“Residents also said that the bodies of the two bore stab wounds. Acosta was also said to be recuperating from illness in the said community,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said.
“Twisting truths cannot cover the fact that butchers 94th Infantry Battalion and 47th Infantry Battalion captured NDF Consultant Ericson Acosta and his companion, a peasant organizer, alive around 2:00 this morning,“ Obrero said.
Palabay said these must include invitations to special rapporteurs on human rights defenders, indigenous peoples, independence of lawyers and judges, and right to health to allow them to conduct official investigations on other human rights violations in the country.
“In my last visit to Barangay Saad, the elder held my hand and begged me: ‘Tell the whole world of what we suffer and our dreams of a better life. We hope the persecution of us Lumads would stop,’” the bishop recalls.
Umabot sa higit 160,000 pamilya at nasa higit 600,000 indibidwal ang naitalang na-apektuhan sa pananalasa ng bagyong Paeng sa isla ng Panay noong Sabado, Oktubre 29.
“The State has long utilized this scheme, arbitrarily filing trumped-up charges against activists then illegally arresting and detaining them,” KMU said.
KMP said that the rice liberalization law that Senator Villar principally authored and enacted in 2019 led to heavy income losses for rice farmers amounting to P206 billion in the past three years.
Mabasa’s family said that while they would like to thank the PNP, they hope the development would lead to the identification, arrest and prosecution of the mastermind.
Raymundo Buenfuerza, NPA Bicol spokesperson, said their recent successes in Albay is a slap on both the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police that claim counter-insurgency programs have weakened the rebel army in the region.
“His remarks, while a brazen official admission of the practice, do not only encourage and normalize red-tagging but also brandish it as an institutionalized and orchestrated method of the government in dealing with perceived political critics,” Philippine UPR Watch said.
