Martial law
stall military administrators and
and judges. While the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is suspended, this only applies to those that are already charged in court with rebellion and any acts related to invasion. Furthermore, if the person detained is not charged in court within three days, then the person must be immediately released.
It must also be emphasized that warrantless arrests are not allowed, unless the one arrested committed, is actually committing, or is attempting to commit an offense in the presence of an arresting officer; or when the arresting officer has probable cause to believe based on personal knowledge that a crime has been committed; or when the person arrested has escaped from detention.
What further weakens martial law with regard to addressing the crime of rebellion is that mere membership in the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is no longer a suf-
during martial law. This is because RA 1700, or the "Anti-Subversion Law", was repealed in 1992.
Even with martial law, the civil and political rights of citizens remain intact. In addition to the right against arrest without a courtissued warrant — except for the circumstances enumerated above — persons under arrest or detention retain the rights reserved for the accused. In general, citizens also retain their rights to life and the right not to be tortured or be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. Citizens continue to enjoy their rights to freedom of expression, thought, conscience and religion, and their rights against unreasonable searches or those committed without search warrants. Government of-
and media organizations remain operational, even as the freedom of the press remains guaranteed.
Hence, one needs to ask if there is anything more substantive that the state can do, aside from deploying the armed forces to increase its visibility in affected areas, to address the problem of rebellion that it couldn’t do even without martial law. In comparison to the martial law that Marcos imposed, where all government authorities were centralized under military rule, Congress was padlocked, and the courts abolished, and where media was tightly controlled, the martial law that the 1987 Constitution allows is at best a symbolic move by the state to assert its power and authority.
In short, it has become like a placebo. It is martial law without its active ingredient. And in the end, the effects that people in Mindanao and elsewhere attribute to it, such as the feeling of security and its impact on development of the island, are mere manifestations of the placebo effect. People attribute to martial law these effects which could have been achieved by simply deploying the calling-out powers of the President to deal with lawless violence. The perception that it is efficacious in addressing the problem of rebellion in Mindanao is more a function of expectations further heightened by the people’s deep trust towards the President.
At present, many people treat martial law as if it has become the new normal. Others see it as a panacea to political violence. There is a danger that lurks when we treat martial law as a maintenance drug to keep our lives safe. As something that is akin to a placebo, it operates on the basis of perceptions and optics, and not on actual results of ground operations that can only be enabled under martial law. We think it is working, when in fact it is probably only in our mind, hence its being almost like a placebo effect.
The thing about perceptions when martial law is normalized is that they can easily degenerate into something that can desensitize or trivialize. This can lead to a situation where martial law will eventually lose its reason and meaning as a potent weapon of the state to protect itself.