ISSUE ANALYSIS No.21
November 16, 2007

The Credibility Factor

The bomb that exploded at the House of Representatives in Quezon City on Nov. 13 killed four people, including a congressman, and wounded at least 11 others. The explosion was powerful that it ripped through the south wing of the Batasan building and destroyed vehicles that were parked. Investigators from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said that the bomb was an anti-vehicle device. As any ordnance expert would know, that type of bomb is military-issued.

With the explosion taking place at the same time that two impeachment charges were pending at the House while in the Senate investigations are ongoing on the latest strings of scandals and bribery involving President Gloria M. Arroyo, speculations were inevitably raised – not without basis – that it was politically-motivated. The presidential office has been trying to squelch such allegations, with its own theory that the bomb had a specific target – Basilan Rep. Wahar Akbar, who died in the blast, adding that in fact two weeks ahead of the incident they had information of death threats against him. Why the government was unable to prevent his killing – despite its intelligence agencies and huge resources – is beyond speculation. If Akbar was the target, why did the assassins need to use a bomb, then detonate it inside the House premises, and not pull the assassination with the use of firearms elsewhere? Planting the bomb at Congress could signify a bigger political message.

Still, one cannot rule out the possibility that an outspoken anti-Arroyo critic and activist, Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) Rep. Luz Ilagan, could have been a target. Ilagan, just several hours earlier, joined her colleagues in the progressive bloc in initiating impeachment charges against the President – the third in three years. This is one of the plausible angles that should be looked into, considering that her political party has suffered violent attacks perpetrated by state security forces, with their own members among the 890 victims of extra-judicial killings and other state terrorist acts since 2001.

A probe into this particular angle is also warranted in the light of the probable political motives behind the Glorietta bombing, where 11 persons died and nearly a hundred others were wounded; the ambush of a top Comelec lawyer; and the threats of assassination against the progressive members of Congress, including senators and House Speaker Jose de Venecia. All these have happened in a period of three weeks, with two high-profile institutional targets hit – Glorietta, at the country’s prime financial district in Ayala; and the Batasan building.

Congress

Congress as a target of bombing is without precedent, ever since its predecessor, Philippine Assembly, was established a century ago. The closest that comes to mind as being a high-value target was the Quezon City Hall housing the Constitutional Convention in 1972. The bomb, planted inside a bathroom, went off amid a payola incident involving then President Ferdinand E. Marcos and pro-administration delegates. A few months later, Defense Secretary now Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile would fake his assassination and blame it on the Left. Within 24 hours, martial law was declared and Congress was shut.

The takeover of the Batasan security and of the bombing probe by the Philippine National Police’s Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) is only meant to bolster the Palace’s theory about Akbar being the specific target of assassination. In charge of the PNP is Director General Avelino Razon, who used to head Task Force Usig which was charged pro forma with investigating cases of extra-judicial executions. Razon’s theory that the politically-motivated killings were part of the Leftist purge did not hold water as far as the UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, the Commission on Human Rights and even the Supreme Court, were concerned. Razon’s first major job as PNP chief was to direct the investigation of the Glorietta bombing. His probe pointed incredibly to a leaked methane gas as the culprit even if other investigators said it was a military C-4 that did it. No further investigation. Now, if Razon, as Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno had hinted, had known about death threats against Akbar should not he be sacked for incompetence by allowing the explosion to happen that proved fatal to the congressman?

The Arroyo government administers all the key agencies and resources that could prevent these heinous crimes and real acts of terror from being committed as well as in bringing the perpetrators to justice. First off, there is the National Security Council (NSC) and National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), followed by the various intelligence arms of the AFP and PNP, whose spy agencies, operatives, moles, and assets operate from the national to the barangay levels in 80 provinces. Then there are prosecuting agencies under the Department of Justice (DoJ) as well as the constitutionally-mandated Ombudsman. If it wills, the government can press charges up to the various courts and see to it that justice is served: for the victims of crimes given justice, and the perpetrators penalized. To perform their tasks efficiently, the government allocates billions for their budget in addition to military aid and intelligence and psywar training provided by the United States.

Instead of providing security to the people, however, government’s security and investigative agencies are being put to task for being major violators of human rights, based on reports of the Commission on Human Rights and other institutions. As evidenced by the political and media killings, the series of forced disappearances, and other cases of human rights violations, the state’s security apparatuses have either been complicit to these crimes or negligent of their tasks in seeing to it that the rights of citizens, including the most outspoken critics using the legal arena, are respected under the Constitution and international law. Investigations are sham and the probers only serve to whitewash these investigations.

For those following up these cases, leads, and trends, the state's security apparatuses and many pro-Arroyo generals and police directors heading them only serve to protect the powers-that-be never mind if this results in the infringement of the civil and political rights of people most especially critics, social advocates, and political dissenters. The broad repercussions of all these are a state of destabilization and a climate of fear among the people.

Systematic terror

Most dangerous, however, is when the security apparatuses are used systematically to sow fear and terror among the people. The more recent examples of this are the fascist rule under the Marcos dictatorship, the total war policy unleashed by the succeeding regimes, and now, Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya I and II, which is a blueprint of the Cabinet Oversight Committee for Internal Security’s National International Security Policy (NISP), headed by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.

Hidden in these security strategies, however, are the state’s dirty work programs that use death squads, triggermen, and other special operatives who include ex-convicts with a carte blanche to conduct special psychological warfare projects such as the ones that have led to the summary executions and forcible abduction of many activists and outspoken critics. The allegations of the Oakwood mutiny rebel officers of clandestine mission orders to bomb civilian targets in Mindanao are instructive of these operations, as were the bombings, arsons, and fake assassination attempts that Marcos’s special operatives conducted to justify the imposition of martial law in the early 1970s.

These are the reasons why the Arroyo government has enjoyed no shred of credibility, either in the territory of human security or in investigation and prosecution. Pulse Asia’s recent opinion survey shows Arroyo given a distrust rating of 46 percent and a disapproval rating of 39 percent. Doubts are high that no corruption case will be solved if the government itself is involved, and no heinous crime or acts of state terror can bring out the real culprit either if its own security forces are suspected to be responsible in past and present incidents.

The call for impartial investigation of the House bombing is therefore in order and deserves the support of everybody. Questions remain, however, whether such citizens’ fact-finding body should be empowered to investigate and bring to court the brains behind the carnage.