<![CDATA[Coronavirus: is Covid-19 task force Duterte's 'Rolex 12' in plan for Marcos-style martial law in the Philippines?]>
Few people are old enough to recall the last time the world faced a pandemic on the scale of the coronavirus, yet to some Filipinos with long memories there is something uncomfortably familiar about their government's response to the disease.
As the number of Covid-19 infections in the country approaches 8,000, army troops have been flooding onto the streets of Metro Manila to enforce lockdown measures in scenes some observers have likened to the military dictatorship imposed in 1972 by Ferdinand Marcos.
"For the first time [since then], I can see troops crawling out there in the streets complete with armoured personnel carriers," said Vergel Santos, a former BusinessWorld publisher who was detained aged 26 under the martial law of the Marcos era after writing a piece critical of the dictator.
Santos said there was a similarity between how he was treated and how the country's current president, Rodrigo Duterte, silences his critics. He noted that the Malacanang Palace, Duterte's seat of power, had tried to insert a clause in the recent emergency powers act that would have allowed the president to take over broadcast stations. The senate has since deleted the clause.
"This man has been trying to impose martial law but until now could not find the right occasion," said Santos. "He needed a certain emergency and, of course, the assent of the swing force, which is the military. So [until now] he could not do it."
A member of the Philippine National Police Special Action Forces oversees government imposed quarantine measures in Manila. Photo: AFP
DUTERTE'S ROLEX 12?
Santos, a former chairman of the Centre for Media Freedom and Responsibility, said Duterte was exploiting the pandemic to carry out a different agenda, following in the footsteps of his role model Marcos, who had secretly formed a civil-military junta called the "Rolex 12" to plan martial law (the name derived from a widely held belief that Marcos had given the members Rolex watches " he had, in fact, given them Omegas).
In Duterte's case, "if you look at the lead government offices fighting this pandemic, these are all headed " except for health " by former generals," said Santos.
Among those with military backgrounds involved in battling the coronavirus are: defence secretary Delfin Lorenzana (a former army commander); social welfare secretary Rolando Bautista (a former army chief); interior and local governments secretary Eduardo Ano, presidential peace process adviser Carlito Galvez Jnr and national security adviser Hermogenes Esperon (all retired Armed Forces chiefs); the office of civil defence administrator Ricardo Jalad (an ex-army officer); and information communications and technology secretary Gregorio Honasan (the ex-security chief of Marcos' martial law administrator).
On Monday, Duterte's spokesman Harry Roque shrugged off suggestions of a parallel with the Marcos era as "funny". He denied Duterte was exploiting the crisis and insisted his actions were constitutional.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Photo: EPA
Roque's denial came despite Duterte himself warning on Friday that he "might declare martial law and there will be no turning back" if lawless killings by the New People's Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, continued.
The founding chairman of the communist party, Jose Maria Sison, is among those critics who have accused Duterte's Inter-Agency Task Force against Covid-19 of being "similar to the Rolex 12" of Marcos.
Sison, who endured a week of waterboarding under Marcos, said the Covid task force was now working hand in hand with another task force Duterte had formed in 2019 to take on the communists (the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict).
On April 19, the police arrested six members of the left-wing group Anakpawis who had been transporting relief goods, accusing them of breaking quarantine and carrying anti-Duterte "propaganda materials".
Sison, a former political science professor who once taught Duterte, said the president was "using the [Covid task force] to undertake a de facto martial law regime in the name of fighting the coronavirus and to prepare the way for the formal declaration of martial law and the full imposition of a Marcos-type fascist dictatorship".
"There is also an added threat by Duterte that in case he dies ... the [Covid task force] becomes a military junta to rule the Philippines beyond the bounds of the 1987 Constitution," Sison said.
Critics say Duterte wants to use the coronavirus outbreak as a cover for implementing martial law. Photo: AFP
JUST PARANOID?
The government has branded Sison paranoid but Duterte, on numerous visits to military camps, has repeatedly told soldiers that if they were tired of him or if something were to happen to him, he should be replace by a military junta.
For Earl Parreno, board trustee of the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms and author of a controversial 2019 biography of Duterte, the president's threat could mean he intends to impose martial law in areas where the New People's Army operates or nationwide to stay in power.
Parreno said the first scenario was the most likely. "He's tired [physically]," and besides, "the military is not solid behind that type of martial law" having learned its lesson from Marcos' misrule.
A senior military officer agreed with Parreno's assessment. He said maybe Duterte had been "frustrated" when he threatened martial law because despite a ceasefire, the New People's Army had gunned down 15 soldiers, "that's why he emphasised the fatalities".
The officer doubted Duterte would impose martial rule nationwide, saying it was more likely to be implemented in guerilla zones.
"Besides," he said, "how can you declare martial law if you think your own men are not for it?" Asked why not, he replied: "There was a time in history that the Armed Forces were a tool of martial law. Of course it gave a bad stigma to a lot of people ... and many suffered."
"What I can assure you, the military is professional, we won't do such things. We will always follow democratic authority."
Despite such reassurances, a leaked April 17 internal memo from the air force chief unsettled a lot of people. The memo referred to "[Duterte's] latest pronouncement on a martial law-type role" of the police and military.
The air force chief was just being "overzealous", the officer said.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
