President Marcos gives martial law ‘legal gloss’

Press, 12 April 1980, Page 12

President Marcos gives martial law ‘legal gloss’

President Ferdinand Marcos, of the Philippines, is a technically brilliant lawyer who knows how to put a gloss on the realities of martial law, according to a visiting Manila lawyer and former senator, Mr Jose Diokno. Mr Diokno addressed a meeting in Christchurch, and will go to Wellington and Auckland before flying to Brisbane and then home. In Sydney he spoke to lawyers’ groups mainly — law'students at the University .of New South Wales, the Sydney branch of the international Commission of jurists, and leaders of Philippine “action support groups.” He will be home before April 20. “I can’t afford to be away for more than two weeks, too many things can happen in that time under martial law. People can get arrested. They may call to me for help,” he said.

Just before he left, the police picked up six trade unionists — “said to be subversives, that is the word used for anyone wh.o opposes the Government but the truth is they were planning a strike” — and several community organisers, usually Catholic or Protestant workers who g,o into the rural areas to help the people organise so they can protect their interests.

“One was shot and killed,” he said.

Mr Diokno has met President Marcos in court several times, as well as during his time in Government, and he said the president wants “to give a gloss of legality t,o everything the Government does.”

"He does not actually change the membership of the Supreme Court, but eliminates their-security of tenure,” he said. No Supreme Court judge has been dismissed but in the

trial courts it has happened. A judge goes goes to work one morning and finds someone else sitting at his desk. “What sort of independent Judiciary does that make? As long as Mr Marcos has the majority, it does not matter.

"That is why he lets me out, because 1 created a fuss when he tried to hamper my movements. And. whatever I say here will not be printed in Manija. It is better to have me here than have the foreign press in Manila saying that he is violating human rights by supressing me.” Mr Diokno denied that, if President Marcos fell, he would be a likely candidate for his job.

“I have not the charisma,” he said. “There are many others for instance Senator Aquino, who is in jail, who would be better for the job,” Mr Diokno said. He said that when the Americans conquered the Philippines at. the beginning of the century, they ruled, as the Spaniards had done before them, through the Church and the elite families who had had all the wealth and influence since the sixteenth century.

“After that, we had flag independence, but nothing much else,” he said. “We were politically, economically, and militarily dependent on the Americans. Gradually the dependence diminished and has been supplanted by dependence on Japan.”

When marital Jaw was declared on September 23, 1972, he was arrested at 1 a.m;, and put in jail for two years for “wittingly .or unwittingly having taken part in an uprising to overthrow the Government?’ Since then American aid to the Philippines . had “doubled militarily, tripled economically and quadrupled in the form 'of multi-lateral aid through the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank.”

Japanese aid and investment in that period had gone up 300 per cent, he said. Increased Australian aid had gone towards reading, which helped the military fight the Muslims in Zamboanga and the “New People’s Army” in Samar.

“In Samar the roads bypass the centres of population and go straight to an area where five or six years' ago fairly large deposits of bauxite were discovered. The roads also coincide with the Government’s attempts to- 'clear that area of guerrillas,” he said. Australia’s aid was supposed to be economic. Before martial law, the Philippines had a democracy, “a free press, freedom of association,, an independent Judiciary, a democratic Parliament consisting of Congress and . a Senate, where we were free to criticise and even castigate. In fact, some people said we had more press freedom than any other country in the world — not only free but licentious,” he said. One ■ morning, people woke up and found that the troops moved into the radio stations and the newspapers. Afterwards one could hear only Government radio, “all music, no news.” Mr Marcos’ relations and sympathisers took over all the. papers and television stations.

Since then, Mr Diokno said, the Government had between 2000 and 3000 political prisoners in jail at one time, although the official estimate was 593. More , than 70,000 have been jailed since martial law began, He was never, charged, or questioned during his stay in prison, although he spent one month of that time in solitary confinement. He had been a member of the. same party-as

Mr Marcos, the Nationalist Party, and was chairman of its legal division, a member of its ruling committee and a senator. In 1971, President Marcos, in a “trial run for martial law.” suspended the writ of habeus corpus, which meant that the Government could arrest people and detain them without charging them. In response, Mr Diokno resigned from the party and remained in the Senate without party affiliation. When he was detained, two other Liberal Party senators were jailed. One of them. Senator Aquino, is still there. He suspects he was put away because he belonged to “Citizens for Civil Liberties,” which succeeded in getting President Marcos to reinstate the habeus corpus in January, 1972. No explanation was given for his release from jail. Since then he has been a practising lawyer in Manila and has started the “Free Legal Assistance Group” for political prisoners. Mr Diokno said he wanted to speak to lawyers particularly on his Australasian visit because. “in a situation such as ours, lawyers must form the first line of defence. If they do not, the dictatorship closes all the avenues of peaceful change.” The Catholic Church was not much use, he said. “Unfortunately, it is the one body which could officially confront President Marcos and avoid loss of life. We are 85 per cent Catholic and the church is a fully organised institution with churches in every municipality and village. If it would use the pulpit for human rights it could counteract all the: propaganda through ' the Government . - controlled press. But it has had a policy of critical collaboration which has turned out to be more collaboration and less criticism,” he said. Many priests and nuns were working with the legal groups to .--help political detainees, and their families, but of the 80 or so bishops, only . 17 were “socially aware and helpful in curbing military and other Government abuses.” About 12 of them were in favour of the Government, mostly because of the “Red threat,” and the rest just put their heads in the sand, he said. ' The Communist guerrillas outnumbered the other- guerrillas by 50 to one; and were ; active mostly in the country. In spite of this, if President - Marcos .is deposed, Mr Diokno does not see a Communist Government taking ‘over because 'he said the Catholic Church was opposed to it and the majority of. the'people were suspicious, of it.