Weaponizing streamers

Antonio J. Montalván II .

YOU wake up one morning stunned to discover a streamer hanging outside your fence saying you are a terrorist, a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines or of the New People’s Army. Laugh about it because it is not true? Heavens no. You grope to call up friends’ help, inform media, and perhaps seek legal advice. Obviously, the low-thinkers behind that streamer did it furtively in the dead of night. Their identities are unknown. That is what makes it chilling.

That exactly was the predicament of a valued friend, Beverly Musni who lives in a supposedly secured residential community in the city. That eve, her household staff had noticed a flashlight being trained on their house. This is a home of jovial memories to countless friends who count on the Musnis as their only protectors.

What exactly are her deadly sins against the republic that state forces, as these faceless streamer-posting operatives are presumed to be, have their beef on? Beverly Musni is one of Mindanao’s best known, most unflinching human rights lawyers there can ever be. For over 30 years, she has represented in court a good number of incarcerated individuals, some of who have been in the military’s order of battle as suspected members of the progressive left. That is the legal advocacy she has chosen as her professional niche. What is wrong with that?

The Musni home, actually the abode at one time or the other of three other lawyers, is a haven – take note of that word — to indigenous peoples, church workers, and human rights advocates. This is their shelter. They run to Beverly because they know she is fearless in going to court for their rights. Her lawyer daughters, one of whom now live in France and have sustained her parents’ advocacy for the poor and the defenseless, have all followed her in her footsteps. What is wrong with that?

In this day and age when public shaming can be a matter of life and death, to be red-tagged means your life now lies in the hands of those who believe you are a menace to the state. Red tagging expressed in streamers is a crafty way of public shaming. Not only does it provide harassment to the red-tagged, it is actually a form of intimidation. Stop supporting progressive forces, even legally, or else — that’s the message.

But harassment and intimidation are not stand-alone stratagems. Both lead to threats against one’s life. Take note that the three – harassment, intimidation, threat – form the acronym HIT. Red tagging means one is on the hit list. It is an order of battle.

The acronym is not accidental. It actually follows the current pattern of extrajudicial killings. First, one’s name suddenly appears on a hit list. Then one becomes a statistic in the spate of killings. “Nanlaban” or not, the placard placed on your lifeless bloody corpse is actually meant to justify the red tagging – this dead man or woman was on the hit list anyway; they were forewarned. End of justice, it says in the distorted mind of the perpetrator. In fact, it is the assassination of justice.

Orders of battle are not new to Beverly. Last February in fact, she was among 24 persons and organizations included in a list publicly distributed, again by faceless persons hiding behind cloaks of anonymity, as “terrorist members responsible for recruiting residents in the city to join the ranks of the NPA.”

One can easily chuckle at the image of Beverly Musni as an NPA recruiter. The lady is not only a lawyer. She is an officer of the court. She is a judge in the court of labor relations after decades of having represented litigants falsely accused of crimes supposedly against state security. Her record is impressive.

All these distortions and falsifications of the law have actually rendered the justice system in ruins. One must keep one’s jaw from dropping after coming to the painful realization that it has in reality smashed beyond belief one fundamental human right held the most sacred in all corners of the universe, now treated with obsolescence by this loon of an administration – everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

(Antonio J. Montalván II is a social anthropologist known for being vocal against corruption in government, human rights abuses, and matters involving indigenous peoples.)