Misuse of the military
Misuse of the military
Updated 00:47am (Mla time) Nov 19, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 19, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
REGARDLESS of whether there were agents provocateurs in the Hacienda Luisita picket, it is unforgivable that military men were made to keep the peace. Predictably, they made a wreck of it. Here is another slapstick, if not tragic, variant of, "Where are the police when you need them?"
Well, the police were with the military. We don't know if they were hiding under the fatigue skirts of the soldiers. What we know is that military men were there, firing their guns at the picketers and just about whomever came within shooting sight.
It could also be that the policemen were, like their military counterparts, firing away to their hearts' content. But if they had not been backed up or even led by the military, then there would be no accusation that the workers' picket as in the one in Luisita had been "militarized." Moreover, the affair would have been less trigger-happy, less bloody, since the police are presumably more capable of handling civil disturbances.
This is not to absolve the ranks of the workers who might indeed have hidden provocateurs and agitators within their ranks. For all intents and purposes, the picket might have been illegal and carried out by elements that didn't exactly have a stake in industrial peace in Luisita, but had a stake in the confusion that anarchist violence foments in order to give way for what the Marxists pompously call a "revolutionary situation," rife for a power grab, whatever that means.
In fact, the United Luisita Workers Union, the certified bargaining agent of the hacienda workers, has denied it initiated the picket that forced a stoppage of the Luisita sugar refinery. A union leader said that despite the difficult CBA negotiation, there was no deadlock to signal a strike. In fact, there was no strike vote.
Workers and unionists belonging to another union led the picket. If this is true, then the Luisita fracas may be one of those variants of a peculiarity in Philippine unionism: union raiding. Union-raiding explains why organized labor in the Philippines is a joke: Unionists don't exactly organize workers-they prefer to organize the organized by raiding another union or pulling the rug from under the certified bargaining agent. This indicates another uniquely Philippine unionist phenomenon: Most of our union bosses are lawyers! Philippine unionism is led by ambulance chasers!
But considering the complexity of Philippine unionism, including its apparent tendency toward picket violence, shouldn't labor authorities and law enforcers have evolved by now a code of engagement that would lessen the violence and the bloodshed and enhance the prospects for industrial peace and dispute resolution?
Alas, it seems that civilian authorities and law enforcers continue to respond to civil disturbances or possibilities of such in a haphazard manner. Worse, they seem to have always relied on the practice of deputizing and dispatching the military to quell civil turmoil, a practice of the repressive martial law era.
More than 10 years after the abolition of the Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police and the creation of a police force that is "national in scope and civilian in character," public safety and order remains only nominally in the hands of the police. This is not to say that there's a Constabulary hangover in the Philippine National Police (PNP). It merely means that the PNP has not entirely weaned itself away from its military past, proof that the old habits of a former repressive era refuse to die.
It could be said, of course, that the warped land-lease situation in Luisita, in which the farmers and workers supposedly own the land but have leased it to the Luisita landlords in the rather twisted compromise stipulated by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, is another proof of the feudal resiliency that belongs to the same repressive past. But this is not the issue at the moment.
The issue is how to apply judiciously and competently state powers on labor disputes with the view to enhancing industrial peace without compromising public safety. For a nation that has had an ugly, traumatic brush with a military dictatorship, it is obvious that there's a need to let civilian ways of doing things do their work competently and effectively. But it seems our authorities haven't learned their lesson. Or do they still cling romantically to the fascist past?
Updated 00:47am (Mla time) Nov 19, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the November 19, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
REGARDLESS of whether there were agents provocateurs in the Hacienda Luisita picket, it is unforgivable that military men were made to keep the peace. Predictably, they made a wreck of it. Here is another slapstick, if not tragic, variant of, "Where are the police when you need them?"
Well, the police were with the military. We don't know if they were hiding under the fatigue skirts of the soldiers. What we know is that military men were there, firing their guns at the picketers and just about whomever came within shooting sight.
It could also be that the policemen were, like their military counterparts, firing away to their hearts' content. But if they had not been backed up or even led by the military, then there would be no accusation that the workers' picket as in the one in Luisita had been "militarized." Moreover, the affair would have been less trigger-happy, less bloody, since the police are presumably more capable of handling civil disturbances.
This is not to absolve the ranks of the workers who might indeed have hidden provocateurs and agitators within their ranks. For all intents and purposes, the picket might have been illegal and carried out by elements that didn't exactly have a stake in industrial peace in Luisita, but had a stake in the confusion that anarchist violence foments in order to give way for what the Marxists pompously call a "revolutionary situation," rife for a power grab, whatever that means.
In fact, the United Luisita Workers Union, the certified bargaining agent of the hacienda workers, has denied it initiated the picket that forced a stoppage of the Luisita sugar refinery. A union leader said that despite the difficult CBA negotiation, there was no deadlock to signal a strike. In fact, there was no strike vote.
Workers and unionists belonging to another union led the picket. If this is true, then the Luisita fracas may be one of those variants of a peculiarity in Philippine unionism: union raiding. Union-raiding explains why organized labor in the Philippines is a joke: Unionists don't exactly organize workers-they prefer to organize the organized by raiding another union or pulling the rug from under the certified bargaining agent. This indicates another uniquely Philippine unionist phenomenon: Most of our union bosses are lawyers! Philippine unionism is led by ambulance chasers!
But considering the complexity of Philippine unionism, including its apparent tendency toward picket violence, shouldn't labor authorities and law enforcers have evolved by now a code of engagement that would lessen the violence and the bloodshed and enhance the prospects for industrial peace and dispute resolution?
Alas, it seems that civilian authorities and law enforcers continue to respond to civil disturbances or possibilities of such in a haphazard manner. Worse, they seem to have always relied on the practice of deputizing and dispatching the military to quell civil turmoil, a practice of the repressive martial law era.
More than 10 years after the abolition of the Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police and the creation of a police force that is "national in scope and civilian in character," public safety and order remains only nominally in the hands of the police. This is not to say that there's a Constabulary hangover in the Philippine National Police (PNP). It merely means that the PNP has not entirely weaned itself away from its military past, proof that the old habits of a former repressive era refuse to die.
It could be said, of course, that the warped land-lease situation in Luisita, in which the farmers and workers supposedly own the land but have leased it to the Luisita landlords in the rather twisted compromise stipulated by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law, is another proof of the feudal resiliency that belongs to the same repressive past. But this is not the issue at the moment.
The issue is how to apply judiciously and competently state powers on labor disputes with the view to enhancing industrial peace without compromising public safety. For a nation that has had an ugly, traumatic brush with a military dictatorship, it is obvious that there's a need to let civilian ways of doing things do their work competently and effectively. But it seems our authorities haven't learned their lesson. Or do they still cling romantically to the fascist past?
posted by Dante at 12:47 AM
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