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Duterte turned Mindanao into a ‘martial law laboratory’- Hontiveros

President Rodrigo Duterte has turned Mindanao into a “martial law laboratory” to test the sustainability of “full authoritarian rule.”

 

Opposition senator Risa Hontiveros said this after the Palace announced that it is looking at the

possibility of extending the martial law in Mindanao.

“The entire Mindanao is under Martial Law for more than 500 days already. This is on top of the declaration of a state of national

emergency last year in response to the Davao City bombing. Post-Marcos, this is now the longest-running Martial Law in the country,” Hontiveros said in a statement on Thursday.

“Is this now the new normal in the region? Or is Mindanao Duterte’s guinea pig for [a] complete authoritarian rule? Is Mindanao now the

President’s laboratory for his dangerous experiment to impose Martial Law all over the country?” she added.

The senator added that despite the implementation of martial law in the region, “lawless violence persists.”

Nevertheless, she cited the killing of five anti-drug agents and the bombings in Sultan Kudarat in August and September, which killed

five people, as among the examples of violence in the country.

Meanwhile, President Duterte justified the declaration of Martial Law in Mindanao by saying that he needed the measure to provide

peace and order in the region,” Hontiveros said.

Multi-dimensional methodology

“Notwithstanding, the proceeded with damage and death toll, this season of the two regular people and police workforce,

demonstrates that a Martial Law-driven way to deal with check savagery and elevate peace has neglected to accomplish its motivation,” she included.

The congressperson likewise contended that what Mindanao needs is a multi-dimensional methodology that weaves together powerful law requirement, fair dissemination of social administrations, and the full usage of peace understandings, including the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL).

“President Duterte must perceive and address the profound chronicled, political and social roots behind the commonness and tirelessness of savage clashes in Mindanao. As a Mindanaoan, he should know this,” she said.

Further, the presentation of Martial Law in Mindanao is definitely not an enchantment slug that would annihilate wild viciousness and wilderness in the district. Just unimportant despots depend on such lethargic, unsafe and oversimplified arrangements,” she included.

In addition, Hontiveros referred to a Social Weather Stations (SWS) review directed in December 2017 that demonstrated 62 percent of Filipinos were against the expansion of military law in Mindanao.

A comparable review in Ateneo de Davao, where the President examined in secondary school, notwithstanding, uncovered that 59.8 percent of the respondents did not support military law’s expansion in Mindanao.