CAPILLAS
Cagayan de Oro City — It was sometime past 10 p.m. last Tuesday when news of President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration of martial law spread like wild fire on social media, and netizens in Mindanao were quite vocal for and against the declaration.
I was about to sleep when I got wind of the Inquirer report on Facebook, and my mom said the usually raucous neighborhood was unusually silent that night. It was so silent, she said, that not even the dogs came out and barked to their hearts’ content.
There was nobody outside, and if there were any, they didn’t even make a noise as they walked straight to the comfort of their homes. To paraphrase an old Christmas quote, “Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
I was in this City of Golden Friendship for my annual vacation break, and when some guys posted their greetings to me on Facebook, one of them wisecracked, “Your unforgettable (homecoming) gift from the president of the south!”
Immediately, I got worried over the implications of the President’s declaration. One’s impression of martial law for those old enough to remember usually consists of battle-ready soldiers armed to the hilt, guarding every hotspot in every corner of the city and town and curfews being imposed and violators arrested on sight.
But there were no soldiers in sight at the city proper the following day. In fact, it was almost like any other day in the city, with people and vehicles moving about their business except that it was a lot warmer than usual and it thankfully rained later in the afternoon.
What was noticeable, however, were plain clothes police officers walking about inside malls, their eyes hovering over every person entering and leaving and more cops with K-9 dogs roaming commercial establishments, sniffing through packages and bags of travelers and mall goers.
Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno, through his information officer Maricel Casino-Rivera, assured city residents that it is business as usual and that there won’t be any curfews imposed on city residents.
Everything looked normal with teenagers being their usual cheery selves though in other nightspots the drinking and carousing was slightly subdued with adults talking in seemingly hushed tones.
Upon learning about the declaration of martial law, a media colleague wrote, “Good night and good luck Mindanao” in reference to that George Clooney produced film “Good Night and Good Luck” that detailed the McCarthy years of communist witch-hunting in the US.
In declaring martial law, the late president Ferdinand Marcos justified that the country is threatened by communist insurgents whose backers included his political rivals such as Senator Benigno Aquino Jr.
There was a martial law declaration by former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao, in 2009 by virtue of the Ampatuan massacre of journalists and relatives of political rivals of the then ruling Ampatuan clan.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s declaration of martial law covered the entire Mindanao Island and was grounded on the sudden Marawi City-wide attacks launched by the Maute group who are said to be trying to gain the attention and support of the international terrorist group ISIS.
In light of the Bohol misadventure of the Abu Sayyaf bandits that ended sometime this month and the bombing of a nightspot here in Cagayan de Oro a few years back, the general sentiment of city residents here is one of unequivocal support for martial law.
“Maayo bitaw naay martial law kay kanang mga badlungan nga drug addicts og palahubog matarong gyod (Martial law is good so that those hardheaded drug addicts and drunkards would sober up),” a taxi driver told me as I proceeded straight to the city proper.
While there may be pockets of resistance and outright opposition to President Duterte’s martial law declaration in Mindanao here in Mindanao, the fact that Mindanao is considered “Duterte country” by virtue of his dominance on the island in last year’s elections should therefore explain the strong support for his decision.
The Visayas region and Luzon are two different scenarios altogether, and it doesn’t help any that President Duterte warned that his imposition of martial law in Mindanao would be the same as that under then president Marcos.
It may help that local officials would try to rationalize the imposition of martial law by ensuring that a person’s movement and civil liberties remain intact even as the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended.
In the meantime, it will be at least two months of martial law here and in the entire Mindanao island region. We need more than good luck to survive this.