“Whatever the real score is, we hope that the government will rethink its bloody all-out war strategy against the CPP/NPA/NDFP that was resumed when former President Rodrigo Duterte terminated the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations in November 2017,” the advocates said.
“Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has not taken measures to address the continuing pattern of rights violations and repeated denial of due process,” Bishop Labuntog said.
“The killings continue. If the ‘war on drugs’ was effective, the proliferation of illegal drugs would no longer be an issue. If the domestic investigation processes were efficient, I wouldn’t be here asking for help again,” Lee said.
A group of human rights defenders said they have reported the case of the two abducted environmental activists to the United Nations (UN) at the ongoing 54th Regular Session of the Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva, Switzerland.
In a country that is mainly Christian — with some 80 percent of the 117 million Filipinos identifying as Roman Catholic and another 10 percent as Protestant — church workers, priests, pastors, ministers and, yes, bishops, have also been red-tagged. Like many red-tagged victims, several of them have ended up dead.
“Will you not call for an impartial investigation into the abduction of two environmental activists and the apparent cover up done by the military?” BAYAN president Renato Reyes Jr. asked.
“We salute the fortitude of Jhed and Jonila who, despite the violence and abduction they suffered in the hands of the military, revealed the truth to the public,” Gumanao said.
“Ang totoo po ay dinukot kami ng militar. Napilitan din kami na sumurender dahil pinagbantaan ang buhay namin. Iyon po ang totoo,” Castro said. (The truth is, we were abducted by the military. We were forced to surrender because they threatened our lives. That is the truth.)
The United Nations Joint Program is unable to significantly address continuing human rights violations in the Philippines with the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. presidency virtually indistinguishable from the Rodrigo Duterte regime in terms of red-tagging, weaponization of laws and the people’s worsening poverty, the Philippine UPR Watch said.
“We all know of course, that as Marcsos Sr. was about to end his second and last constitutional term, he declared martial law to perpetuate himself in power, using the so-called communist threat as a convenient pretext,” SELDA said.
