The vicious bombing of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Jolo, Sulu on January 27, 2019 cannot be used as a prop or justification for the third extension of martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in the whole of Mindanao.
The reasons for this non-availment are:
The House of Representatives is a veritable chamber of regressive legislation after it reduced the minimum age of criminal age of responsibility from the present 15 to 12-year old children even as it previously restored the death penalty.
These two regressive measures are included in the priority legislative agenda of President Rodrigo Duterte, which he announced at the start of his incumbency.
Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo admitted that she was pushing for the enactment of the bill even in its original version of nine years threshold because it is the priority of President Duterte.
Non-profit organizations like foundations and NGOs are also subjected to profiling and witch-hunt by the Securities and Exchange Commission under SEC Memorandum Circular No. 15 dated 07 November 2018.
The “justifications” proffered by President Rodrigo Durtete for the third extension of martial law and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpusin Mindanao is a virtual rehash of the “reasons” which he made for the second extension last year.
The recycled presentation betrays the absence of sufficient basis for the third extension and the President’s taking for granted the approval of his request by his supermajority allies in Congress whatever singsong reasons he may give.
The claim of President Rodrigo Duterte that “rebellion persists in Mindanao” in order to justify the third extension of Proclamation No. 216 which imposed martial law in Southern Philippines was repudiated in a report by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
The Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence submitted a report to Albay Rep. Edcel C. Lagman on December 13, 2018 that for the entire second extension of martial law from January to December 2018, not a single person had been captured, arrested or charged with rebellion.
