Martial law not the answer to ‘imagined’ peril — lawyer

NUPL chair Neri Colmenares. INQUIRER FILE

“Do not be swayed by imagined or magnified peril,” former Bayan Muna representative and current chair of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyer Neri Colmenares told the Supreme Court Wednesday during the second day of its oral argument on the validity of the one year martial law extension in Mindanao.

He reminded the high court that framers of the 1987 Constitution intended the use of martial law only in a theater of war and not on threats or a preventive means to stop imminent violence.

“Government can always claim that all rebellion poses a threat to public safety, for after all it is a public uprising of armed and women,” Colmenares said.

“The fact that there is a rebellion does not give the president the blanket authority to exercise martial law powers on a generalized martial law powers on a generalized claim that the rebellion threatens a generalized definition of public safety. Otherwise, we will have martial law in the entire country, 24 hours a day, seven days a week because there is rebellion nationwide,” he added.

He reiterated that two previous administrations managed to quell violence in Mindanao without declaring martial law — there was armed combat, house-to-house operations, tanks were used, check points were put in place and even aerial bombings were conducted.

So, if the government can do such military operations without declaring martial law, Colmenares asked what kind of specific power or what kind of accomplishment does the government want that a one year martial law is still needed in Mindanao.

However, he said the government  refused “to completely and candidly divulge the power they wish to impose on us is actually because government apparently relishes a hidden agenda—these martial law powers will actually be used not against critics and dissenters.”

“It is creating ghosts to scare us all into submission,” Colmenares added. /cbb

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