The recent arrest of a transport group member brings to 20 the number of unionists in jail and showing continuing impunity under the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government, a labor center said.
Felixberto Consad, a member of the Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operators Nationwide (PISTON), was arrested in his home in Sogod, Southern Leyte last August 14 while taking care of his grandchild.
A native of Butuan City in Agusan del Norte, Consad was forcibly displaced to Southern Leyte following the March 2021 arrest and imprisonment of wife Rosanilla who is a member of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers.
Felixberto is being charged with murder. Like his wife, the 61-year old was also a victim of red-tagging.
The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) said the charge against Consad is trumped up, showing no change in policy by the Marcos government against activists.
“The Duterte regime’s political persecution of labor activists persists under the Marcos Jr. regime,” the Center said.
“Most political prisoners were arrested under the Duterte regime but the Marcos Jr. regime refuses to lift a finger to junk the trumped-up charges against them and free them from detention,” it added.
Rights group Karapatan also condemned Consad’s arrest, saying the former transport sector organizer “was clearly one of the targets of the military and police at the creation of the monstrous NTF-ELCAC (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict).”
Karapatan said Consad’s arrest is a way for the NTF-ELCAC to save face after Rosanilla’s case was promptly dismissed for lack of evidence.
Rosanilla, an assistant principat at the San Vicente National High School in Butuan City, showed the court she was home doing laundry and exchanging messages with her co-teachers and supervisor at Department of Education at the time when she was allegedly participating in an ambush against government soldiers.
“Now, as if they’re not yet done with their stupidity and they decide to go on with political persecution of the Consad couple, they went on arresting Felix, already a senior citizen,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said.
KARAPATAN called on the courts to “save Consad from another clear case of harassment and dirty handiwork of the NTF-ELCAC.”
“All the more that the brainless, vicious NTF-ELCAC should be abolished for only continuing to exist to sow terror and malicious vilification against persons and activists,” Palabay said.
“They are spoils of the previous regime that is being continued by the Marcos Jr. regime, with millions of funds peddled into the pockets of those who run this cheap show, at the expense of people’s rights to liberty and safety,” she added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
