‘Invitation’

Cong Corrales .

I FIRST met Kristine Lim at one of the “choke points” during a public transport strike. I was writing for another daily newspaper then and was covering the nationwide strike. She was wearing her Liceo de Cagayan uniform while holding a placard calling for the repeal of the Oil Deregulation Law.

To the best of my knowledge, she used to be a street parliamentarian until she went back to finishing her nursing degree shortly after getting married and having children. She has always been here in the city’s streets voicing the cause of the marginalized and disenfranchised.

Kristin used to be the station manager of “Radyo Lumad” under the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines here in Northern Mindanao. Like my wife, son, and I, she has been red-tagged on a one-page flyer which was distributed at a hotel here in the city on Feb. 26.

On Saturday evening, an officer from the Army’s 1st Special Forces Battalion, wearing civilian clothes, went to Kristine’s residence in Damilag, Bukidnon to “invite” her to their camp in Bukidnon for her to share her “knowledge of the left.” With this officer was a 6×6 Army truck full of soldiers armed to the teeth.

The officer neither gave a reason for the “invitation” nor showed any warrant or legal documents.

Of course, Kristine did not consent. Like many others, she knew that this was the very same tactic that the very same battalion used to “capture” Gloria Jandayan and Gleceria Balangiao who were presented as supposed New People’s Army combatants who surrendered to the folds of the law. Jandayan has been released but Balangiao, unfortunately, is still being held captive as an insurgent.

The next day, Sunday, the same officer, with the 6×6 and soldiers armed to the teeth in tow, returned to Kristine’s home. This time, they brought members of the barangay council to convince her to go with the soldiers to their camp.

However, Kristine stood her ground and told the punong barangay that she has the right to dismiss the “invitation” since there were no legal documents presented to her compelling her to do so.

The punong barangay concurred with Kristine and advised the soldiers that they can ask her constituent for a dialogue at their barangay hall and not the military camp. She also claimed her right for legal representation if and when that dialogue ever happens.

This incident sends a chilling effect to all libertarians and human rights advocates across the country. It is good that Kristine knows her rights as a Filipino citizen. However, the same thing could not be said of the thousands of indigenous people, subsistence farmers, fisherfolk, and informal settlers.

Since December 2017, the rights watchdog Karapatan documented some 126 victims of extrajudicial killings and 235 cases of frustrated EJKs — 1,202 victims of illegal arrest, 272 of them detained; and 426,590 victims of forced evacuation.

Since when has it been illegal to be a voice for the voiceless? Even with martial law declared in the entire island, civilian authority remains supreme over the military.

The armed-appendage of the state would do well to understand that unarmed dissent is not a crime. In fact, it is the cornerstone of every fledgling democracy on planet earth. This is even enshrined in our Constitution. Look it up so you can learn a thing or two about how democracy works.

Hell, even the Communist Party of the Philippines has been declared legal by no less than a former military general who became a President. My editor-in-chief told a brigadier general during a dialogue not too long ago, “There is no such thing as a thought crime.”

Kristine is safe now somewhere in the city. But she is expecting a trumped up case against her in the near future just as what happened to other people “invited” by the military. Pfft.