Villaroman, John Nikolai C.

December 16,
2022
Socio 114 WFU Critical Reflection Paper #5
Humanitarianization of State Fascism: Facilitating Anti-Terrorism in the Philippines
Every time I go up Batasan road, I always take notice of the tarpaulins displayed on the
street lamps. It was quite peculiar seeing different people in different uniforms, and in different
professions declaring their vow to put a stop to terrorism. There’s a lot of these posters outside,
coupled with other material designating certain organizations or personalities as communist-
terrorist. But, what’s clear here is that the Philippines seem to be embroiled in a war against
terrorism as the posters say, and that there are upstanding citizens vowing to fight against
terrorism, and then, organizations or personalities which are in cahoots with terrorism. In this
paper, I aim to look into this “war on terror” in the Philippines. The “War on Terror” has its roots
in a major policy shift of US imperialism and its allies at the onset of the September 11, 2001
attacks. This shift is in the context where US imperialism becomes the dominant power in the
imperialist camp with the collapse of the Soviet bloc in December 1991, and thus it had the task
to project a new bogeyman to replace the “specter of communism”, and one of which was the
specter of “Islamic terrorism” which targeted anti-US Islamic states. The US took advantage of
9/11 and maximized its used of its Islamic-jihad groups (kept on a long leash, and unleashed to
“destabilize and control other countries”), as well as maximizing the “Bush doctrine of changing
any regime that resists US dictates” (Verzola Jr. 2017:33-34).
Now, anti-terrorism also includes communists, suspected communists, or even critics in
the Philippine setting. For the discussion in this paper, I will be focusing on how this anti-
terrorism is facilitated in the Philippines through its “humanitarian” framing. I argue that anti-
terrorism is being facilitated in the following manner – 1) the regulatory mechanisms of the
institution of law as seen in the Anti-Terror Law (ATL), which also institutionalizes the
dichotomy between the terrorist-destabilizer and a so-called “upstanding citizen”; 2) the
coordination of both military and civilian agencies in implementing so-called “development
programs” to combat terrorism, which include livelihood programs, and seminars to counter
terrorism; 3) the depoliticization of “development”, and thus veering the people away from the
actual structural problems of the country; 4) and the role of the US and its aim to maintain US
hegemony.
The first argument comes from the signing of the Anti-Terror Act into law (RA 11479),
serving as the regulatory pillar of anti-terrorism, which can “punish” terrorism, or “sanction” law
enforcers to punish anyone classified as “terrorist” by the Anti-Terror Council (ATC) under the
rule of law (Scott 2014: 60; Congress of the Philippines 2020: 15). It is also important to take
note that under the ATL, the ATC is sanctioned to “formulate and adopt comprehensive,
adequate, efficient and effective plans, programs, or measures to prevent, counter, suppress, or
eradicate the commission of terrorism in the country and to protect the people from such acts”
(Congress of the Philippines 2020: 26). As the regulatory pillar in the institutionalization of
terrorism, the ATL institutionalizes particular definitions of “terrorism”, which in essence serve
to empower the state to enforce violence by rule of law. Like how the colonial experience is a
terrain of struggle for forces claiming truthfulness for its interpretation (such as how Pantayong
Pananaw and Post-Colonialism have contradicting views on colonialism and the way forward)
(Curaming 2016, 67), experiences within the domain of “terrorism" can be redefined by vested
interests such as the enforced dichotomy between “terrorists” and “upstanding citizens”, and the
relegation of political criticism to “terrorism”. This leads me to my second point, wherein, as part
of the Philippine government’s “whole of nation approach”, it ensures the coordination of both
military and civilian agencies in implementing “development programs” to combat terrorism. In
a news article by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA), the public information arm of the
Philippine Government, we could see how the BTF-ELCAC 1 and TESDA are making use of
livelihood and technical programs to help suppress insurgency in the area. This is what the NTF-
ELCAC’s call the “Support to Barangay Development Program” (SBDP), which is reminiscent
of how the western states, led by the US, ‘partners’ with NGOs in giving ‘humanitarian aid’ so
that they can legitimately intervene in “places of internal conflict” (Alarcon 2022; Roberts 2010:
850). This leads me to my third point, which takes inspiration from Roberts’ (2010) observation
that “much of the over-all humanitarian NGO agenda has contributed to the depoliticization of
global civil society in respect of tackling those social structures that help to perpetuate global
exploitation and oppression (Roberts 2010: 849). From my observation, livelihood and technical
programs under the SBDP, while it caters to the temporary relief of individuals and families, it
does not address the real issues at hand such as structural unemployment, rising prices of goods
and services, and the like. This reduces structural issues to private troubles, eventually
“depoliticizing” them as it shifts the people’s focus from the institutions that can influence such
issues to the morally-charged problem of “combatting terrorism”. Though, it is ironic that despite
the efforts to reduce structural problems to individual problems, “depoliticizing” them in the
process, the act itself is political as it serves a dominant power in society.
My fourth point brings to the fore another crucial element in the “war on terror”, which is
the role of the US. For one, the US has long been partners with the Philippines in terms of
military assistance as it could be seen in agreements such as the VFA-EDCA. But, according to
benar News Staff (2022), as of February 2022, the US has also prepared to “increase bilateral
assistance for Manila’s fight against violent extremist groups”. This isn’t new as the US has also
provided training and intelligence to support the Philippine army in their hunt of the Abu Sayyaf
(Benar News Staff 2022). Furthermore, the US has always had an anti-terrorism or anti-
insurgency plan across the world, and the ATL serves as some sort of “continuity of the
transnational pressure to keep international counterterrorism norms reflected in domestic laws”
(Lamchek 2022). On what grounds does the US intervene through the “war on terror”? We go
back to Roberts (2010) that US imperialism makes use of “terrorism as a global threat” as a
lynchpin of imperialism’s ‘humanitarian methods’ and militaristic intervention to hold power
across the globe (Roberts 2010: 849). Militaristic interventions become justified as the ‘war on
terror’ becomes framed as a morally just crusade for the empire.

1
Barangay Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict. This is the anti-terrorism task force of the
Philippine government in the barangay level.
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