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Karl Not Marx
Karl Not Marx
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—ALBERT CAMUS
CON TE N TS
Alcohol, activism, Arendt: and everything in between | 1
The irony of National Students’ Day | 10
Independence in a Time of Terror | 13
The Paradox of Democracy | 16
Democracy is Not a Piece of Paper | 21
Rendezvous with Marcos | 27
Duterte as Disaster Symbol | 31
ALCOHOL, ACTIVISM, ARENDT : AND
EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
“I rebel; therefore, I exist.”
—ALBERT CAMUS
FOR SOMEONE WHO HAS TRIED to immerse himself in the words and
thoughts of the world’s greatest thinkers, this totalitarian idea is
now becoming a reality—amidst state-sponsored witch-hunts. It
attempts to wage war on critical, dissenting voices.
It’s a thought darker than it seems to be. Hell, I need
alcohol—and activism—to tide this totalitarian nightmare over, with
everyone who believes in the right of man to be free.
That’s another lesson, by the way: we have the right to be
free, without any prejudicial consent from those in power.
THE IRONY OF NATIONAL
STUDENTS’ DAY
“Fascism is capitalism in decay.”
—VLADIMIR ILYICH LENIN
DUTERTE’S TERROR BILL DOES NOT provide comfort for the common
tao. On the contrary, the bill merely evokes the memory of Kian
Delos Santos being dragged by two plainclothes policemen to a
dumpster before killing him or Lumad children and teachers being
hounded by terrorists in camouflage because National Security
Adviser Hermogenes Esperon declared their schools as “communist
fronts.” It reminds us of what Carl Angelo Arnaiz, Aldrin Castillo, Myca
Alpina, Raymart Siapo, and the tens of thousands of other Filipinos
whom the police had slaughtered in a bogus and murderous “drug
war” went through in the mercy of supposed law enforcers, or the
atrocious experience of Mindanao under two years of martial law.
For the survivors of Ferdinand Marcos’ brutal regime, it is a
throwback to the dark days of dictatorship when even the thoughts
and emotions of a person were and could be policed by the State—a
scenario lifted straight out of Orwellian dystopia and China’s
realities. Once again, we are restricted from freely expressing our
condemnation, frustrations, and protestations over the willful
incompetence, impunity, and indifference exuded by the Duterte
government.
This leads me to ask now: should we still celebrate
Independence Day in this time of terror?
At a time when our countrymen grapple with the inanities
and loopholes of the “New Normal” so their families won’t die from
hunger—if not from the virus’ infection—and face a draconian law
which practically criminalizes the smallest act of defiance, should
this “independence” still mean anything to us?
MY ANSWER IS YES.
Independence should not be an idea frozen in time, nor
should it be a memento merely displayed in museums or shown
briefly in historical documentaries. Independence is an emotional
INDEPENDENCE IN A TIME OF TERROR • 15
fervor, an idea we are tasked to uphold and fight for in times of
tyrannical rule. It is an ideal for which our heroes—from Rizal and
Bonifacio to Luna and Sakay—have immolated their lives.
Independence is a social construct that should bind us
together as a nation.
Certainly, the Terror Bill’s impending enactment into
law, or China’s continuing encroachment of our country, or
the socioeconomic hardships buttressed by the pandemic and
Duterte’s illogical response to present-day crises, may weaken our
appreciation of independence, liberation, democracy, human rights,
and freedom as vital principles in our collective lives.
Yet, independence does not die. Not even when all freedom-
fighters are murdered.
When we choose every day to continue fighting against the
callousness, to further the battle against the tyrannies of power,
imperialist domination, and poverty, to think and express ourselves
freely even if that means courting the ire of the tyrant in Malacañang,
that makes independence alive—notwithstanding the imminent
legislation of state terrorism.
When we choose to live and act freely, without the bounds
of this regime’s reign of terror, our independence shall continue to
live in us.
BEFORE CALLING THIS A DAY, let me write down what I believe is the
paradox now faced by our besieged democracy.
In a concise but sharp article for The Atlantic, journalist Sheila
Coronel described the conviction of Rappler’s Chief Executive Officer
and executive order Maria Ressa and former Rappler researcher and
writer Reynaldo Santos, Jr. on flimsy charges of cyber-libel in the
spirit of the claim that their verdict, in effect, snuffs out Philippine
democracy.
This goes against another equally sturdy point raised by a
few freedom-loving citizens, a journalist and Philippines Graphic
editor-in-chief Joel Pablo Salud, that democracy does not die with
these subsequent occurrences in the parched land where Rodrigo
Duterte rules with impunity.
Yet, the question I wanted to raise lies in neither statement.
It’s a question borne out of one seemingly inconsequential
sentence on Coronel’s piece—the one where she wrote that her first
connection with Ressa was forged in 1986, in an era of what she
succinctly wrote as “democratic rebirth” after 20 years of Ferdinand
Marcos’ brutal dictatorship.
Here’s the question: do we even have a democracy to cherish,
to begin with?
Popular imagination of democracy involves a vibrant civil
THE PARADOX OF DEMOCRACY • 17
society, strong institutions, entrenched requisites of checks-and-
balances, a free press, and constitutional safeguards on civil and
political rights.
Nothing wrong with that.
In fact, that spirit infuses the draft that became what we
now defend as the 1987 Constitution. (Note: The Charter has no
expiry date unless Duterte’s Congress super-majorities succeed in
usurping influence to push through with Charter Change.)
But here’s the catch: on a broader scope of definition, the
Philippines was—and is still—far from realizing genuine democracy,
in the most basic of its spirit.
DEMOCRACY IS NOT
A PIECE OF PAPER
“There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.”
—HANNAH ARENDT
BUT THAT’S NOT WHERE THE BLOOD TRAIL ENDS: under the Duterte
regime, Esperon, Lorenzana, Año, as well as the other generals and
civilian lapdogs included in the witch-hunt machinery that is the
National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict, led
the fiercest forms of red-tagging and vilification campaigns against
legal, progressive organizations who had howled at the numerous
anti-people policies enacted by Malacañang—from extrajudicial
killings to subservience to China and the United States, up to TRAIN
Law’s burden and the illegal arrests of activists, writers, artists,
journalists, and critics of the regime.
In fact, in one of the witch-hunt hearings called by Senator
Bato Dela Rosa to supposedly “inquire” about missing activists
allegedly kidnapped to join the New People’s Army, it was Año
who suggested that the country should revive the dreaded Anti-
Subversion Law—repealed under Ramos’ administration—to
supposedly put an end to the Communist Party of the Philippines.
DEMOCRACY IS NOT A PIECE OF PAPER • 23
In Ano’s eyes, personalities who espouse militant and radical ideas
are “communists.”
Hence, do we actually trust these people to implement the
anti-terror law, with all the expansive powers that it is offering,
without a sleight of abuse?
Only naivete causes people to think that the law is more
powerful than the people whose main task is to enforce it. That
letters imprinted on paper can actually stop the military from
committing whatever it wants—under “anti-terrorism’s” pretext.
Do not be hoodwinked into thinking that the anti-terror law is only
going after the “terrorists”—because, with these kind of butchers
in power who maintain social distancing from dissent, who needs
actual terrorists?
LET THIS BE KNOWN: the anti-terror bill’s passage will not spell the
end of democracy. Sure, the State’s terrorism would be far more
ferocious in its manifestations once this law has taken effect.
Warrantless arrests, illegal wiretapping, more extrajudicial killings,
more red-tagging, and more cases of coercion would reign supreme
in our collective lives once Duterte’s signature is affixed in the law.
DEMOCRACY IS NOT A PIECE OF PAPER • 25
But democracy is not a piece of paper. It’s far more than a
law. Democracy is us.
Democracy lives when the people, despite the legal
constrictions into the free speech and other constitutional rights
in the Constitution, push through with manifold forms of resistance
to fight back against the despotic regime. Democracy lives when
writers, cultural workers, journalists, academics, and activists
continue to hold discussions in the open to condemn Duterte’s
regime for what it really is: the worst incarnation of totalitarianism
since Hitler. Democracy lives when we, as a people, faced with a
choice of bread or liberty, have chosen to put ourselves in the line
of fire to defend what actually makes us human and alive: our civil
liberties.
Democracy cannot be legislated, because it lives where we
choose to defend it.
Democracy does not end when a law tries to extinguish it.
Democracy does not end when murderous generals started another
Khmer Rogue-like spree of executions of “enemies of the state” (or,
in this context, “terrorists”). Democracy is only snuffed out when
we do not choose the avenue of resistance—be it in the streets, on
social media, or in its written form—because in resistance, in our
collective resolution to pay the highest price for freedom, that’s
where democracy thrives.
WITH THE PASSAGE OF THIS LAW, democracy has not been killed. It
has only taken a different form. It now hides in its own succor, taking
on new ways of manifesting itself to throw a fist at the dictator, and
hopefully to put an end to the tyrant’s madness. To echo the words
of Philippines Graphic’s former editor-in-chief, Joel Pablo Salud,
democracy has gone underground. And with that, the battle has
shifted: from the parliamentary, the combat is now in the streets
and in the court of public opinion and history.
That, I believe, is where we should all of us now start
mobilizing ourselves.
Tonight, let us mourn. Let us envelop our fears. Let us
shout, and curse, and resign to desperation over the mockery that
the Duterte-controlled House of Representatives had chosen to
26 • KARL PATRICK WILFRED M. SUYAT
exercise. Let us scream and rage against the travesty that is the
Duterte regime.
Tomorrow, we rise again to struggle. Democracy lives in the
fiercest of our battles.
In the final act, lest we forget, it is not democracy that
history tramples upon and sweeps under the rug. Tyrants will always
have their downfall — and Duterte is never an exception to this curse
of despotism.
RENDEZVOUS WITH MARCOS
The dictator was right about history.
But so are we—we are not off his hook yet.
DUTERTE AS DISASTER SYMBOL
Distraction, deception, disinformation, indecision, and despotism
are the five main mixes of the Duterte disaster.
ONCE AGAIN, THIS DISASTER REARED its ugly head through Duterte’s
initial response to Typhoon Ulysses’ devastation: a mockery of a
‘national address’ and aerial shots of Marikina and Rizal.
Until this writing, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and
Management Council (NDRRMC) has not even convened the Cabinet,
especially national government agencies relevant to disaster
response and management, to map out the government’s next steps
battling the typhoon’s despoliation. Yesterday, Interior Secretary
Eduardo Año himself told the media that Duterte ‘might’—this was
the word that appeared on Philippine Daily Inquirer’s news tweet—
hold an ‘emergency meeting’ to discuss the regime’s strategy in
mitigating the typhoon’s damage. No meeting had transpired yet,
despite the urgency.
In fact, some residents in Marikina and Rizal are still trapped
on the roofs or second-to-third floors of their submerged homes—
where the pandemic’s threat intersperses with the danger of being
drowned, contracting infections, or facing days’ worth of hunger that
the floodwaters pose on them—while waiting for air rescue. Isn’t this
enough of a picture to symbolize the Duterte regime’s despicable
inaction?
In the same ‘national address’ where he suggested that
he actually wanted to swim through floodwaters, Duterte tried
to pull off some sliver of assurance when he announced that the
national government possesses enough resources to deal with the
DUTERTE AS DISASTER SYMBOL • 33
crisis. Strikingly enough, a few hours before that already-belated
bolahan, no less than Marikina mayor Marcy Teodoro himself aired
a desperate call for aid but addressed it to the private sector.
Shouldn’t he be calling the national government’s attention? This
comes from the chief executive of a city that invested in disaster
mitigation and response to avoid another Ondoy-like devastation
from afflicting them. It shows the total score on this inutile regime.
And what about Duterte’s mollycoddles? Environment
Undersecretary Benny Antiporda, together with Metropolitan Manila
Development Authority’s spokesperson Celine Pialogo, was busy
promoting the ‘stability’ of that stupid dolomite sands poured over
a little portion of Manila Bay—while thousands flee the typhoon’s
wrath in a do-or-die situation.
In the face of uprooted trees, impassable roads, and entire
subdivisions drenched with muddy floodwaters, Antiporda has this
to say: “dolomite lang ang matatag!”