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Civil liberties are everyone’s concern

In the summer of 1971, as the impact of the 1970 First Quarter Storm and its radical demands for social change rippled through the country, a Constitutional Convention gathered to define a new charter.

The halls of the 1971 Con-Con echoed with nationalist calls to include provisions against foreign control of the economy and against foreign military presence. There was also increasing democratic pressure to fortify civil liberties and to reform the elitist and corrupt political system.

Many groups were especially worried that second-termer President Marcos would stop at nothing to ensure that the new charter will enable him to run for a third term after his current term ended in 1973. Thus, they also waged a strong Con-Con lobby to ban any provision that would allow Marcos to extend his rule.

Unknown to the wide public, however, the local CIA station, US Ambassador Henry Byroade, and their favorite puppet (Marcos himself) were already “making arrangements” to ensure that the anti-US and anti-Marcos measures in the Con-con would never materialize.

But the attempts to bribe the anti-Marcos Con-con delegates (the notorious “Con-con payola scandal”) were exposed. Also, the November 1971 senatorial elections were approaching, and the anti-Marcos opposition was gearing up to block Marcos’s attempt to control the legislature.

At this point, the fascist Marcos regime escalated its tactics of repression. On August 21, 1971, the Liberal Party proclamation rally was bombed, nearly wiping out its senatorial slate. Promptly, as if on cue, Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus through Proclamation No. 881, enabling his fascist minions to harass militant activists, opposition leaders, and outspoken Con-Con delegates with arrest and indefinite detention.

The US-Marcos scheme backfired. The national-democratic movement swelled its ranks and joined hands with other nationalist and civil libertarian groups to point at Marcos as the “Mad Bomber” behind the August 21 Plaza Miranda massacre, to scrap Proc. No. 881 on the writ suspension, and to uphold civil liberties.

Amidst the almost daily protest actions, the Movement of Concerned Citizens for Civil Liberties (MCCCL) was born. It was initiated by staunch nationalists and democrats Lorenzo Tañada, Jose Diokno, Joaquin Roces, Joaquin Po, and stalwarts of the National Press Club.

MCCCL served very effectively as a rallying center for millions of Filipinos who wanted to fight the increasingly brazen fascist measures and authoritarian ambitions of the Marcos regime. It was so effective, that the anti-Marcos senatorial slate scored a near-total landslide victory against the Marcos-backed NP slate in the November 1971 elections. Marcos was ultimately forced to restore the writ of habeas corpus.

The suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, together with other related police-state measures and anti-communist witchhunts, were in fact a dress rehearsal, a warning sign for martial law that would be proclaimed a year later.

As we all know now, the 1971-72 MCCCL could not prevent the rise of a full-blown fascist dictatorship. But it did raise public awareness and the spirit of militant protest against these grave threats to civil liberties. Without the 1971-72 anti-fascist united front, Marcos would have imposed martial law earlier, and a less-prepared citizenry would have suffered so much the worse.

Fast forward to 2005. Today, as starkly as 34 years ago, we are witness to widespread and systematic attacks by the US-backed Macapagal-Arroyo regime on people’s civil and political rights.

Especially in the past months, killings of political activists, peasant and workers’ union leaders, human rights workers and lawyers, church people in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, and crusading media practitioners have been carried out with impunity.

In the provinces, rural villages and non-combatant folk are being subjected to bombings, forced evacuation, and other forms of collective reprisals and human rights violations in the name of “counter-terrorism”. In the cities, peaceful rallies are violently dispersed, and their leaders mauled and hauled to jails, because of the “No permit, no rally” policy – a brazen infringement on the rights to free speech and assembly.

Nationwide, legitimate organizations, advocacy groups and leaders and individuals are maliciously tagged as “enemies of the state”, “terrorists”, or “destabilizers”. Under US instigation and justified through a dubious spate of bombings, the Anti-Terrorism Bill is being steam-rollered through Congress to clamp down on all forms of dissent and to justify the worsening curtailment of civil liberties. Other police-state measures, such as the National ID system, are being smuggled in.

Meanwhile, the Macapagal-Arroyo regime is preparing another “Charter Change” scheme, this time to undo whatever nationalist- and reform-oriented provisions in the present 1987 Constitution remain as stumbling blocks to US-sponsored globalization, neo-liberalization, and counter-terrorist wars.

Amidst the worsening crisis, growing protests, and rising clamor for radical change, attempts to reimpose another openly fascist and dictatorial rule are not a far-fetched scenario. A lameduck president like Marcos in 1972, GMA is now constitutionally barred from running for another term. Her rapacious clique being what they are, they would certainly welcome authoritarian rule to maximize their stay in power.

In this light, we join the the activist movement, the churches, the academe, the various professions, and civil libertarians from all walks of life, in reviving the MCCCL as a broad movement for civil liberties. We express our support to all Northern Luzon-based organizations who are now gearing to attend MCCCL’s scheduled relaunch on May 25 in Quezon City.

Once again, we reiterate one of the most important lessons of that tormented Marcos era, which under the equally and ruthless rule of Gloria has become more relevant than ever: Civil liberties is everyone’s concern. It is as precious as food on the table, if not more precious.

As the thousands of victims of human rights abuses from the time of Marcos until now have realized, civil liberties is as precious as life itself. #

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