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Khan: NTF-ELCAC harmful to peace talks efforts

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United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion Irene Khan said the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration’s decision to open peace talks with the revolutionary Left is a positive signal but urged however for the abolition of the government’s anti-insurgency task force.

Among her recommendations in her exit press briefing last Thursday, February 2, Khan said the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) should be abolished “to allow for more inclusive peace-building platforms.”

“The tone of the new Administration, coupled with its decision to open peace talks with insurgents and a renewed engagement with the international community, are positive signals,” Khan said.

“But addressing the serious and deep-seated human rights issues will require more fundamental and sustained reforms,” she added.

Khan said the NTF-ELCAC is “outdated” and stressed that “does not take into account the ongoing prospects for peace negotiations.”

The government, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the Royal Norwegian Government simultaneously announced ongoing discussions for the possible resumption of formal peace negotiations.

Immediate rejection

Khan’s recommendation was however immediately rejected by Marcos administration officials, even accusing the UN expert of blindsiding the government with her preformed opinions before arriving in the Philippines.

National security adviser Eduardo Año, Peace adviser Carlito Galvez Jr., interior Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr., National Security Council assistant director Jonathan Malaya and media security task force head Paulino Gutierrez in unison rejected Khan’s recommendation of Khan to abolish the NTF-ELCAC.

“Please take note that this is a 55-year old running insurgency. Now that we have reached this stage in the campaign, we feel it is improper to call for its abolition,” Malaya said, again claiming the government is about to defeat the New People’s Army (NPA).

Año for his part said the NTF-ELCAC “does not encourage red-tagging.”

Sen. Imee Marcos also mocked Khan’s call to abolish the task force as “supremely presumptuous,” belittling the length of time the UN expert spent in her in-country investigations.

“After a mere 10 days in the Philippines, during which she never visited the NTF barangays but only met a chosen few witnesses, she has the knowledge and the right to tell the Philippine government what to do?” Marcos said in a statement.

Ignorant response

Rights group Karapatan however labeled the Senator as ignorant, saying she should be schooled on international human rights mechanisms like the UN and the International Criminal Court.

“They cannot just sign human rights treaties, conventions and go to town saying that we have a ‘vibrant’ democracy, without being held accountable for the Philippine government’s obligations and commitments in this global rights system,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said.

Palabay pointed out that it was the government that invited Khan into the Philippines and her recommendations must be respected as part of the government’s obligations to the international community.

“What they fail to see is that it is simply game over for the NTF-ELCAC, despite all the lights and sounds show, parties and meetings they put up during SR Khan’s official visit,” Palabay said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

ABS-CBN workers and Irene Khan

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United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion Irene Khan met media groups on the first day of her official visit to the Philippines last January 23. Her staff made sure that employees of ABS-CBN would be among those she would meet.

Her invitation was enthusiastically accepted by the ABS-CBN Employees Union (ABSCBNEU). It meant that what they’ve undergone did not go unnoticed and have not been forgotten by the international community. Many things have happened since ABS-CBN—once the country’s biggest media network—has lost its terrestrial radio and television operations due to the denial of its franchise renewal bid by the Rodrigo Duterte regime in 2020.

ABSCBNEU president Jon Villanueva came prepared that Tuesday afternoon. Of the 20 or so colleagues from various non-government media organizations present in the meeting with Khan, he was the only one with a written copy of what he wanted to share.

He began with a loud enough voice, albeit shaky, obviously nervous. He said 4,000 direct workers had lost their jobs when ABS-CBN lost its franchise. He added that thousands from outsourced services like janitorial, security, fleet, clinic, technical utility, building maintenance, clinic and others also lost theirs. Villanueva said that ABS-CBN’s closure also affected the livelihood of many more, such as suppliers, adjacent restaurants, tricycle and pedicab drivers around its main headquarters in Quezon City. He said the same was probably true in the network’s 20 broadcast centers nationwide.

All eyes and ears were on the union head at this point, the gravity of his words weighing down on everyone in the room. Their experience was the biggest press freedom issue in the Philippines in the past three and a half decades after all.

Villanueva went on narrating how those who lost their jobs immediately experienced deterioration of their living standards. He said their children were transferred from private to public schools. Several had to let go of apartments or condominium units they started to pay for or have to move out of their rented houses to humbler abodes.

“Most painful of all, there were cases of employee deaths due to heart attacks after learning that they were included in the massive lay-offs…” Villanueva said before suddenly stopping as he started sobbing.

The room fell even more silent.

A fellow unionist continued reading for Villanueva who was unable to continue. He said there were a few who were able to immediately find alternative employment while the rest who were initially retained were forced to take pay cuts. They were also forced to take up the slack left behind by the bloodbath.

But many more workers would still lose their jobs years after. In 2023, around 70 workers of ABS-CBN’s online Teleradyo programs were let go. ABS-CBN’s News Channel (ANC) as a program of its Sky Cable subsidiary would also possibly close once its sale to PLDT is finalized. ANC is a rival to PLDT’s own OneNews by TV5. 

The union said ABS-CBN’s closure considerably impacted the people’s access to timely information and reliable news. This is felt most during calamities and natural disasters, especially in rural areas that relied on ABS-CBN’s news coverage. The company also provided medical and relief assistance to disaster-hit areas, a long-running program it was forced to discontinue.

“Millions of Filipinos have lost a pillar in Philippine news and mass media. The attack on ABS-CBN is not just a question of freedom of expression, it was a clear attack on workers, as well as our country’s democratic space and culture,” it ended. #

(Coincidentally, another news outfit is closing down today. It is CNN-Philippines’ last broadcast day. But that is a story for Irene Khan and the Filipino people to hear some other day.)

As we were saying, Irene Khan

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Dear Irene:

Halfway into your official visit and only after one tweet, enemies of freedom of expression and opinion in this country have already come out of the woodwork to attack your person and your mandate. Among them is a retired general and former spokesperson of the government’s counter-insurgency task force; another is a self-absorbed lawyer who once publicly defended Adolf Hitler.

But you must know about how your post on X on your visit to the Tacloban District Jail yesterday made the spokesperson of the regional red-tagging task force reply with menacing vitriol. You asked, “How long must they (journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio and fellow human rights defenders Marielle Domequil and Alexander Abinguna) wait to be freed?” and Prosecutor Flosemer Chris Gonzales responded with naked annoyance and arrogance.

UN Special Rapporteur Irene Khan (second from left) with staff and the three political detainees at the Tacloban District Jail on Friday. (Ms Khan’s X post)

Mr Gonzales alleged that you directly insulted the so-called independence of the entire Philippine judicial system, particularly the national prosecution service, by asking the question. He felt compelled to remind you that the outcome of court trials in the Philippines is not subject to ideologically-based speculation, conclusion and assumption.

I could have laughed hard at that were it not for the fact that too many innocent people have been victims of our corrupt judicial system. Leila de Lima (your fellow lawyer, former senator and former justice secretary who I heard will also be meeting you on this trip) will tell you more about it.

The public prosecutor went on to allege that your question assumes the three detainees will be free and that it encroaches on the functions of Philippine courts, putting a cloud on the so-called competence and integrity of the country’s law enforcement agencies and prosecutors. But he himself assumes the court will agree with him that the three prisoners slept with guns and grenades under their pillows (like hundreds of other political prisoners at the time of their midnight arrests), doesn’t he?

The fiscal who moonlights as a red-tagging task force mouthpiece proceeded to advise you to observe prudence and tact. Obviously bereft of these values himself, he ordered you to choose your words carefully when commenting about a host country that now happens to be ours. He seems ignorant of the fact that the state he refers to is a founding member of the United Nations of which you represent. He also “strongly reminded” you that the Philippines is a country of laws, forgetting that those laws include international covenants such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the country signed and claims to adhere to, the very same precepts your mandate and your very presence in the Philippines are based upon.

Mr Gonzales claimed as well that every person charged with an offense in the Philippines is entitled to due process of laws. Indeed, Frenchie, Marielle and Alexander should be entitled to their rights. But the public prosecutor is obviously desperate of reminding that the arresting officers swooped like thieves in the dead of night and blindfolded them. Yes, the government harps that no one is above the law here, but we aver in turn that many are under its boot.

Gonzales meanly ended with the statement that it is not your place to pass judgment on pending trials in this country’s courts. “Know your place in our country. Respect begets respect,” Gonzales wrote. “You are not a part of our judicial system,” he added.

Thank heavens you are not, Irene. If you are, who in their right mind would think of asking your help?

But you hear us more now, right? Asking a simple question, twitting an opinion, can be dangerous in this country. It is unacceptable to the State Mr Gonzales and government officials his kind represent. #

Maraming salamat, IRENE KHAN

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Kodao expresses its deep gratitude to United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion for heeding our call to visit our colleague Frenchie Mae Cumpio and her fellow political detainees in jail. The long-awaited visit happened at the Tacloban District Jail last January 27 as part of her official visit to investigate the state of press freedom in the country.

In a tweet, Ms. Khan said: “We are only int’l visitors so far allowed by #Philippines govt to visit them! Arrested in Feb 2020, trial still dragging on. How long should they wait to be free?”

NUJP to PTFOMS: Where did your 50% media killing resolution rate come from?

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The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) blasted government claims that more than half of all media killings in the Philippines have been resolved.

Reacting to government claims to visiting United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion Irene Khan, the NUJP said it is flabbergasted that the Presidential Task Force on Media Security (PTFOMS) reported 102 out of 203 media-related killings have been successfully prosecuted.

The NUJP said that, based on its own monitoring, there have been 199 journalists were gunned down since 1986 and the number of cases successfully resolved does not come close to 50 percent.

The group cited a Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism report in December 2022 that revealed only 11 percent of the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility’s count of 176 media killing resulted in convictions.

The same article showed that only 53 percent of the cases reached the courts, the group added.

“How the PTFOMS classified the case as ‘resolved’ is a mystery. Do they mean establishment of possible motives, identification of the suspects, or shrugging off the incidents as not work-related?” NUJP asked.

In a press release Friday, PTFOMS said it discussed with Khan its database on media killings, revealing that “half of the media-related killings (102 out of 203 cases) have been resolved, whether through legal prosecution or other means.”

“This contrasts starkly with the United Nations’ record of only about 10% resolution in journalist killings around the world, a point highlighted by Ms. Khan,” the task force boasted.

PTFOMS added that its discussion with Khan last Wednesday also highlighted the collaborative efforts of the Department of Justice and law enforcement agencies in addressing media killings.

Families of media killing victims however testified to Khan that successful prosecutions mostly mean the conviction of triggermen and accomplices but not of the masterminds.

Last Tuesday, family members of Dr. Gerry Ortega and Percival “Percy Lapid” Mabasa joined media organizations in their meeting with Khan and complained of the government’s failure to convict alleged masterminds of their murders.

Former Palawan governor Joel Reyes is being charged of masterminding Ortega’s assassination in 2011 while former Bureau of Corrections director general is accused of masterminding Mabasa’s murder.

“The brazenness of the killings, such as in the cases Percy Mabasa and Juan Jumalon, indicates that impunity is alive in this country. Emblematic of this problem is the case of Gerry Ortega who was gunned down in 2011. After 13 years, the alleged mastermind remains scot-free,” the NUJP said.

“Whether work-related or not, killings of journalists are not acceptable, and should not happen in a democratic society. The killings underscore the failure of the government to protect the right to life of its citizens,” the group added.

Khan is in the Philippines for a 10-day official visit to look into the state of press freedom and freedom of expression and opinion in the country.

She met with journalists and activists in Baguio City last Friday and had just concluded her meetings with counterparts in Tacloban City.

Khan also visited journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, church worker Marielle Domequil and human rights defender Alexander Abinguna at the Tacloban District Jail earlier today. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

KODAO KLASIK: Maling Akala (sa ChaCha)

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This is a 2006 music video criticizing the charter change scheme by the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government. Their reasons for pushing it then as well as the people’s reasons opposing it remain the same in 2024.

(Based on the song ‘Maling Akala’ by the Eraserheads)

Valbuena: NPA wholeheartedly accepts CPP’s rectification call

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The New People’s Army (NPA) wholeheartedly accepts the Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) call to carry out a rectification movement among all revolutionary forces in the country, CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena announced.

Valbuena said NPA fighters and commanders had been enlightened by the CPP’s 55th founding anniversary statement that analyzed past internal weaknesses and errors that affected their advance in 2019 to 2022.

Last December 26, the CPP criticized “widespread complacency” in its forces’ study and application of revolutionary theory along with “timidity in drawing theory from practice.”

The underground party said such errors resulted in battlefield losses by the NPA as well as a slowdown in the recruitment of new members and retardation of the revolutionary mass movement nationwide.

Valbuena however added the NPA are starting to once again grow strong as their morale had been heightened by the launch of the CPP’s rectification movement.

“Majority of the units of the NPA have adjusted to the AFP’s (Armed Forces of the Philippines) tactics of large-scale military mobilization and are expanding their areas of operation and strengthening their mass base,” he said.

Valbuena added that the NPA have adapted guerrilla tactics of concentration, shifting and dispersal in its military and mass work.

“The peasant masses, even those who were subjected to military suppression and forced to ‘surrender,’ are elated by the return and presence of NPA units in their areas,” he announced.

“All in all, we anticipate steady growth during the rest of the year and succeeding period,” he added.

AFP demoralization and infighting

It is the turn of the AFP soldiers to suffer creeping demoralization as they realize the government’s failure to defeat the NPA, Valbuena said.

The CPP officer said AFP’s rank-and-file is well too aware of the deep and wide support the NPA receives from the peasant masses and people.

“They are further dispirited by the corruption of their higher officers who mulct and pocket millions of pesos of public funds, and by the infighting among the generals who are deeply loyal to rival politicians and bureaucrat capitalists,” he added.

Earlier this week, 22 retired generals and flag officers met with House of Representatives Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez to vow support for the Marcos administration.

The military officers belonged to the Philippine Military Academy Alumni Association; Association of Generals and Flag Officers; Philippine Military Academy Retirees Association; and National ROTC Alumni Association, Inc. (NARAAI) who also denied the existence of a plot against the president.

A week previous, Senator Imee Marcos reported hearing about destabilization plots against her brother’s government

“I think these destab plans are all coming from the inside,” she said, referring to parties allied to the Marcos camp of the government.

The senator is perceived to be allied with Vice President Sara Duterte and former president Rodrigo Duterte in their reported rift with her brother and cousin Romualdez.

Earlier, in November, former president Duterte denied he rallied retired generals to topple Marcos in a coup d’etat.

Duterte says he had met some retired generals but plotting a coup was not discussed.

Valbuena said the infighting and corruption in the military has brought demoralization among the AFP’s foot soldiers.

“They are utterly dejected by the fact that they are used as cannon fodder to defend a rotten system while their commander-in-chief enjoy a high-style living using public money to have helicopters ferry him from concerts and late-night parties,” he said.

Masbate NPA accepts rectification challenge

The Jose Rapsing Command of the NPA in Masbate Province meanwhile said it vows to implement the CPP’s rectification movement to further advance their armed struggle for justice.

“As part of the rectification movement, NPA Masbate humbly vows to do all it can to defend the people of Masbate and claim justice for all victims of oppression and exploitation by the rotten government,” its spokesperson Luz del Mar said.

Del Mar said that martial law is practically in effect in the province that extends to the provincial prosecutor recently filing frustrated murder charges against five innocent farmers.

Instead of charging the military for indiscriminately firing at the victims that led to the death of their companion Rey Belan last June 16, the government accuses farmers Jamara Tumangan, Rowel Hagnaya, Alden Tumangan, Rico Cuyos at Senen Dollete of being NPA fighters, the spokesperson said.

“For every farmer killed, deprived of land, deprived of rights and a bright future, the NPA in Masbate is determined to aid them in their fight for justice,” del Mar said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

DOJ lied to UN expert on red-tagging—Karapatan, NUJP

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A human rights organization and a media group called claims by the Department of Justice (DOJ)  that red-tagging is not official government policy is, simply, lying.

“Simply doublespeak,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said in reaction to DOJ’s reply to United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion Irene Khan’s question if red-tagging is a policy of the Philippine government.

“We are aghast when the DOJ said that it has sufficient mechanisms to address red-tagging. What are they talking about? Either these are nowhere to be found, or if these mechanisms indeed exist, are rendered useless for victims of rights violations,” Palabay said.

Palabay pointed out that the Office of the Ombudsman found former National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTFELCAC) spokespersons retired Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. and former undersecretary Lorraine Badoy guilty of red-tagging activists and organizations.

In a decision signed by Ombudsman Samuel Martires last August 9, Parlade and Badoy were reprimanded after finding merit in the complaint filed by the National Union of People’s Lawyers.

Other complaints filed as early as 2020 by Karapatan, alternative media organizations, youth leaders, health workers, community pantry organizers, journalists, and civil libertarians remain pending at the Ombudsman, proof that red-tagging is practiced widely by government agencies, Palabay said.

Palabay also recalled that Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla told the UN Human Rights Committee in November 2022 that “red-tagging is a part of democracy.”

“The DOJ secretary himself attempted to justify red-tagging before the UN HR Committee. Using his warped logic, Remulla also said in interviews that red-tagging is truth-telling, and that it is their right to ‘criticize’ those who criticize them,” Palabay added.

DOJ’s barefaced denial

In a press release following its meeting with Khan last Wednesday, the DOJ said it told the UN expert red-tagging is not an official policy of the government.

“We were also explaining the many cases that show that we have sufficient mechanisms to address this matter of red-tagging. There is an ongoing effort, proactive effort on the part of the DOJ where we have been engaging civil society organizations,” Justice Undersecretary Jessie Andres also told Khan.

Already criticized in 2007 by UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings Phillip Alston, red-tagging is described as the malicious act of branding individuals or organizations as supporters or members of terrorist or communist groups simply for being critical of government policies.

Rights groups said victims of red-tagging are being set up for arrests, trumped-up charges or assassination.

While the UN is here

In a separate statement, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) said government’s denial of a red-tagging policy is meaningless as it is being done even while a UN expert is in the country conducting her investigations on the allegations.

“We condemn the red-tagging on Facebook of NUJP director Reynard Magtoto and Gabriela local leader Jen Nagrampa, who have been accused by anonymously-run page Green Spark of being “kampon” or underlings of the CPP-NPA-NDF,” NUJP said.

Green Spark alleged on Thursday that along with Magtoto and Nagrampa, alternative news outfits Bulatlat and Baretang Bikolnon as well as women’s group Gabriela are front organizations of underground Communist organizations.

“We believe this latest post is an attempt at retaliation for Magtoto’s December 2023 report on fake New People’s Army surrenderees and on how some — activists and citizens — were made to sign declarations of surrender under false pretenses of government aid distribution or under duress,” NUJP said.

Magtoto was subjected to surveillance while working on a report on fake surrenderees in Bicol and was also called to a meeting with the military on his activities with NUJP, which they called a “sectoral front organization, the group reported.

Under the Marcos Jr. administration, NUJP said it recorded 20 incidents of red-tagging against journalists and media outlets and organizations.

“Like Magtoto, the majority of those red-tagged published stories critical of the government, or that veered away from the official narratives,” NUJP said.

Karapatan and the NUJP were among dozens of civil society organizations that met with Khan on her first day of investigations last Tuesday.

“Malicious labeling by government agencies, officials and their affiliates intrudes on our constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of association, of the press, and of expression. The continuous red-tagging puts the security of journalists at risk, and should not be taken lightly, the NUJP said.

“We challenge the Marcos Jr. administration to disband the NTFELCAC to prove that red-tagging is not a policy, the group added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

New AFP spox contradicts Marcos, amuses CPP

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The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is only amused at inconsistencies in pronouncements made by government officials about the strength of the New People’s Army (NPA), its chief information officer said.

In a statement Wednesday, CPP officer Marco Valbuena said it was quite amusing to observe how new Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesperson Col. Francel Margareth Padilla contradicted her commander in chief President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. a few days into her new job.

In repeating the annual AFP announcement it will eliminate the NPA by the end of the year, the new spokesperson “already sounded like a broken record,” Valbuena said.

In a press briefing last Monday, Padilla said the AFP vows to defeat the NPA by the end of 2024, a promise made anew in the military’s first command conference of the New Year.

“We were given specific deadlines to do such.  So within a span of a year, we are looking at eliminating the threat of the internal insurgency situation,” Padilla said.

Valbuena however pointed out that Marcos himself declared only last January 13 that there are no more NPA fronts, which Brawner in turn rebuffed

“What was interesting, however, is the fact that she issued her statement just days after Marcos, their commander-in-chief, declared that ‘there are no more NPA fronts,’” Valbuena said.

AFP chief of staff Lt. Gen. Romeo Brawner himself rebuffed Marcos two days later by saying the NPA has “eleven weakened fronts,” instead of zero.

“To say the least, these disconnected statements reveal inconsistencies in the Marcos government’s public assessment of the state of the revolutionary armed movement, arising from contradictions in its self-serving objectives,” Valbuena said.

Neither declaration of having strategically defeated the NPA after 55 years or eliminating it can cover up the AFP’s ongoing military offensives and large-scale military operations across the country, Valbuena said.

The CPP officer added that the AFP continues to squander hundreds of billions of public funds in a strategy bound to fail in ending the civil war, he added.

Valbuena explained that the AFP’s annual declaration of crushing the NPA always fails because its strategy results in worsening forms of human rights and international humanitarian law violations.

He added that civilians remain the main targets of AFP’s operation through brutal suppression extrajudicial killings, rounding up people and parading them as “surrenderees,” looting, encampment amid civilian communities, curfews and other arbitrary restrictions on people’s movements and economic activity, food blockades, checkpoints, aerial bombing, artillery shelling and other bloody and dirty tactics.

“The vain objective is to break the people’s spirit and make them cower to submission. The result is the opposite,” he said.

Valbuena cited the recent killings of peasant activists Boy Baloy and Ernesto Torres in Negros Occidental by the 62nd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army who claimed the victims were NPA fighters killed in an armed encounter.

Such crimes help make the NPA numbers grow amid the CPP’s new rectification campaign launched last December, Valbuena said.

“All in all, we anticipate steady growth during the rest of the year and succeeding period…the Filipino people have no other recourse but to intensify their revolutionary mass movement and armed resistance,” the CPP said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Gerry Ortega’s family, supporters question trial transfer to QC

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13-year case vs accused ex-governor Joel Reyes ‘taking too long’

The 13-year struggle for justice for slain broadcaster and environmental champion Dr. Gerry Ortega faces more delay as the trial against accused mastermind and former Palawan governor Joel Reyes has been transferred from Puerto Princesa to Quezon City (QC).

In a statement Wednesday, January 24, Ortega’s family said they find themselves on the brink of renewed grief as further delay confronts their quest for justice.

“Haven’t we already waited too long? Isn’t 13 years enough?” the family asked.

The Supreme Court (SC) granted the petition by Reyes in a decision penned last December 4 but was only recently made known to the complainants.

Reyes, patriarch of a political dynasty in Palawan, is accused as mastermind of the first media killing under the Benigno Aquino government in January 24, 2011.

Condemnations

The Justice for Doctor Gerry Ortega campaign and environmental group Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment led a protest rally at the SC Wednesday, saying the High Court’s decision is “questionable.”

“It just goes to show how the camp of Joel Reyes is able to stall the case, and why we must continue to demand swift justice for our slain environmental defenders,” Kalikasan national coordinator Jon Bonifacio said.

“We urge UN (United Nations) Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression Irene Khan to pay close attention surrounding the Doc Gerry Ortega’s case, so she can see the reality of persistent threats to freedom of expression in the country,” Bonifacio continued.

Khan is in the Philippines for an official investigation of cases of press freedom violations, including Ortega’s murder.

The UN expert met with a representative of the Ortega family last Tuesday.

In a statement, human rights group Karapatan blamed government’s lack of political will to deliver justice for Ortega.

“The lack of political will and the extreme delay in bringing to justice the killers of slain broadcaster Gerry Ortega, and in other victims of extrajudicial killings, are now on the (Ferdinand) Marcos Jr. administration,” the group said.

The National Union of Journalists of Philippines (NUJP) joined the protest, saying it is surprised by the transfer when the accused remains in hiding, refusing to submit to the jurisdiction of the court where he was being tried.

“We strongly believe that there is no justifiable reason to transfer the case, and doing so will only prolong the trial that is already proceeding in earnest at the Palawan Regional Trial Court,” the media group said.

Enduring hope

The Ortega family said they remain hopeful that they will ultimate find justice.

“The past 13 years have been difficult, marked by challenges. Yet, the outpouring of support from the media, environmental defenders, human rights advocates, friends, and our community sustains our determination to see this through. Today, we express immense gratitude for your unwavering solidarity and support,” it said.

“Our family remains resolute, and we continue to hope for a fair, timely, and just resolution to the case. Thank you for standing with us on this challenging journey,” it added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)