New year, where you?
2021 seems like an extension of 2020, or of the 1970s, depending on who you ask
The new year has not so far lived up to its promise of a fresh start and fells very much like an extension of 2020.
It does not help that recent developments feel like a throwback — to recent years and to the years of Martial Law, depending on who is doing the comparing.
The Department of National Defense has cancelled an agreement requiring security forces to coordinate with University of the Philippines* officials on operations on its campuses.
And, judging by statements from Barangay UP Campus officials on an unannounced military visit this week to a supposed urban garden project there, the military has foregone coordination with residents as well.
But there seems to be a lack of coordination in general as the government doubles down on its claim that UP is a "haven for the enemy" and a recruitment ground for communist rebels.
During the week, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana gave out a list of 17 names of, he said, UP students and alumni whom state forces have killed in clashes with the New People's Army.
One of the people on the list, Myles Albasin**, is alive and is in detention in Negros Oriental, her mother says in an open letter to Lorenzana.
She said that when she saw that Lorenzana had included Myles on his list, "I feared for my detained daughter's as well as our family's safety, given how, under this government, such lists have become a tool of terror, a mark of death."
Another name on the list, the elder Albasin said, "Rachel Mae Palang, whose photo appeared alongside Myles in his tweet, ... was not even from UP but from Velez College in Cebu."
Also on the list was Ma. Lorena Barros, who was killed in 1976 — so long ago that there is a hall at UP Diliman named after her.
RELATED: So what if UP produces communists?
In the same week, another list, this time shared by social media accounts owned by military units.
The list of supposed names of people from UP who joined the NPA and who were captured or killed included at least eight people who are not, in fact, connected to the communist rebels.
Some said, on a Facebook broadcast on Saturday, that they are also, in fact, alive.
Throughout the week, a familiar claim from the government's National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict: A list of universities where communist rebels supposedly recruit fighters.
To keep things somewhat fresh, the allegations were made early in the year, unlike the supposed 2018 "Red October" that never really materialized. They have also removed the evidently non-existent Caloocan City College from this new list.
Then, on Sunday, a police precinct in Batac, Ilocos Norte posts a list of supposedly terrorist acts under the "Anti-Terrorism Bill" — actually a law since July — including:
Donating or helping relief drives that aren't government or state-recognized
Participating in a rally or any movement that can cause a "serious risk to public safety"
Posting, writing, sharing and/or retweeting posts (even memes) related to "terrorist activities"
The material from the Batac police's post was actually from an infographic by AlterMidya in March 2020 and was meant to highlight the dangers of the bill.
The Batac police have removed the post but not before sort of showing that fears over the law are not unfounded.
Lorenzana has also said that the government will apologize to the people named in the second list.
It is easy to look at these incidents as proof of poor intelligence work and a lack of coordination despite huge intelligence funds granted to the security sector.
It would be comforting, even, to think of the police and military as bumbling fascists tripping over their own feet like killer Keystone Kops.
Until you consider how liberally the police and military have been in flexing their power, especially during the pandemic. It is more likely that they are pushing things as far as they can to see what we will let them get away with. To be honest, we have let them get away with a lot.
The Batac police's social media mess is mild compared to posts directly accusing party-list lawmakers of being terrorists.
The Philippine National Police claims these are isolated incidents — more than 17 police officers have violated policies and laws and in a much shorter period than the 1975-2020 that Lorenzana used to justify calling UP a haven for communist rebels — and not part of their social media policy.
But nobody seems to have been held to account for them, nor have police units stopped posting them.
READ: 'Dura 'Likes': PNP social media rules and what police actually post
In July 2020, Manila police confiscated placards at a Mass in Quiapo Church that was held before Akbayan party was to hold a press conference in protest of the anti-terrorism law.
The city police chief said they did it to avoid a commotion. "Let us do it before they can do what they were planning," he said in Filipino.
Copies of an independent newspaper critical of the government were also confiscated that month for supposedly being subversive.
Among the objections to the anti-terrorism law, which is up for oral arguments at the Supreme Court in February, is that it is too vague and gives law enforcers "unbridled discretion" on how to interpret its provisions.
By how things have been unfolding, and considering the discretion that the police and military have been exercising, that seems a fair assessment.
RELATED: Cheat sheet on the looming legal battle on the anti-terrorism law
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*Full disclosure: I went to UP for college, but also often didn’t
**Myles and five other activists are facing charges of possession of firearms and explosives that they and their supporters say are fabricated.
** Philstar.com is trying a new direction for 2021. I feel that while we have managed to build a reputation for critical reporting, we need to look for new (for us, anyway) approaches to writing about the society we are in.
The first of those stories came out this month and I hope we we haven't strayed too far from our brand — whatever that is, and whatever "brand" is.
The first is an interrogation of our common portrayal of the urban poor as stubborn and lazy. This survey of community-led projects shows they are not that. We also note, however, that while the urban poor can find ways to fend for themselves, that does not mean that the government does not have an obligation to help them do that.
How community-led projects kept the urban poor afloat amid COVID-19
The second story is a convergence of the rising interest in cycling and the urgent need to talk about and address the climate crisis, to which the Philippines is among the most vulnerable.
As cycling booms, farmer tours Mindoro to teach communities about climate crisis
*** While the anti-terrorism law is seen by many as potentially restrictive of their civil rights, another group of petitioners against the law are opposing it not because it means a potential crackdown on dissent, but because it will affect them for simply living.
Here’s a piece on Moro lawyer Algamar Latiph, for whom the provisions in the anti-terrorism bill are a continuation of centuries-old colonial prejudice and that, he said, “would be used, as a tool, to legitimize curtailment of our liberty and freedom. And love.”