NOTES BEHIND BARS: The Storm after the election

(This article was reprinted from the Philippine Human Rights Update Volume 1, Number 6 published on March 14, 1986.  It is Mr. Jazmines' last article for the column "Notes in Prison" since President Corazon Aquino granted amnesty to political prisoners within the first 100 days of her administration.)

The snap election has come and gone, and President Marcos got his “vote of confidence.”

But it is not as simple as that.

It left in its trail the grossest electoral fraud and terrorism ever in the history of Philippine politics. According to the statement of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) read from the pulpits of the Catholic Church last February 16, “the polls were unparalleled in the fraudulence of their conduct.” The CBCP statement especially condemned the systematic disenfranchisement of voters, the widespread and massive vote-buying, the deliberate tampering with the returns and the intimidation, harassment, terrorism and murder which made naked fear the decisive factor in the voting.

So wanton were the cases of electoral violence that Tanggol-Karapatan (TAPAT), an alliance of various organizations for the monitoring and exposure of cases of fraud and violence committed during the snap polls, has counted so far an unprecedented figure of more than 700 cases of human rights violations, including more than 100 deaths.

The regime so underestimated the people’s determination to end the tyrannical rule burdening them for the last 20 years that it had to unleash all kinds of dirty tricks and terror in order to insure its “victory”. Indeed, the regime had to snatch through theft and with the use of naked armed force what it was determined to secure at any cost-its “new mandate”.

All this, however, is backfiring upon the regime.

Just as the people know very well who killed Sen. Benigno S. Aquino, Jr., they know very well, too, who really won in the election. The people know their will has been thwarted.

By its own doing, the regime has turned the last election into a valuable more than ever before, the people have learned very painfully that a fascist dictatorship cannot be brought down in an electoral contest where it makes up all the rules, runs the entire exercise and counts the votes. But it is clear, too, how the people’s struggle can be advanced by carrying on an educational campaign parallel – but not contrary – to the anti-fascist forces in the electoral campaign.

Especially with a declaration straight from the horse’s mouth that the U.S, bases in the Philippines are of more importance (“one cannot minimize the importance of those bases…”) to the U.S. than election fraud and human rights in the Philippines, the hypocrisy in the U.S. government’s espousal of “democracy” and “ free and honest elections” has all the more been exposed. A great many of the Filipino people, including many anti-fascists who have naively been pinning their hopes on genuine American interest in democratic reforms and clean and honest elections in the country, have began to see more clearly the fact of a U.S. – Marcos conspiracy.

To that extent that the dictatorship has exhausted its arsenal of deceit and exposed itself to the fullest, for the vast majority of the Filipino people the lessons of 20 years of tyrannical rule has culminated in this” that this U.S. – backed dictatorship can only be brought down by the power of a people creatively galvanized into a determined fighting force that wisely chooses its own fields of battle and its own weapons of struggle, always to its advantage and with reasonable assurance of victory.

At a time when elections cannot officially reflect the popular mandate for change in national leadership as well as in the political order, the electoral opposition itself has extended its fight to the promotion of civil disobedience and hinted at being open to other forms of struggle by the people to end U.S.  – Marcos conspiracy and bring down the dictatorial regime. In the mammoth Tagumpay ng Bayan (People’s Victory) held last February 16 at the Luneta to claim the victory of the people at the polls and at the time to protest the continued usurpation of power by the Marcos regime, presidential candidate Cory Aquino detailed seven forms of the opposition’s civil disobedience program.

In the same statement where it condemned the conduct of the presidential election, the largely conservative Catholic Church hierarchy also called on the people to take active part in a “non-violent struggle for justice” (read: civil disobedience).

The cause-oriented group like BAYAN and BANDILA and the various sectoral mass organizations will certainly participate in and also provide direction to such a civil disobedience movement. Through their sectoral and community organizations or spontaneously, the basic masses will lend much to such a protest movement in terms of substance, perseverance, creativity, even sacrifices.

The masses of the Filipino people seem to be enthusiastically taking up the various calls for civil disobedience and militant resistance against the unwanted and illegitimate regime. By the millions, the people are now moving to an advanced front in the struggle for their liberation.

The Filipino people have long been outraged at the ruling regime. In the wake of the Aquino assassination, this outrage erupted into a major explosion that was to last several months. The Batasang Pambansa elections of 1984, the Agrava Board investigation into the assassination and the Sandigan trial of the Aquino-Galman Double-Murder Case somewhat diffused the explosion in the streets.

With the deepening of the economic and political crisis besetting the country, the just-concluded snap presidential election was supposed to further diffuse the explosion.

But the intransigence and brazenness of the Marcos regime have become its own trap. The unprecedented fraud and violence committed by the ruling party to obtain its “new mandate” has only exasperated the people all the more, including the election-oriented opposition. Ironically, the snap election has only fanned the flames of a greater conflagration.

The people have long been a gathering storm of grievances. Soon, it will be unleashing all its accumulated might and fury at a derelict regime that still refuses to budge. At this point, there can be no more stopping of this might and fury.

The people’s total celebration will come with the culmination of this storm.

Mr. Alan Jazmines and family after his release;from Philippine Human Rights Update