Why Beyond Martial Law Is The Biggest PH Lesson Of 2016

MANILA: I just realized that you, not me, did not learn the biggest lesson in the year that was 2016. And I as a Civil Service-certified teacher will teach you now! I'm assuming you are teachable. No, it's not Martial Law, whether it's the past or the present (threat).

I have just come to that conclusion mid-day today, New Year's Day 2017.

What triggered this essay just now is the Facebook post that linked to the commentary by Mart del Rosario, whom I do not know, and who according to Inquirer.net is a retired advertising-PR consultant ("What's the big deal with martial law?" 01 January 2017, opinion.inquirer.net). I would put that title like this, "What's the big deal about Martial Law?" but it's no big deal, if you know what I mean.

Mart is saying:

These days you hear more and more about interesting times ahead. PRody is just about ready to declare martial law, according to his chief legal counsel, who as usual is contradicted by a phalanx of Palace lieutenants. “Not true, no such plan by Bossing,” they chorus, each claiming to be closest to PRody and the one to whom the Big Guy would confide a serious plan.

Did you notice that Mart is saying, "PRody" and of course he means President Rodrigo "Rody" Duterte. But having been in PR myself, if briefly, with his use of "PRody" Mart is implying that what we're seeing is all PR. Public Relations as practiced by a non-PR man but a Mayor of a City, now the Mayor of the biggest city in the world with 7K islands to practice PR on. Smart!

Am I being clear about what I mean? I hope not! I'm trying to confuse you just yet before I get to the end of this essay. Like a good PR man, a writer must be in full control of the situation.

Mart's says to his alter ego, "I don't want to sound like a fool crying, 'Wolf!' but I think we are seeing a few red flags reminiscent of the signs that ushered in Marcos' martial law."

I say, actually, those are not red flags leading to Martial Law. When those 16 million voters, not counting me who voted for Mar Roxas, landslided him up to the presidency, they were asking for those, which Duterte thinks are necessary to win his War on Drugs – sorry for the collateral damage, but you like the war won, don't you? You voted for him, didn't you?

Mart's alter ego says:

What's the big deal with martial law anyway? I'll tell you what's wrong with the planned imposition of martial law. The Big Guy's men are doing a poor job of marketing it. instead of going to town with a narrative that details its merits, his men are chorusing there'll be no Martial Law. Very negative, as PR strat goes; it not only does not deodorize the concept; it also reinforces public perception that it's a bad idea.

No, Alter Ego Sir, those men are doing a great job of marketing it, because they're contradicting the Big Guy and each other! Who told you that there is only way to market Martial Law, or whatever Law you want to impose? Even the wizard David Ogilvy, in his book Confessions Of An Advertising Man published in 1963, did not advise not to contradict yourself in your own marketing (advertising) plan.

If PRody imposes martial law he’ll be able to fix many, if not all, of the country’s ills. He’ll completely annihilate the drug menace, corruption and traffic. There’ll be no more Commission on Human Rights, no more noisy media, no more temperamental brats. They just interfere with governance; they’ll be silenced or abolished.

Maybe, but Alter Ego Sir, you're assuming that your Big Man has a Big Plan wherein Martial Law is only the Open Sesame to the Cave of Treasures.

I'm afraid that without that Big Plan, what will be annihilated will be much more than the drug menace, corruption and Metro Manila traffic. Well, I don't love the Commission on Human Rights at all, so good riddance! I don't like the noisy media either, so they better put up or shut up! Unfortunately, we will always have temperamental brats.

"They just interfere with governance." Again, Alter Ego Sir, you're assuming that the Big Man knows good governance, and not just effectively silencing the opposition.

But, Alter Ego Sir, I like the next thing you say:

With martial law we can establish a truly inclusive society that adheres to the ideal of the true, the good and the beautiful.

Since I welcome Martial Law myself, I will debate only with you about what you say as "a truly inclusive society" – ah, the world has risen and fallen on the theories of economists!

Just as the US is now, in fact we are now under what is bigger than Martial Law, and we don't know it. Right after he was declared the winner in the presidential election in May last year, he initiated a Reign of Errors (that's what we perceive, that's what it is intended to be perceived), which is a barrage of PR initiatives (Public Revulsion, with expletives actually) meant to cow us to bow, and to which we have responded with a Rain of Errors (inline, offline and in print, with our own expletives actually). Tit for tat. Not smart.

What if what is in operation is not Martial Law? Well then, I call it Law of Diminishing Returns from protests.

Or what if what is in operation is the Law of Supply & Demand – there is an oversupply of invectives and a demand that those stop coming. Under the situation, you cannot repeal the Law of Supply & Demand, just like Ramon Magsaysay as Chief Executive wanted to.

So now I want you to look again at my painterized photograph that I show above, which dramatizes why we have not learned our biggest lesson of 2016:

We have been imprisoned by our lack of vision.

In the image, what you see in the white part is a door out; you can also see in the white & black parts two heads looking in opposite directions. Contradictions. We have been restricted in our search for the wise response by so much darkness we see that we do not see the light.

What then is the proper response to his Reign of Errors and how to stop our Rain of Errors?

The Christian Response – that is the biggest lesson we failed to learn from May to December last year. We were innocents in May; we still had not grown up by December.

The divinely inspired response is, from Pope Francis, Mercy and Compassion. He says, as quoted by Cindy Wooden (05 June 2016, CNS News, catholicnews.com):

How many tears are shed every second in our world; each is different but together they form, as it were, an ocean of desolation that cries out for mercy, compassion and consolation.

This year, the Philippines and the United States are having the same kind of President: firebrands, radicals, rabble-rousers, take your pick. The New Yorker is in so many words calling for civil disobedience in its 09 January 2017 issue but is already out today, New Year's Day (see Jelani Cobb's "The Return Of Civil Disobedience," newyorker.com). The New Yorker believes that "democracy is in the streets" just as "it was" in the times of Martin Luther King and the Vietnam War. And The New York Times is talking about the planned Women's March on Washington on 21 January as an occasion for "primal scream" (Susan Chira, 30 December 2016, nytimes.com).

Maybe, but I say not to cry for Outrage, because that is crying for Carnage; rather, to display Courage to dispense Mercy and Compassion to victims, all victims. And then we can all become Victors and not Victims.

In his New Year's Day greetings, Pope Francis comes out and says that, considering terrorism (AP, 01 January 2017, newsinfo.inquirer.net):

The new year will be good in the measure in which each of us, with the help of God, tries to do good, day by day, that’s how peace is created. (People must) say no to hate and violence and yes to brotherhood and reconciliation.

Say No to Hate, say Yes to Love.

From a Facebook post of veritas846.ph, I quote Pope Francis' Prayer Intentions:

That all Christians may be faithful to the Lord's teaching by striving with prayer and fraternal charity to restore ecclesial communion and by collaborating to meet the challenges facing humanity.

Collaboration is the opposite of War. I know it's easier said than done, but as AJ Muste says, "There is no way to peace; peace is the way."

To make peace, show mercy! Let us learn from William Shakespeare speaking through The Merchant Of Venice (Act IV, Scene I):

The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown:
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

Mercy must season Justice. We must show an attribute of God Himself especially to someone who, we believe, acts as if he were higher than God Himself. @

02 January 2017. Essay word count, excluding this line: 1623