dont worry everything is fine
- From: "dinky soliman" <bernardsongco@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 19 Mar 2006 22:05:31 -0800
RANDY DAVID, who has been a steadily insistent, reasoned and eloquent
voice to many people in these troubled times, filed a petition before
the Supreme Court to have Presidential Proclamation 1017 declared
unconstitutional. His petition, ably argued by former UP Law dean Raul
Pangalangan and Professor Harry Roque before the High Court, is
anchored upon bedrock principles of democracy that are stirringly
expressed by US Supreme Court Chief Justice Hughes in the following
terms: "The greater the importance of safeguarding the community from
incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence,
the more imperative is the need to preserve inviolate the
constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in
order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion, to the
end that government may be responsive to the will of the people and
that changes, if desired, may be obtained by peaceful means. Therein
lies the security of the republic, the very foundation of
constitutional government."
Proclamation 1017 is unconstitutional because it is based on false and
ambiguous premises and, worse, overreaches. It asserts the exercise of
powers by the President that, under the Constitution, she may not
legitimately do by herself alone. While the President is
constitutionally empowered to call out the Armed Forces to prevent or
suppress lawless violence, invasion or rebellion, it is quite clear
that she cannot suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus,
proclaim martial law over the entire Philippines or any part thereof,
or take over utilities without the approval of Congress. Moreover, the
President definitely has no valid authority to kill "people power"
by preventing the legitimate expression of grievances against her
administration. It is silly to say that freedom of expression is not
absolute; that is a truism that goes hand in hand with the even more
compelling principle that the freedom should be treated as well-nigh
absolute. A newspaper cannot be closed down, and journalists cannot be
told what not to say to satisfy the insecurities of those in power and
to avoid their responsibility to explain and be honest at all times.
Proclamation 1017 has, of course, been lifted. But only on paper. Its
spirit continues to linger on. Its vestiges can be seen in the
increasingly strident and arrogantly confident voice of the police and
military to continuously assert a right and an authority to monitor the
media, to create and impose their own arbitrary police standards
thereon, to execute warrantless arrests for decades-old charges or upon
obviously trumped-up ones. Its disheartening remnants are the
unapologetic trampling of constitutional rights to free speech and
assembly by law enforcers so confident they will be supported (or at
least not disowned with any sincerity) by this administration that they
no longer even bother to be creative and credible in their
pronouncements. Witness their straight-faced insistence, despite being
captured on live television in carrying an obviously struggling and
resistant congresswoman into an unmarked police vehicle, that she had
not been arrested but was merely being brought to safer ground, i.e.
Camp Karingal, to protect her from the possible violence that would
ensue from an allegedly unlawful rally, on claim that there was no
permit. Witness further the arrest of a former social welfare
secretary Dinky Soliman for strolling along Baywalk on Roxas Boulevard
with a few others, wearing black T-shirts asking an unnamed person to
be removed from office immediately. What was more dispiriting about
that particular incident was the arrest still made even if President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was not specifically named in their T-shirts.
Still, what is wrong with openly admitting that it was the President
who was the object of their wish to be removed from office? Is it now a
crime to articulate this particular view? Can nobody say that they want
GMA out of power anymore on pain of being arrested even if, according
to a survey, about 65 percent already of the populace desire this
particular result?
The arrest for strolling as a violation of the law is, of course,
ridiculous as it is alarming. It is demonstrative of the clear policy
that this administration means to impose: "No rally." This, even
after Proclamation 1017 has been lifted. And yet there should be no
question that people have a constitutional right to peaceful assembly
as a means of expressing their grievances. That right cannot be
suppressed by a deliberately overbroad enforcement of a "no-permit,
no-rally policy" or by an inhumane, violent and cruel "calibrated
preemptive response" so as to amount to a "no-rally policy."
The Supreme Court can no longer delay deciding matters of
transcendental importance because any foot-dragging may be interpreted
as participation in the continuing suppression of the basic human
rights of our people.
.
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