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A few days ago, I put up a post on gun confiscation and martial law in the Philippines and asked for information pertaining to what is going on there. This morning a received a really detailed email from James Triguero, who has information on this subject – with permission, here is what he sent me:

Terresa:

I really enjoy your blog and just signed up to follow it on Facebook. I may have some information for you regarding your post about the situation in the Philippines. I follow the politics pretty closely down there and am in touch with Filipino journalists via Facebook and Twitter.

The massacre that happened in December was carried out by the Ampatuan clan down in Maguindanao. They are a political dynasty that have a large private army. They were coddled by the current President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who they helped with massive voter fraud in 2004. She is an usurper who was caught on tape conspiring to cheat in those elections. A rival clan, the Mangadatus, were going to run against the Ampatuans in the election this year. The person running appealed to the police and the military for protection when he filed his papers to run but they refused to help him. Instead, he sent his wife, many women, and a lot of journalists. Normally Muslims will not target the women and the journalists serve as watchdogs. The Ampatuans didn’t care and they murdered everybody, shocking journalist groups around the world with the murder of 30+ media members.

Gloria Arroyo declared martial law in Maguindanao province using a state of rebellion as a justification. There was a huge outcry and the order was rescinded after a week or so. There is a prohibition of firearms during election periods and there are roadblocks being set up. Guns are generally illegal in the Philippines but the law is rarely enforced. Other than Maguindanao, where they were dismantling a private army, soldiers haven’t gone door to door confiscating weapons. Definitely, American soldiers have not participated in anything like that. It is a violation of the Filipino Constitution for foreign soldiers to act in such a manner and there would be a huge outcry. There was a lot of controversy a couple years ago when the outgoing Ambassador, Kristie Kenney, was visiting a humanitarian project in the dangerous Sulu area. She was surrounded by heavily-armed US soldiers. Many in the Filipino media were upset with that photo and said it should’ve been Filipino soldiers providing security and they felt it was an affront to their sovereignty and a possible violation of their constitution.

Gloria Arroyo is an evil woman and corrupt like Marcos. She may try to extend her stay past May of this year by declaring a failure of elections and a “state of emergency”. She is desperate to cling to power. If she does this, it would likely result in another People Power uprising.

English language websites that cover the news in the Philippines include:

www.philstar.com
www.inquirer.net
www.malaya.com.ph
www.tribune.net.ph

I hope this information is helpful and I look forward to reading more of your articles.

Regards,

James

On this blog, I try to always quickly correct something that I get wrong. While there may be martial law declared in the Philippines, American soldiers are not confiscating guns. This was the primary point that had me very concerned. James has put that issue to rest here.

I still believe that at the rate that Executive Orders and other Constitutional violations are taking place within our own government, we are on very rocky ground concerning what President Obama may or may not do in an emergency. Vigilance should be eternal… Watching what is occurring in other countries helps us prevent things like that occurring here. I fear what Obama will do to our gun rights. But I have faith in our military and our police. Should Obama ever try and use them against us, he is in for one hell of a surprise…