The Philippine government may well be resorting to a rubber band lifting of Martial Law – gone today, here again tomorrow maybe.

Catholic prelates are breathing a sigh of relief, but I’m one of those who aren’t. To understand why, I’ve inserted below two video clips I’ve uploaded to YouTube.

The imposition of Martial Law has done untold damage to the body politic, in the same way that drastic brain surgery profoundly affects a human being.

Unknown to many, the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) to which I belong, strongly denounced President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s action on December 8 last week.

The Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) strongly opposes the imposition of martial law in Maguindanao province.

Several groups, including respected legal experts, have questioned its constitutionality before the Supreme Court.

While FOCAP has called for the swift arrest and prosecution of suspects in the November 23 massacre, it considers the martial law declaration a very dangerous precedent.

Proclamation 1959 sends a chilling reminder of the Philippine authorities’ failure to eradicate longstanding threats to law and order, including the existence of political warlords and private armies, which have attacked civilians and journalists in the past.

The FOCAP – born in the dark days of Ferdinand Marcos’s martial rule as a vanguard of press freedom – urges President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to immediately recall Proclamation 1959 and fully restore civil liberties in all areas placed under martial rule.

The Philippine government should go after the perpetrators of the Maguindanao massacre using the full force of the legal and democratic instruments at its disposal.

It was issued a day after cabinet, military and police officials briefed FOCAP on the issue. It was a highly skeptical foreign press corps that attended that December 7 meeting arranged by the presidential palace.

In that standing-room-only presscon, Arroyo-appointed officials justified turning the Ampatuans into rebels instead of the alleged monsters who murdered in daylight 57 political rivals and journalists last Nov. 23. And then tried to bury the bodies.

After the briefing, I approached Major General Gaudencio Pangilinan, the Armed Forces deputy chief of staff for operations, to ask for his contact numbers. “I don’t answer suicide questions,” he jokingly said before granting my request.

I could sympathize with the general who had to answer some very tough questions thrown by FOCAP members. From my experience interviewing them, some of the nation’s best and brightest are in uniform but have to toe the official line.

In the same manner, FOCAP, which was born during the darkest days of the Marcos dictatorship, has to remain true to its calling. FOCAP has built a reputation for barbecuing all those who appear before the it, all for the sake of ferreting out and reporting the truth. I am a proud member of Focap.

It is this reason, I guess, that has prompted President Arroyo to skip the traditional yearly president’s luncheon with us since 2006.

I have to hand it, though, to Ronaldo Puno and Agnes Devanadera, the Department of Interior and Local Governments secretary and the Department of Justice acting secretary, who faced us Monday last week. Puno is one tough political operator while Devanadera never lost her cool. Also present was my favorite presidential spokesman, Cerge Remonde, who always makes my day whenever he comes up with novel explanations for the president’s actions. (I especially like that one about the president’s boobs.)

That day, though, there was no light moment. We were talking about suspected mass murderers and how – in the blink of an eye – they became rebels.

Puno was very exact and all-knowing as to the date when the Ampatuans and their followers suddenly turned rebels – November 26, 2009 – after Andal Ampatuan Jr. was turned over to the government without handcuffs.

Justice Secretary Devanadera, who was seated beside him, agreed.

Puno told us:

“On November 26, when action was being taken against suspects on multiple murder – apparently all these forces (rostered policemen and various kinds of civilian militia men) switched their allegiance to their family,” the Ampatuans. He said that instead of defending the Constituiton and the Republic of the Philippines, “they now become instruments of violating the law of land, no longer following the chain of command.”

He added that “this was really the incipient rebellion at that time. On 26 we told the secretary of justice (Devanadera) a condition of rebellion already existed.”

I was stupefied by his statements. Personally, I had a problem reconciling the evidence presented by the authorities with the idea that precisely on November 26, thousands of Ampatuan followers suddenly switched allegiance from the Republic of the Philippines to the Ampatuans.

It was also clear that all that firepower was not amassed in a week but probably took months and even years, I said.

And so I asked: Was it possible that no switching of allegiance from the Philippine Republic to the Ampatuans took place (and therefore no rebellion) because the civilian militia men were never really loyal to the Republic but only to the Ampatuans who caused them to be hired in the first place?

General Pangilinan answered but unfortunately you can only hear him but not see him on the video. (I’m learning. Give me some time to master this. I didn’t see the bottle at the left-hand corner, but come to think of it, it was  probably the most transparent thing that day. ) To listen to General Pangilinan’s reply, please watch this video I’ve uploaded on YouTube -

I was aghast to see all that firepower in the hands of  politicians. I told Puno and the other officials that must have been amassed through months and even years. Were the Ampatuans actually preparing to turn rebels all these years, I asked them.

And did they know, given all their intelligence assets, that the Ampatuans were amassing arms?

Here’s their reply on YouTube.  Notice that the officials paused and looked at each other, as if waiting for the other to answer.

I had other questions but there was no time to ask the following:

• Why didn’t the Ampatuans use all that gizmo and ammo to prevent the arrest of their patriarch, Maguindanao governor Andal Sr., and Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) governor Zaldy Ampatuan on December 6 – or nine days after they had supposedly turned rebels?  Surely, the arrest of the most senior leaders could doom their rebellion. One would reasonably expect a rebel group with such formidable firepower not to give up without a fight. But remarkably, thousands of their followers merely melted away in the darkness after their masters had turned rebels.
• The authorities described Ampatuan followers as in “offensive” and “defensive” positions, but the only firefight they could elaborate on to FOCAP happened Sunday night of December 6 – or nearly 48 hours after Martial Law was imposed. A 10-minute firefight isn’t much if you compare it to those of the MILF and the Abu Sayyaf which last an entire day or days.  And Martial Law was never imposed for those.

How a 10-minute “firefight” could have been used as the justification, when it happened nearly two days after Martial Law was imposed, boggles the mind.

What worries me is wondering what their next reason would be to justify a reimposition of Martial Law.

Next – Part 2 will feature more YouTube video clips from the Malacanang Palace-sponsored FOCAP briefing and why Focap member Tress Martelino uttered the now famous words  “sitting on your ass.”