The approval of Congress to extend martial law in Mindanao is only a plot for the government to place the whole country under authoritarian rule, according to the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL).
Congress, voting 240-27 with no abstention during a special joint session, approved President Duterte’s request to extend martial rule in Mindanao for another year.
The NUPL branded the approval of Congress as a part of a “grand design” to transform the country into a police state as there is “no sufficient factual basis” to justify martial rule extension.
“There is no actual and real – not threatened or predicted – rebellion in the entire Mindanao of such intensity and scope as to honestly satisfy the strict extraordinary constitutional powers,” the group said in a statement on Wednesday.
Duterte’s declaration of communist rebels as “terrorists” and “demonization” of militant groups, the NUPL said, was an “obvious” attempt to lay grounds for a nationwide martial rule.
The “continuing crime” of rebellion by the New People’s Army (NPA) was among the grounds of Duterte’s request to extend martial law in Mindanao, according to presidential spokesman Harry Roque.
“The proponents and supporters of these dangerous moves are playing with wild fire that will engulf us all,” the NUPL said.
“The democratic space left for us to breathe is getting smaller and smaller by the day and will suffocate all our rights before we realize it. Unless we refuse to just stand and watch idly by,” it added.