Commentary: Eight days of Martial Rule

Maasin City (15 December) -- Martial Law has been lifted in Maguindanao after a record eight days of swift implementation, from December 4 to 12, 2009.

With this development, perennial critics of the government were pleased and appeased. Or were they?

Virtually far from it, for they will always have bagful of alibis in every course of action the government takes in response to pressing issues and concerns.

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The raging debates during the joint session of Congress on whether to affirm or reject the ML declaration, even when it was already revoked just the same, was a typical scenario showing that critics will not run out of ideas to try to push the administration into a corner.

Last night, December 14, Congress had adjourned without putting the issue to a vote, which was just fine anyway, since their side of the action was overtaken by time and events.

But on the same breath, Congress adjourned after hearing the discourses on legal niceties and technicalities, both in favor and against, the subject matter at hand.

Allies and critics alike had a field day.

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As it was, though, the primary purpose for the martial rule in Maguindanao, which was on the main to flush out the principal suspects, was sufficiently met, and no one can deny, whether allies or skeptics, that that cannot be the case in an ordinary setting.

In the course of the short-lived military rule, a shocking discovery on the stocked arsenal-and-armory-strong bullets and high-caliber weapons (with government markings at that) popped everyone's eyes like never before, the find enough to arm to the teeth any pretender to absolute power, political or whatever.

Were our lawmakers so engrossed with the ML thing that it appeared no one appreciated the dangerous impact of the revelation, and so raise a howl on how come this has come to this, who was responsible, what the hell has been going on over the years, and why?

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The challenge rests as much with our lawmakers, the authorities, as with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP): this is the perfect time to demonstrate that our revered democratic institutions are part of the solution, not part of the problem.

Golden opportunity, they say, knocks only once. By any indications, the unfolded situation is the golden opportunity.

When an in-depth investigation, if there be any (and there should be, like an independent fact-finding body), could show positive results, pinpoint lawbreakers, and jail culprits, then I bet my hard-earned peso even the most hard-core, down-to-earth, no-nonsense, skeptical critics will be grateful.

And in that case, the eight days a week of Martial Law was in order.

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LOCAL FRONT: The sentiment of the people of Maasin and Southern Leyte with regards to the Maguindanao Martial Law was generally one of affirmation and support. On the one hand, common people understood that it was a selective kind of military rule, so limited in its approach and objective. On the other hand, it was one way of expressing oneness with the victims, the orphaned children, the widows, the widowers, whose cry for justice anyone can easily relate with tenderness and sympathy.

ODDLY YOURS: The ongoing Climate Change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, was a forum-bargaining of ideas, or a study in contrast, for the almost 200 nations around the world participating in it. Organizers admitted it took two years to make this event happen and, if any agreement can be reached this week, it will take another four years for the agreed agreement to be enforced, in 2013. As of over the weekend, environment advocates pushed for 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide presence in the atmosphere as the ideal limit. But realistic observers said this is impossible to achieve, saying that for 2009 alone, humankind has managed to live with 390 ppm of CO2 in the air. In 1958, when measuring CO2 was first employed, the figure was 315 ppm, and adherents said man can still tolerate 450 ppm, even 550 ppm, the suggested maximum limit. On the other side of the fence, there are the Climate Change Doubters, or Climate Change Skeptics, who insist that the global warming issue is but a natural occurrence in the order of things, with man just one factor. And this group also met in Copenhagen, Denmark, although their activity was not so well publicized, even as they also have something to say. (By BONG PEDALINO, PIA-Southern Leyte)

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