Letter to the editor - A reaction to "Raising a fist, the doctor's slip shows"

“Doctors are not garrulous or showy. They have that amiable reserve though may not necessarily be considered as always benign personalities. However as doctors they should not be part of activism participating in activities like the community-based health training at Morong, Rizal.” This is what the opinion article “Raising a fist, the doctor’s slip shows” tried to project in relation to the 43 arrested medical practitioners at Morong, Rizal, and which furthermore declares that because the doctors raised their fist the arrest is simply justifiable.

Nice stereotypification of the medical practitioners’ norm. However, this representation of the culture of bourgeois typified psyche or of a preconceived appropriation of a so-called “proper norm” for professionals like medical practitioners in the field merely depicts an unscientific basis for assuming or labeling activists as criminals worthy of torture and/or incarceration. The article “Raising a fist, the doctor’s slip shows” is symptomatic of nuances begging off its illogical syllogisms reflective of a military agent’s dismissive strategy of witch hunting if not that of the usual MacCarthyist orientation replete with bias.

In the first place why should the author capitalize on the raised fist of prisoners who showed defiance for undue incarceration and torture? If the writer disagrees to the fact that the victims were medical practitioners, would a raised fist automatically denote that the 43 medical workers are red combatants? Were there weapons with them during the raid? Could a raised fist justify illegitimate arrest?

Nevertheless, a just society says nobody deserves to be persecuted because of political beliefs.

We must take note that the 43 health workers were arrested based on a search warrant bearing no names of respondents or the name and address of Dr. Velmonte who owns the training house where the 43 medical practitioners were taken by the military. First, they were kept for 4 days under isolation and torture and then later presented through Human Rights Commissioner De Lima. This means that the conduct of the arrest itself had violated the rules of court but the article “Raising a fist, the doctor’s slip shows” rather focused on the defiant fists the health workers showed as a bleak expression of resistance against a state-imposed horrible force of an institutionalized military industrial complex inflicting wounds over their minds and their bodies.

Naked terror: GMA’s discipline as system of governmentality

The abduction of the 43 medical practitioners is but a classic case of naked terror.

While the state had not resolved massive political killings, its glaring role in the institutionalization of warlordism cannot be denied in the designs of the Maguindanao massacre. Hence, today there is no assurance of safety and security given the state authority.

Government’s management of terror had shown in various forms, such as: cases of “household encampments” or soldier’s illegal entry into homes of civilians in the rural areas and using these houses as their mini camps in the small communities are violations to the constitutional right to peaceful abode; the use of coercion to dissuade farmers or force them to take oath to withdraw support from militant organizations and partylists like Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas or the Kilusang Mayo Uno and Anak Pawis is a violation of civil and political rights provided in the constitution; forcing civilians to serve as guides in military operations; forced recruitment or conscription of civilians to the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) as they are constantly nudged to join the CAFGU if not as rebel returnees; abduction; torture; grave threats leading to extrajudicial killings and enforced ‘disappearances’ (desaparecidos).

Hence, the aforementioned forms of state management of terror only served as euphemisms of human rights violations that make the state the terrorist itself.

This is made possible because the state is the one that monopolizes all instruments and institutions of coercion available in the country.

In this manner the article “Raising a fist, the doctor’s slip shows” is analogous to the state imposition of the culture of military surgeons imposing its scheme to operate on a sick society. The article calls on the norm of passivity and conformity as cherished and shining virtues via a stereotypification of the norm of medical professionals. It has come to label the case of Morong 43 as a classic case of the cancer of rebellion that needs to be exorcised. It calls on the depoliticization of the daily life – a kind of authoritarian cultural onslaught where the perpetuator believes that the breakdown of society is beyond the political and the economic but is simply in the professional, educational and cultural realm.

PROF. PHOEBE ZOE MARIA U. SANCHEZ

Spokesperson

People’s Response Against Human Rights Violations (PRO-RIGHTS)

Social Sciences Division

University of the Philippines Cebu College