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Women human rights defenders decry State attacks

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Women group Tanggol Bayi and Gabriela along with other progressive groups held a picket protest outside Gate 1 of Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City Thursday, November 29, in commemoration of International Women Human Rights Defenders Day. They also call for an end to the continuing attacks against Women Human Rights Defender (WHRD).

Tanggol Bayi said that as of September 2018, 33 WHRD have been killed under the Rodrigo Duterte government and 45 are imprisoned based on trumped-up charges.

The group cited the arrest of Hedda Calderon, a long-time women activist and council member of Gabriela Womens Party, last October in Sta. Cruz in Laguna as wekk as the killings of Elisa Badayos, secretary general of Karapatan in Central Visayas in November 2017 and Mariam Uy Acob, paralegal of Kawagib (Moro Human Rights Alliance) last September.

Tanggol Bayi noted that “these attacks are far from isolated; they are fueled by a patriarchal and militarist society that flaunts the humiliation of women as décor to toxic machismo and thus, an inevitable outcome of State terrorism.”

“We reiterate our call to stop the attacks against women and WHRDs. This situation is urging us to unite and further strengthen our voices against misogyny and rising tyranny and dictatorship,” Tanggol Bayi ended. (Report and video by Joseph Cuevas)

 

Talaingod PNP charges Castro, Ocampo and others with kidnapping

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Davao del Norte police arrested ACT Teachers Party Representative France Castro, former Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo and 17 other human rights defenders who tried to rescue 74 victims of forced evacuation in Talaingod town and are being brought to Tagum City for inquest proceedings.

In an alert, human rights group Karapatan-Southern Mindanao Region said the 19 were illegally arrested and are being arbitrarily detained for nearly 18 hours already on malicious charges of kidnapping and human trafficking.

Members of the ongoing National Humanitarian Mission that included Castro and Ocampo rushed to Talaingod Wednesday night to bring food and other aid to Lumad civilians and students of the Salugpongan Ta Tano Igkanugon Community Learning Center in Sitio Sinilaban, Barangay Palma Gil.

Before reaching the community, however, they learned that members of the notorious Alamara paramilitary group under the command of the 56th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army forcibly closed the school and harassed students and teachers.

This forced the community to trek to Barangay Sto. Niño but were blocked by a combined army and police force.

On their way to meet the evacuees last night, vehicles used by mission delegates were hit with stones and their tires were punctured by spikes placed on the road.

At about 9:30 last night, the evacuees and mission members were taken to the police station in the area where they were detained.

Castro said they tried lodging complaints with the police but were told they themselves were subjects of investigation.

Earlier today, the police informed the group they are being charged with kidnapping and human trafficking.

The police convoy that took mission participants from Talaingod to Tagum City for inquest proceedings this afternoon. (Karapatan-SMR photos)

The police took the 19 to Kapalong District Hospital for a medical check-up prior to being subjected to inquest proceedings at the Tagum Prosecutor’s Office this afternoon.

Karapatan national secretary general Cristina Palabay condemned the police for levelling charges against mission participants, including a sitting legislator.

“Ocampo and Castro are being threatened with fabricated charges of human trafficking, when they and other mission delegates were there to provide support and aid to Lumad residents, including children, who are facing daily threats and harassment from the military in the community,” Palabay said.

Karapatan demanded the immediate release of members of the mission and the Lumad students and teachers. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Another humanitarian crisis breaks out in Davao del Norte

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A humanitarian crisis again broke out in Talaingod, Davao del Norte as dozens of Lumad students, teachers and civilians fled from their community and trekked under the rain last night in fear of government soldiers and paramilitary who forcilby closed down their school.

At least 79 individuals, including 29 students and 12 teachers fled Sitio Nasilaban, Barangay Palma Gil, Talaingod after the forcible closure of the Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning School (STTICLCI) as part of the 56th Infantry Battallion of the Philippine Army’s (56IBPA) military operations in the area along with the notorius paramilitary group Alamara.

The Save Our Schools Network reported that as of six o’clock last night, the Alamara forcibly padlocked STTICLCI’s Sitio Dulyan campus, forcing the students, teachers and residents to flee from their community.

About 20 Alamara gunmen were seen loitering around the school’s vicinity, harassing students, teachers and locals as of eight o’clock last night, SOS said.

Meggie Nolasco, Executive Director of STTICLCI, condemned the forcible closure of the school, noting that this is the most recent in a series of attacks against indigenous schools in Mindanao.

“The ALAMARA and the 56th IBPA are criminals. What they did is a clear violation of the people’s right to education. This criminal act perpetrated by State forces is unconscionable,” Nolasco said.

“These schools were built through the initiative and solidarity of indigenous communities to provide education for their children; their efforts deemed necessary on account of years of government neglect,” she added.

Salugpungan students being held at the Talaingod Police Station last night. (Kilab Multimedia photo)

Humanitarian mission attacked

The evacuees as well as members of the ongoing National Humanitarian Mission were blocked at Sitio Upaw and are being held by the said army unit, the Talaingod Philippine National Police  and the Municipal Social Work and Development Office at Barangay Sto. Niño police station since arriving at about 9:30 last night.

ACT Teachers Party Representative France Castro and former Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo are with the evacuees and refused to leave the police station until the victims are allowed to proceed to Davao City.

The mission wanted to bring food and other aid to the students after receiving receiving reports of the school’s closure by the military and Alamara.

Rep. Castro reported that their vehicle’s windshield was hit by a stone thrown by an unidentified suspect and gun shots were also fired while they were on their way to Sitio Sinilaban yesterday.

“Mabuti na lamang nakaharang ang windshield kaya hindi tumagos ang bato. At may nagpapaputok pa ng dalawang beses doon sa lugar namin,” Castro said.

Two other vehicles used by the mission suffered punctured tires due to spikes placed on the road, she revealed.

Castro added that when they tried to file a report with the Talaingod police, they were told that they will be the ones who will be subjected to an investigation instead.

“We are practically being detained here. What they are doing to us is already harassment,” Castro said.

Castro said that no one among those they contacted for help, including provincial officials and offices came to their aid.

The Lumad schools have been repeatedly maligned by the military and the paramilitary as schools put up by the revolutionary New People’s Army.

President Rodrigo Duterte also repeatedly ordered the indigenous peoples’ communities to close down their schools and leave their ancestral lands.

““Umalis kayo dyan, sabihin ko sa mga Lumad. Bobombahan ko iyan, isali ko iyang mga istraktura. I will use the Philippine Air Force,” Duterte said in a press conference after his 2017 State of the Nation Address. (Leave the area, I will tell the Lumad. I will bomb you, including the structures.)

The indigenous peoples in the area said the harassments they suffer are to pave the way for the entry of large-scale mining operations in their mineral-rich ancestral lands. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Lumad group: Duterte’s ‘Manobo leader’ is fake, crooked

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A Lumad alliance warned that President Rodrigo Duterte’s invitation to a paramilitary leader to join the fight against the New People’s Army has dire consequences against indigenous peoples’ communities in Davao.

In a statement, the PASAKA Confederation of Lumad Organizations in Southern Mindanao Region said Mindanao Indigenous People’s Conference for Peace and Development chairperson Joel Unad is only seeking to benefit from the entry of large scale mining in their ancestral lands.

“Joel Unad is a fake tribal leader who claims thousands of hectares through faulty Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles (CADT),” PASAKA said.

The group also accused Unad of leading “his bunch of crooked paramilitary,” which was formed in 2006 under the counter-insurgency program of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Oplan-Bantay Laya 2.

The group said the MIPCPD was formed on the same year that the 10th Infantry Division was established under the supervision of the Eastern Mindanao Command and whose office is located inside Camp Panacan, Davao City.

Duterte thrust Unad into the limelight Monday (November 26) when the President acknowledged the leader’s presence during the inauguration of Davao City’s Bulk Water Supply Project and asking him to join the war against revolutionary forces.

“Kita ko si Joel Unad, tribal leader ng Manobo tribe. Buti ‘yan, andito ka. Kasi the earlier we finish this insurgency, the better for us all,” Duterte said.

“Kailangan talaga, Joel, Datu Unad, na tapusin natin ang giyera dito. Tumulong na kayo,” he added.

PASAKA, however, said Unad Joel “is nothing but a fake and a full-pledged tribal dealer.”

“Unad, along with his military cohorts, [are] responsible for the relentless attacks against the schools and communities of the Lumads in Davao Region,” the group added.

PASAKA said that Duterte recognizes he could not defeat the revolutionary forces but still pushes for a “futile militaristic plan” with Unad which only exposes the President’s role as “patron of environmental and economic plunderers in IP communities especially in surrounding areas in the Pantaron range.”

“Duterte regime’s real intent is to pave the way to big companies’ intrusion to Lumad’s rich ancestral domain for mining, logging and expansion of trans-national plantations,” PASAKA said.

“Unad, after all, has a long history of being a tribal-dealer (not a leader) bringing and defending the interest of the military and big companies,” the group added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

‘Dapat mas matakot ang mga dapat managot’

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Sa umano’y pananakit ng ilang fraternity sa UP…

“Ang panawagan ng Engineering Student Council, kung tayo ay natatakot, dapat mas matakot ang mga dapat managot!” —Ralph Baguinon, Engineering Student Council, University of the Philippines-Diliman

NUJP statement on the 9th anniversary of the Ampatuan Massacre

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Today, November 23, 2018, is the ninth year since a power-crazed madman and his armed minions, among them members of the police, halted a convoy on the national highway in Barangay Saqlman, Ampatuan town, Maguindanao and herded the passengers, along with those of two vehicles that just happened to pass by, to a hilltop in Sitio Masalay and slaughtered them.

In the convoy were relatives and supporters of then Buluan town vice mayor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu who intended to file his candidacy for governor of Maguindanao against Andal “Datu Unsay” Ampatuan Jr., scion of the powerful clan that ruled the province, and 32 journalists who were there to cover the proceedings.

All in all, 58 persons died, making the Ampatuan massacre both the worst case of electoral violence in recent Philippine history and the single deadliest attack on the press ever recorded.

One would expect that justice would be swift in coming for a crime that literally shocked the world, so horrendous was it in both cruelty and scale. But no, the Justice department of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo chose to file what legal experts then called as “case designed to fail,” charging more than 190 persons instead of concentrating first on the principal suspects, key members of the Ampatuan clan, thus ensuring that the prosecution would stretch on for years. The most optimistic opinion on when the earliest conviction could be expected was 10 years.

A year short of that prediction, it is but right for the victims’ families, tired of the extremely slow pace of the trial, to shout “Justice Now” and “Convict Ampatuan.”

In fact, signaling their impatience, this year’s observance had the families of both non-media and media victims coming together to remember and honor their loved ones and, together, demand the justice they have long been deprived of.

While we are heartened by Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra’s statement that a conviction may, at last, be forthcoming, we also hope this does not signal any intervention by the executive branch that could lead to a miscarriage of justice.

And while a closure to this tragedy is most welcome, we stress that it should not in any way detract from the State’s continued accountability for its continued failure to bring an end to the threats and attacks against journalists and to give justice to the more than 100 other victims of media killings since 1986.

#JUSTICENOW

#CONVICTAMPATUAN

#ENDTHEKILLINGS

KUNG PAANO MAGDILIG

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Sa alaala ng Maguindanao Massacre

 

Nabibitak na ang lupa sa malawak
Na kapatagan ng Maguindanao.
Ngayo’y hindi naman tagtuyot,
Ngunit tigang ang rabaw
At sementadong kalsadang
Dinaraanan nila.

Tirik ang araw. Walang ulan
Na puwedeng maging dahilan
Ng alimuom, ngunit nakapagtataka
Na may ibang singaw
Ang lupa. Maaamoy mo ang sangsang

Na bitbit ng mga sumasayaw na dahon.

Hindi ito ordinaryong hapon. Kailangan nilang magdilig –
Upang hindi mamatay
Ang mga halaman at tanim.
Kaya’t sila ay nagdilig nang nagdilig.

Bitbit ang pag-asang maibabalik

Muli ang dating samyo
Ng probinsya.

Tahimik ang paligid.
Kanta lamang
Ng mga ibon ang maririnig.
Ngunit kung nanaising tumahimik –
Madidinig ang alingawngaw
Ng mga katawang nakatanim,
At kung paano sila itinanim.

Kung susumikaping imulat ang mata –
Makikita sa tintadong lupa
Kung anong likido ang kanilang pinang-igib,
Para gamiting pandilig
Sa bitak-bitak na lupa kung saan
Nagpatong-patong ang iniwang gunita.

11.23.18
Andre Gutierrez

CNL hails canonization of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero

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An underground revolutionary organization of church people and workers hailed the canonization of a Salvadoran Archbishop known in his lifetime as a staunch human rights defender and for which he was martyred.

The Christians for National Liberation (CNL), an allied organization of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, in a statement expressed its “heartfelt jubilation” on the canonization of Archbishop Oscar Romero to the Vatican’s roster of Saints.

Romero was canonized by Pope Francis in the Vatican last October 14 as the first Salvadoran Saint. He was gunned down during Mass in a hospital chapel on March 24, 1980, a day after telling the Salvadoran Army that “They are killing our own people.”

“No soldier is obliged to obey an order that is contrary to the will of God. One must not love oneself so much as to avoid getting involved in the risks of life that history demands of us. And those who fend off danger will lose their lives,” Romero also said on the eve of his martyrdom.

Romero was outspoken during his country’s bloody civil war in the 1980’s, and also against the role the United States played in his country’s tumultuous history.

In a letter he sent to US President Jimmy Carter in February of 1980, he urged the US not to send military aid to El Salvador.

“You call yourdelf Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here,” Romero told Carter.

The CNL drew parallelism with Romero’s struggle for human rights in El Salvador with the Philippine militant church peoples’ struggle for social transformation, for which many are also killed and persecuted.

“CNL through the years, and up to the present, has a long list of martyrs, of church people killed, tortured, detained and harassed while serving the poor,” the group said.

“CNL members have participated in different forms of struggle, including the armed struggle, and devoted and gave up their lives for the revolution,” the group added.

CNL said that in the hearts of the ordinary Filipino faithful, their martyrs are saints just like St. Oscar Romero, as they offer their lives for the basic masses.

CNL said the sacrifice of their martyrs and members is the meaning of holiness in a world of injustice and oppression, as it challenged church people to work for the hoped “new heaven and new earth” by being one with the poor, deprived, oppressed and exploited. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Ladlad, Villamors suffering from maltreatment

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National Democratic Front of the Philippines peace consultant Vicente Ladlad and companions are suffering from maltreatment in Camp Karingal, his wife complained in an “emergency bulletin.”

Ladlad’s wife Fides Lim announced on her Facebook account that Ladlad and his companion Alberto Villamor were “suddenly ordered transferred to a small, congested prison cell for detainees accused of common crimes at the Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU), Quezon City police headquarters.”

Prior to the transfer, Ladlad and Villamor were detained in separate headquarters from common crime offenders after their arrest last November 8.

Ladlad, 69, suffers from acute and chronic asthma that has degenerated to emphysema in addition to a heart condition, Lim said.

Lim said there are 38 male detainees in Ladlad and Villamor’s current prison cell, measuring around 20 square meters.

“The room is so overcrowded that inmates have to take turns sleeping on the floor. Only around 20 prisoners can lie down at a time. They have to sleep on their side to fit in more sleeping bodies into that cramped floor space,” Lim said.

In between them, others have to stand up or sit down. To relieve the congestion during nighttime, sometimes ten prisoners are allowed to sleep at the office area outside the prison cell, she added.

She also complained that cramped as the area is, the “main” floor area of the prison cell is reserved as sleeping space primarily for those who personally contribute for weekly food expenses since there are no food rations for the prisoners.

“Despite the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners requiring access to fresh air and sunning, for two whole days now, Vic and Alberto have not been allowed to go out of their congested cell,” Lim said.

‘World’s most crowded’

Philippine jails have been reported to be the world’s most crowded.

“A humanitarian crisis is facing the Philippine corrections. The Philippine National Police (PNP) detention centers, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) and provincial jails, and the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) prisons are not only full to the brim, they are teeming with emaciated and disease-carrying bodies,” a Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism article reported last July.

“On June 30, 2016, upon assumption of Rodrigo Duterte as President of the country, the BJMP population stood at 96,000 inmates or Persons Deprived of Liberties (PDLs). Now, two years and three State of the Nation Addresses (SONA) after, the BJMP population stands at 160,000 PDLs. That is a staggering growth of 64 percent in two years,” the article, written by Dr. Raymund Narag, a professor at the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice of the Southern Illinois University said.

“We are now officially the most overcrowded correctional facilities in the whole world: our 605-percent congestion rate is far ahead of Haiti’s 320 percent, the second most crowded,” the article added.

The situation has worsened Ladlad’s health condition, Lim said.

“He has been having palpitations and compelled to take his ‘emergency’ medicines to avoid getting sicker,” she explained.

Lim also said that the Villamors are also suffering from their prison condition.

Panic attacks

“[Alberto] is diabetic requiring insulin and is just recovering from his second stroke that occurred last April 2018,” Lim said.

Virginia Villamor, wife of Alberto who was arrested along with the two is also suffering from trauma resulting from the raid and arrest, Lim added.

“She is given to uncontrollable trembling at night and cries and cries whenever she remembers how the arresting team forced her to lie face down on the floor,” Lim said.

She added that Virginia’s pelvic fracture, which occurred when she was bumped by a tricycle, was aggravated when the police pushed her down to the floor during the raid.

“The injury now makes it difficult for her to stand up,” Lim said.

Lim said that when the three were kept in one room, Virginia constantly called on husband Alberto to talk to her so she can sleep.

“Her transfer to the women’s prison cell and consequent separation from Alberto have worsened her emotional state. She is on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” Lim said.

Lim demanded that the CIDU stop reprisal actions being committed against Ladlad and the Villamors as well as proper medical attention and treatment for the three.

She added that human rights lawyers have filed a motion before the Quezon City Office of the City Prosecutor and Manila RTC Branch 32 to immediately transfer the three to the Metro Manila District Jail 4 (formerly known as SICA-1) in Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig, where other political prisoners are being held. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)