Rep. Djalia Hataman explains ‘NO’ vote on Martial law extension

 “MARTIAL LAW is not just feared by the Moro people, it is abhorred,” Anak Mindanao (AMIN) party list Rep. Sittie Djalia Turabin-Hataman said in her latest Facebook post on July 23.

The lady lawmaker, wife of Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Governor Mujiv Hataman,  raised her negative vote during the joint Congressional meeting held on July 22 to decide on the five-month martial law extension sought by President Duterte.

Rep. Hataman’s announced negative vote made her  the lone elected Muslim official to have openly rejected the military rule and suspension of the writ of habeas corpus imposed by the President.

She said that while others looked at Martial Law as “curtailment of freedom, for us it was the curtailment of lives.”

“When scores of individuals went missing in other parts of the country, Moro people were wiped out by  the thousands, as communities,” Rep. Hataman said.

“And  long after Martial Law was gone, we remained under the hawks of its shadow. Tanks and uniformed men remained our everyday sights (with) the fear and abuses and violations that came with those sights,” said the solon from Basilan.

She declared  that military solution would not  address fully the question of terrorism-bound extremism, citing the successful stride of persuasive military and civilian authorities’ conduct of massive socio-economic and infrastructure projects in Basilan that have attracted at least 84 Abu Sayyaf combatants to surrender in batches this year.

Rep. Hataman said she, her ARMM governor-husband and other relatives had been targets of threats by extremist militants, but they opted to sustain non-military remedies that do away with the loss of lives. (By Ali Macabalang. First published in the Manila Bulletin.)

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