Ever since Duterete forced the shotgun wedding between Martial Law and Mindanao people all over the country have been clamouring for an annulment. This week the Supreme Court gave the final decision and the marriage is now official. Martial Law is the law of the land (in Mindanao).
Not everyone was happy with this decision but the Father of the bride said he would respect their dissent.
Unsurprisingly some officials see the Supreme Court decision as a dangerous precedent that will enable Martial Law to take more brides until perhaps all 7000 islands of the Philippines are part of his harem.
In a statement, Lagman, a petitioner against martial law, said the Supreme Court decision rendered the magistrates powerless in reviewing the president’s exercise of martial law, as required for in the 1987 Constitution.
Lagman said the Supreme Court gave too much leeway to the President to declare emergency powers simply because he had access to confidential information.
“This safeguard was denigrated by the majority decision which effectively deferred to the discretion of the President and gave him ‘much leeway and flexibility’ to declare martial law because it is he who has the arsenal of intelligence information to warrant such declaration,” Lagman said.
“This disquisition virtually closes the door for the Supreme Court to fully review the sufficiency of the factual basis of the President’s exercise of extreme emergency powers,” he added.
Lagman feared that the Supreme Court decision, in pronouncing that the martial law coverage is up to the President’s discretion, could “(pave) the way for an expanded territorial ambit of a martial law declaration.”
The reason the Supreme Court gave for upholding Duterte's decision to implement marital law is indeed precedent setting. The argument of the detractors was that there was no rebellion or invasion as such to warrant the declaration. The Supreme Court however ruled there was a rebellion because ISIS was seeking to establish a caliphate in Marawi and Mindanao. The declaration of martial law helped put a stop to that.
The Supreme Court adverted to the following as presented by the government during the oral arguments defending the martial law in Mindanao.
1) The Maute Group is "openly attempting to remove from the allegiance to the Philippine Government this part of Mindanao and deprive the Chief Executive of his powers and prerogatives to enforce the laws of the land and to maintain public order and safety in Mindanao, constituting the crime of
rebellion."
2) "[L]awless armed groups have taken up arms and committed public uprising against the duly constituted government and against the people of Mindanao, for the purpose of removing Mindanao—starting with the City of Marawi, Lanao del Sur—from its allegiance to the Government and its laws and depriving the Chief Executive of his powers and prerogatives to enforce the laws of the land and to maintain public order and safety in Mindanao, to the great damage, prejudice, and detriment of the people therein and the nation as a whole."
3) The May 23, 2017 events"put on public display the groups' clear intention to establish an Islamic State and their capability to deprive the duly constituted authorities—the President, foremost —of their powers and prerogatives."
4) "These activities constitute not simply a display of force, but a clear attempt to establish the groups' seat of power in Marawi City for their planned establishment of a DAESH wilayat or province covering the entire Mindanao."
But this begs the question: If the Supreme Court is worried about ISIS seeking to establish a caliphate separate from the government of the Philippines then what about the BBL? The BBL is the government capitulating to Muslim terrorists who have killed thousands over the years by giving them their own fully autonomous region of Mindanao. What does anyone think will happen in that region if the BBL goes into effect? It will be the prefect cover for jihadi groups to train for their worldwide war against civilisation. It will be the cradle from which much destruction in the Philippines will be born. For all Duterte's talk about not negotiating with terrorists he sure does like to negotiate with terrorists be they CPP-NPA, MNLF, MILF, or Maute.
Duterte probably was going through back channels to negotiate a cease fire with the Muslims in Marawi. Nothing wrong with that at all and why would he admit it? The standard course of governments is to deny, deny, deny until years later when the truth finally comes out.
“I never talked to terrorists…I would never talk to criminals and terrorists but I will talk to revolutionaries who are imbued with principles,” the president told reporters in Malaybalay, Bukidnon.
So the MNLF, MILF, CPP-NPA aren't terrorists but are principled revolutionaries? Where is the public outcry against such nonsense? Thousands of Filipinos dead at the hands of these "principled revolutionaries" cry out against such shameful rhetoric.
Is Duterte going to extend martial law? He has all but said so. Martial law ends on July 22 and his State of the Nation Address is on July 24. If he is not going to lift martial law before the SONA then it's a matter of course that he will be extending martial law.
And he has not even sat down with his security officials like Bato who said, "We still need to review the situation."
For his part, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said he and Armed Forced chief General Eduardo Año will soon make the recommendation to President Rodrigo Duterte on whether to lift of extend martial law in Mindanao.
He said that they still need to review the situation in Marawi and the entire Mindanao before making the decision.
"General Año and I will be making the recommendation soon to the President. We don't know if it's to lift or to extend. Tinitignan pa namin ang nangyayari sa paligid not only in Marawi, but all over Mindanao," Lorenzana said during the briefing.
But while Dela Rosa agrees that the decision should be sound, he personally believes an extension is needed.
Duterte does not care what Bato, Año, or anyone else has to say. He said in January 2017 he would declare martial law if he wanted to and in May he actually declared martial law with no recommendation from anyone to do so. Before he even became president he told us his presidency would be a bloody dictatorship and now that the Supreme Court has validated his decision he has the moral authority as well as the political capital to extend martial law in Mindanao as he sees fit. Nationwide martial law is only one (false flag) bombing away.
It would be nice if the AFP used all the rockets and bombs procured from the Americans to blow the remaining Muslims straight to paradise but after decades of fighting is that realistic?
Herrera made the admission when asked to explain his claim that only about 80 gunmen remained inside the war zone as of this week.
It was pointed out to him that if the number of slain gunmen was 366 based on latest military report and the remaining terrorists numbered 80, the total would only be about 440, a far cry from the estimate that there were about 700 terrorists who laid siege to the city on May 23.
How
has martial law helped the situation when roughly 300 terrorists have escaped
Marawi while martial law has been in effect?
Something is seriously wrong with the AFP leadership which cannot coordinate a strategic takedown of terrorists in the one city of Marawi in two months much less the whole of Mindanao in 40 years. With all these screw-ups it seems like the AFP is allowing the Muslims to have way too much fun.
The rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air will no doubt blind and deafen the AFP before they destroy Abu Sayyaf, Maute, BIFF, MNLF, MILF, or the NPA. How much longer must this continue?
“For me,” Alvarez said, “if the President asks for an extension, my personal position—not the position of the House of Representatives—is, as a Mindanaoan, I want to extend it until 2022.”
“Why? To stop this thing. This is not just Isis, there’s also the rebellion of the NPA that’s more than 40 years,” the Davao del Norte congressman said, referring to the IS and to the communist-led New People’s Army.
Asked if he favored expanding martial law to cover the rest of the country, Alvarez said this would need to be discussed.
Never forget that Alvarez initially said he wanted to extend martial law in order to
fast-track the development of infrastructure projects! Now he mentions the NPA, a terrorist organisation not confined to Mindanao, which indicates Alvarez wants to take martial law nationwide.
This is not about defeating terrorists which could easily be done without martial law. You don't need martial law to napalm the jungle and massacre them. This is all about control and money. The Duterte administration is taking huge loans from the Chinese government to build infrastructure. Many of these projects are in Duterte's and Alvarez's home province, Mindanao. Duterte and his cronies will be the ones to profit from these ventures. Duterte and his friends simply cannot allow the terrorists to threaten these profitable (for them) deals. Follow the money and ask "who benefits?"
Government officials toured Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang around Davao City on Saturday, in a bid to woo investments for the city’s infrastructure projects.
Accompanied by officials from the Davao City government and the National Economic Development Authority, Yang visited the Sta. Ana Wharf and other sites such as the Davao City expressway project, coastal road, coastline and port development project, the Mindanao railway project, and the Francisco Bangoy International Airport.
Imagine five years of martial law and war just in Mindanao! What evil carnage! What nihilistic destruction! And can we have any doubt that justification will be found to extend martial law to the entire nation? Aside from the death and destruction five years of martial law will inevitably bring, it will also give Duterte a chance to wear cammo and posture as the Philippines' COOLEST PRESIDENT!
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