It was vintage Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday morning as she broke her silence about having placed Maguindanao under martial law and her decision to lift Proclamation 1959 after one week.

She used the forum with educators to thump her chest and in a quite self-serving manner described how “my swift and decisive action” prevented rebellion in Maguindanao “from spreading to engulf other areas in lawlessness and the collapse of the courts and local government authority.”

“I had to make a though choice and I did take decisive action.”

She was gratuitously referring to the week-long declaration of martial law in Maguindanao which her military commanders have admitted “allowed us to fast track the arrest of those behind the November 23 massacre and the looming rebellion of followers of the Ampatudan clan.”

So indeed, the cat is out of the bag: the supposed rebellion was triggered by the operations to go after the massacre suspects!

So Malacanang declared MARTIAL LAW  in  knee-jerk fashion and we are supposed to say thank you.

But what is not being explained to the public is how it was possible for the Ampatuans to flourish, to amass munitions right from the National Arsenal, complete with a Barrett sniper rifle to scores of 50 and 60-caliber machine guns, mortars, recoil-less ricles, and oh yes, armoured personnel carriers enough to outfit an entire military brigade!!!

Who was the Frankenstein that created the monster. Pray tell us, Pres. Arroyo.

Also please tell us how and why the Ampatuans are widely thought to have ‘operated’ in the 2004 and 2007 elections to ensure zero votes for the political opposition.

Also now please tell us, will the supposed evidence obtained by martial law forces in Maguindanao on the basis of arrest, search and seizure orders stand as legally-obtained evidence in our courts of law?

“Our critics had no faith in our Constitution and perhaps even in our democracy.”

“We make no apologies for acting as we did as it was based on a sound reading of our Constitution and what had to be done to pusue justice.”

Who are going to answer for the apparent pilferage of government munitions collected by the erstwhile political bedfellows of Mrs. Arroyo she has now labeled as rebels?

The regime’s politics of expediency once again prevails but is genuine rule of law secure and sacred?

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