Press Release
March 5, 2007

MILITARY TOLD TO GET OUT OF BARANGAYS
AND LET VILLAGE OFFICIALS AND POLICE MAINTAIN PEACE

Amid the cry of militarization of depressed urban barangays in Manila, Quezon and Caloocan cities, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today urged barangay officials and the police to exercise their authority to maintain law and order and to demand the immediate pullout of soldiers deployed in their communities for being totally unnecessary.

Pimentel said there is basis for the allegation that soldiers have been deployed to the barangays where the urban poor live in order harass candidates from militant party list organizations and other groups that are resisting the abuse of power and suppression of civil liberties being committed by the Arroyo administration.

Barangay chairmen and their barangay councils all over the land should now assert their right as civilian functionaries to maintain law and order in their barangays, the opposition leader said.

They should do so before the nation becomes fully militarized under a president who is a captive of certain generals in the armed forces.

Pimentel debunked the claim of Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, chief-of-staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), that the barangay officials and residents themselves have requested the sending of soldiers to their communities.

In fact, he said the presence of armed soldiers unsettle the resident because their communities are not within the war zones.

It looks terribly bad to see the sight of soldiers in full battle gear roaming around the barangays of the nation as if they are an occupation army restoring order in enemy territory, the minority leader said.

Stressing that it is the barangays and other local government units with the police that should maintain law and order in the civilian communities, Pimentel said the military can be asked to come in only if the civilian authorities cannot cope with the security problem.

It is only in the event that the civilian agencies tasked to maintain in law and order are unable to do so that conceivably, the military as military can now make their presence felt in the barangays, he said.

Pimentel, principal author of the Local Government Code, explained that barangay officials are the civilian arms of law and order in their communities and they can assert their authority first, by calling on their tanods (watchmen) to do so.

If the tanods cannot do the job for one reason or another, the next civilian officials they can ask for help are the mayors of their cities and municipalities, he said.

The mayors can, then, order the police, another civilian agency, to go out to the barangays concerned and maintain law and order there. If the mayors are unavailable, the barangay officials can always call on the governor or the sangguniang panlalawigan concerned to help them out with their problem.

In his statement, Pimentel also said:

Without availing first of what local government officials can do to maintain law and order in their provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays, soldiers should not inflict their presence in the localities. Unless the local government officials are unable to maintain law and order, soldiers should stay in their barracks and wait until they are called upon to help. Or perhaps, they can do construction work.

Their unwarranted intrusion into local government domain raises alarum bells that (a) during this election period, they are sent to the barangays to intimidate people into voting for the administration candidates, or, worse, (b) to condition the minds of the people that the law of the gun or martial law is inevitable and that there is nothing we can do about it.

There is still something we can do about it: denounce and condemn the militarization of the country as totally unnecessary, uncalled for and unconstitutional.

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