ISSUE
ANALYSIS No. 02
Series of 2010
The
farce about disbanding the private armies
Presidential
aspirants should be probed about their possible connections to private
armies. They should be willing to stake their presidency to the
disbandment of private armies.
By the Policy Study, Publication, and Advocacy
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)
January 28, 2010
The
presidential order for the disbandment of hundreds of private armies
in the country could be a cheap publicity gimmick. At the very least,
it was meant to exonerate the Arroyo administration from accountability
for their proliferation as well as for the Maguindanao mass murder
of Nov. 23, 2009.
The
plan of disbanding – not just disarming – about 200
private armies surfaced weeks following the Maguindanao massacre
that killed 57 civilians, including 30 journalists, and in the approach
to the May 10, 2010 automated elections. A presidential commission
was created to spearhead its implementation.
Such
presidential directive is not new. Similar orders had been repeatedly
issued by various presidents since Marcos 40 years ago. But it remains
a thorn in the country’s political life with many election-related
incidents of violence blamed on them. Police authorities know who
and where these private armed groups are but the laws that had been
enacted to dismantle them and prosecute their operators remain on
paper.
As
armed bands, private armies are not assymetrical to or far removed
from the country’s political psyche. Rather, they constitute
a sub-system of a bigger political society where the helm of power
is in the hands of jurassic and emergent political clans. They serve
as the coercive instruments of political dynasties. They typify
warlordism that is virtually insulated from accountability while
promoting a culture of impunity that makes violence a law by itself.
Feudal
structure
The
country’s feudal structure is the material condition that
gives rise to private armies and warlordism but it is presidential
patronage that husbands this sub-system. Private armies spring forth
from powerful political clans or local kingpins who make local communities
their own domain that in many respects is untouched by the national
authority and the criminal justice system. The material base of
some of these powerful private armies is the ownership of vast landholdings,
logging concessions, and other properties as well as illegal operations.
Their political power stems from the control of local governments
with a vast civilian population subjugated through indebtedness,
a patron-client relationship, and rule by the gun.
In
recent decades, warlordism and private armies figured in peasant
unrests and election-related violence. Landless tenants’ wrath
against landlord exploitation and landgrabbing was silenced by the
gun; rivalry with other political clans resulted in bloodbath, pillage,
arson, and mass displacements. Such scenes of warlord impunity were
a normal occurrence in the Ilocos and Abra provinces, Cordillera,
Isabela and Cagayan, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac, and other Central Luzon
provinces, Cavite, Masbate, Samar, Cebu, Negros, and many Mindanao
areas. In these areas, backward agrarian economy marked by severe
income disparities reigns. Warlordism rules in the poorest provinces,
such as Maguindanao.
Election
killings
The
number of election-related killings involving private armies rose
from 24 in 1959, 128 in 1967, and 225 in 1971. The Marcos military
claimed to have disbanded in the 1970s some 145 private armies with
more than 100,000 high-powered firearms – enough to equip
35 army divisions. But the number of private armies rose once more
in 1988 under Corazon C. Aquino with about 1,000 armed with 512,678
guns and maintained not only by political clans but also crime syndicates
including kidnap-for-ransom (KFR) gangs. The quantum increase of
private armies during the Aquino presidency can be attributed to
the U.S.-inspired total war policy (low-intensity conflict) that
promoted anti-communist vigilantes, cults, and paramilitary groups
in the fight against the leftist armed revolutionary movement. Today,
with 1.2 million loose firearms reported by the police, the figure
of 180 private armies claimed by government appears to be small.
The
fiefdoms run by local kingpins are fostered by patronage politics
that was first introduced by American colonial masters at the turn
of the 20th century and mastered thereafter by post-colonial presidents.
To win in the elections and maintain their power, presidents kept
ties with various political dynasties through which state resources
in the form of budget allocations, pork barrel disguised as “development
projects,” presidential favors and other perks are distributed.
In the main, however, these favors never uplifted the lives of the
people but went to the pockets of politicians and their subalterns
or helped bankroll private armies. In many instances, units of the
armed forces and police came under the private use of local kingpins
– the reason why many cases of violence committed in the past
and till today had involved state security forces.
In
this situation, not only was national authority weakened but such
authority was used to strengthen the local domains of political
clans most especially where warlordism and private armies exist.
In many conflict-ridden rural areas warlordism is conjoined with
counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism leaving large populations
under a state of siege and reign of terror thus further undermining
civilian authority.
In
many respects, political dynasties and the warlordism that these
breed are the sources of political instabilities and make a mockery
of the same laws they create. One may ask, how can civilian authority
assert itself when poverty and injustice remain largely unaddressed
and social services largely undelivered by both national and local
authorities? How can presidential authority gain mass support when
this is used in favor of tightening the power grip of the local
elite?
Ampatuans
In
the case of the Ampatuans of Maguindanao, it is an open secret that
President Gloria M. Arroyo coddled a local dynasty into a monster.
The Ampatuans’ private armies were augmented not only to make
sure that votes went to preferred candidates and political parties
but also to pit lawless elements against rebels who threatened the
clan’s local hegemony. Military soldiers, policemen and paramilitary
units became part of the Ampatuans’ private armies, reports
show. Civilian volunteer organizations (CVOs), said to be illegally
formed, were armed as “force multipliers” under Arroyo’s
Executive Order 546 (2006) thus providing the pretext for their
use not only by the Ampatuans but also by other local kingpins.
The same forces were also used to make sure the Moro rebels’
hold on the Liguasan Marsh – claimed to host one of Asia’s
largest natural gas reserves worth about $600 billion – is
neutralized. In the country’s oligarchic political structure,
presidential authority is used to clothe warlordism and private
armies with legitimacy.
Under
these circumstances, the presidential order to disband private armies
is nothing but hot air. Lawlessness cannot be ended by a regime
known not only for keeping an unholy alliance with rogue political
clans but also for its poor record in upholding the law and respect
for human rights.
Congress
may need to revisit laws that were enacted to render private armies
out of action. With majority of its members coming from ruling political
clans and anti-dynasty bills all but buried, however, it is illusory
to expect any meaningful legislative response to the issue.
In
the current elections, presidential aspirants should be probed about
their possible connections to private armies. They should be willing
to stake their presidency to the disbandment of private armies.
They should go beyond their narrow political interests by acting
for the bigger cause of serving justice to the victims of private
armies and putting back public trust in government.
The
superstructure of political mafias and modern caciques and the material
conditions that breed them are so powerful that piecemeal approaches
to addressing this issue are self-defeating. One begins to think
that in order to dismantle the private armies the first step is
to put the political superstructure that promotes them out of circulation.
BACK
TO TOP
Click
here to download this IA
Click
here to print
For your comments/suggestions please send your email to info@cenpeg.org;
cenpeg@cenpeg.org
Home
/ Programs and Projects /
About us / Contact
us / Site map / Partners
/ Links
Telefax +6329299526 email: cenpeg@cenpeg.org; cenpeg.info@gmail.com;
cenpeg2k4@yahoo.com
Copyright 2005 Center for People Empowewrment in Governance (CenPEG),
Philippines. All rights reserved |
