EDITORIAL - No more martial law

Malacañang reassured the nation yesterday that martial law would not be imposed under the Arroyo administration. That the statement had to be issued on the eve of the 37th anniversary of Ferdinand Marcos’ declaration of martial law is an indication that the nation is not yet completely free of threats to hard-won freedoms. The statement was issued a few days after a man described by the Armed Forces of the Philippines as a naval intelligence trainee was caught placing under surveillance the home of National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera.

The bungled surveillance could be laughed off, if not for the fact that Lumbera chairs the militant party-list group Alliance of Concerned Teachers and his home in Mapayapa Village, Quezon City serves as ACT headquarters. Lumbera was also among the National Artists who protested President Arroyo’s choices for this year’s National Artist awards. Village security guards caught Cpl. Hannibal Masura Mondido Guerrero taking photographs of Lumbera’s house. Two of his companions fled. The AFP apologized to Lumbera and said the surveillance was part of Guerrero’s training for a naval intelligence course. Guerrero was tasked to verify reports that Lumbera’s house was being used for communist gatherings.

Using state intelligence resources to spy on suspected communist rebels is better than using them to spy on estranged common-law wives, but this is cold comfort for individuals like Lumbera. The National Artist accepted the Navy’s apology, but he said he did not buy the whole story and would file a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights.

His experience, occurring nearly four decades after Marcos imposed martial law, is a timely reminder that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. The 1987 Constitution has built-in mechanisms to prevent the return of the type of military rule imposed by Marcos, without diminishing the power of the presidency to deal with threats to national security. Yet those mechanisms have failed to allay fears, revived for the first time since the Marcos years, that the government might impose some kind of emergency rule to suppress political dissent and perpetuate national leaders in power. The statement from Malacañang yesterday was meant to allay those fears, but these will be dispelled completely only after the nation sees a peaceful transfer of power to a duly elected new president on June 30, 2010.