Political prisoners across the country are holding a protest fast today, July 22, the day President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivers his third state of the nation address (SONA) to press action on various issues, including the immediate humanitarian release of a terminally ill activist.
Reminiscent of the dictatorship of his late father Ferdinand Marcos Sr. when fasting by political detainees had become major political events, such as during the 1981 visit of Pope John Paul II, hundreds are abstaining from solid food including soup in their day-long actions.
A hundred political prisoners from Negros Island were the first to announce their fasting Sunday.
Rights group Karapatan said there are 755 political prisoners all over the country, including 90 sickly and 102 elderly.
A statement from political prisoners at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City listed overcrowding, health and sanitation crises, isolation and ostracism, trumped-up cases, denial of humanitarian considerations; and the weaponization of the anti-terrorism law as the detainees’ main complaints.
They are also calling for the immediate and humanitarian release of fellow detainee Ernesto Jude Rimando who is terminally ill of liver cancer.
The detainees added that even the United States intervenes in the management of jails through the International Criminal Investigating Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) in the guise of going after “violent extremism.”
“This places political prisoners in an even more difficult and dangerous situation, violative of basic rights and due process,” their statement, released through support group Kapatid, said.
The political prisoners are pushing for the immediate release of all political prisoners especially the sick and the elderly; the revocation of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and its “retroactive application against political prisoners”; and a stop to “US intervention in Philippine prison affairs.”
The Negros detainees are also calling for the resumption of formal peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
