergency powers, suspend the writ of habeas corpus and declare martial law – in that order of calibration. That’s the neat schema of intensified repression.

But the people are not helpless. Speaking of calibrated responses, street protests can turn into a general strike, a general strike into an uprising and an uprising into a revolution.

And when deceit, manipulation and state violence have exhausted their course, the truth will emerge. The people - not Gloria, the party of thieves or the cabal of generals - are the real sovereign.