Armed man patrols Mindanao conference of human rights defenders

An armed man believed to be a government intelligence officer was apprehended by convenors and delegates of the Barug Katungod Mindanao Conference today at the conference venue in Cagayan de Oro City. The intelligence man carried an ID bearing the name Rolando L. Gomonit, Sr. He was caught in possession of a .45 caliber pistol and two magazines of ammunition.

Identifying himself to the secretariat as a member of the media, he asked for a conference kit and was looking through the names of the delegation of the conference. In the registration sheet, he identified himself as a member of an organization he named “Lumad”.

The secretariat then asked the assistance of Barug’s local partner Karapatan – Northern Mindanao and the local Lumad group Kalumbay. They recognized him as the same intelligence officer they have apprehended in one of their human rights activities this year.

Gomonit was immediately turned over to the police. Delegates asked for his camera phone when some of them reported that he was seen taking pictures of the delegates. His phone was found by one of the delegates in the women’s toilet. This they also turned over to the police.

When asked how he knew about the conference, he said he just followed one of the delegates who was wearing a shirt of one of the member organizations of the conference.

About a hundred human rights activists in Mindanao gathered in Cagayan de Oro City today for the Barug Katungod Mindanao (Mindanao Stand for Human Rights) Conference as a response to the intensifying military attacks and political repression experienced by fellow human rights defenders in Mindanao.

The conference condemned the recent AFP-backed paramilitary attacks on a school director and two Lumad leaders in Lianga, Surigao del Sur, and the Talaandig and Manobo victims of a massacre allegedly perpetrated by military units in Pangantucan, Bukidnon.

The shameless deployment by the government of an armed intelligence man on a human rights conference is a glaring example of impunity in Mindanao. Armed intelligence men roam free in the cities and communities, documenting gatherings and meetings and reporting them to the military and the police. These information become one of the government’s sources for trumped-up charges being filed against human rights activists and villification of their organizations and activities.

However, under the internal security plan Oplan Bayanihan of the Aquino government, any information against activists becomes a license to kill, massacre, arrest and villify activists, human rights defenders, youth, peasant and worker organizers, Lumad and Moro rights workers, and members of peoples organizations.

Barug Katungod Mindanao believes that the Aquino government is hellbent on attaining its Oplan Bayanihan targets before the end of his term in 2016. It has thus been intensifying its attacks on human rights defenders by making human rights activities a basis for filing trumped up charges. This shows a new trend of criminalizing human rights defenders for their human rights work.

Today, HKCAHRPP together with BAYAN Hong Kong & Macau led a picket action at the Philippine Consulate General to denounce the killings of lumad (indigenous peoples) in Mindanao and the continuous militarisation of their ancestral communities. The statement below signed by different local and migrant groups was received by the Consul Charles Andrei P. Macaspac.

As human rights and peace advocates in Hong Kong, we are outraged by the spate of killings perpetrated against the lumads (indigenous people) in Mindanao, southern Philippines. The heightened militarisation of their communities has resulted to the displacement of thousands who were forced to leave their homes and ancestral lands under the threat of murder and even massacre.

The most recent murders of Emerito Samarca, Dionel Campos and Bello Sinzo in Surigao del Sur by the paramilitary group “Magahat/Bagani”, that is reported to enjoy the support of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), has shown to people in the Philippines and also overseas that human rights violations remain unabated and the culture of impunity persists in the country.

Samarca was the Executive Director of the noted Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV) that provides education to lumad children, while Campos and Sinzo were leaders of the lumad group MAPASU. Samarca was found dead inside one of the classrooms of ALCADEV with a stab wound and slashed neck while Campos and Sinzo were gunned down as witnessed by the whole village who were forced off their homes by the murderous “Magahat/Bagani” elements.

To date, thousands of lumads have taken refuge in a sports center in the nearest city where the conditions are difficult. Reportedly, a 4-year old child already died in the evacuation centre.

In the province of Bukidnon, similar incidents of human rights violations occurred just less than two weeks before the gruesome killings of Samarca, Campos and Sinzo. On August 19, residents of Pangantucan, Bukidnon found five dead bodies of their neighbours who were apparently killed by the 3rd company of the 1st Special Forces Battalion. According to the sole survivor of the massacre who is the son of one of the victims and a kin of the rest, he begged the military for the life of his father, brothers and cousins but to no avail. His father was 70 years old while two of the victims were minors at 13 and 17 years of age.

These are just some of the incidents of human rights violations that we believe should be thoroughly and speedily investigated and the perpetrators vigorously prosecuted and brought to justice. We are very concerned at the general lack of progress in the prosecution of cases of human rights violations even those that happened during the previous government headed by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The indigenous peoples of Mindanao are being terrorised by military and paramilitary forces that are under the responsibility of President Aquino as Commander-In-Chief. They need to be reined in from committing more human rights abuses and be held accountable for grave crimes that occurred in furtherance of the counterinsurgency plan Oplan Bayanihan that is conducted to support the administration’s policy of opening up ancestral domains to large-scale mining operations.

The climate of impunity pervading the country’s justice system fosters human rights violations on a daily basis, and it thus very urgent for the government to decisively address these cases and implement human rights standards that the Philippines acceded to.

As human rights and peace advocates, we urge the Philippine government to:

1. Investigate fully and with transparency the killings of lumads and bring the perpetrators to justice
2. Pull out military troops from the lumad areas and stop the occupation of schools, and the harassments and intimidation of the community.
3. Dismantle all paramilitary forces, especially the Magahat/Bagani paramilitary force.
4. Work towards the resumption of the peace negotiations with National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP)
5. End Oplan Bayanihan and allow for the safe return of lumad refugees to their life and livelihood in their ancestral lands.

09 September 2015

• Hong Kong Campaign for the Advancement of Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (HKCAHRPP)
• Abra Tinguian Ilocano Society (ATIS)
• Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
• Asosiasi Buruh Migran Indonesia (ATKI)
• BAYAN Hong Kong & Macau
• Cordillera Alliance Hong Kong
• Filipino Migrant Workers’ Union
• Fr. Franco Mella, PIME
• GABRIELA Hong Kong
• Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) Hong Kong Mission Council
• Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union
• Interfaith Cooperation Forum
• Jackie Hung, Justice & Peace Commission of the HK Catholic Diocese
• Pinatud a Saleng ti Umili
• Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR) Hong Kong
• United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK)
• United Pangasinan Hong Kong
——————————————————————————–
Hong Kong Campaign for the Advancement
of Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines
c/o ASA, No. 4 Jordan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
Tel. (852) 98105070, 97585935 Fax. (852) 27354559
E-mail: hkcahrpp@gmail.com

We celebrate with our sisters and our people the release of political prisoner Andrea Rosal for she deserves to be free. At the same time, we call for an end to Oplan Bayanihan that has resulted to increase in political prisoners and unbelievable acts of violence against women in the margins.

This was declared today by Shiela Tebia, chairperson of GABRIELA-HK, as Andrea Rosal, daughter of late communist leader Roger Rosal, was finally released yesterday after the charges for murder and, beforehand, kidnapping, were dropped due to lack of evidence.

“Thanks to the hard work of lawyers, human rights advocates and women’s groups, and especially the determination of Andrea herself despite the personal tragedy of losing her newborn child, Andrea’s freedom after two years of incarceration has shown that there is no truth to charges against her. Like other political prisoners, Andrea was repressed and harassed just so they can stop her political activism,” Tebia said.

According to Tebia, there are currently 527 political prisoners in the country of which 252 were arrested under the Aquino administration (as of March 2015). Among them are 48 women political prisoners including Wilma Tiamzon and Concha Araneta.

“Our call to free our sisters remain as we also call to end Oplan Bayanihan that has resulted to severe violations to the rights of people and Filipino women. This is being shown most concretely at present by the atrocities committed against the lumads (indigenous people) of Mindanao,” Tebia remarked.

Tebia said that the reported rape of a 14-year old lumad by soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the death of a 4-yr old girl child in the evacuation centre after her community fled due to military and paramilitary attacks were some examples of how women doubly perish from military operations of the state.

“Oplan Bayanihan is a murderous program as shown recently by the deaths of lumad leaders and Emerito Samarca, head of a recognised alternative learning institution for lumads, in Surigao del Sur. It does not only target activists but whole communities,” she said.

Tebia called for an end to the said counterinsurgency program. She said that victims of the said program still wait for justice like others who perished under previous administrations.

“We say stop killing lumads and end impunity. Filipino women have been suffering enough and the different and intensified violence against us and our people must stop,” Tebia concluded.

For reference:
Shiela Tebia
Chairperson
Tel. No.: (852) 9013 1542

******************************

GABRIELA Hong Kong
c/o MFMW, St. John’s Cathedral,
4 Garden Rd., Central, Hong Kong SAR
Tel. (852) 2522-8261 Fax. 2735-4559
E-mail: gabriela.hksar@gmail.com

After 18 months in jail, Andrea Rosal, worthy daughter of a worthy father, is finally and rightfully free again.

Her freedom is due to the resolute legal battle and campaign, no thanks to this government which inhumanly refuses or ignores pleas for compassion and humanitarian cries.

She has proven that all charges against her were false, pernicious. This malicious persecution has lost her precious time, cost her a child, and brought deep anguish to her family.

Would she have been subject to all this had she been moneyed and influential? Would she have been arrested had she been someone else’s daughter? It is indeed cruel injustice to incarcerate her on mere filial affiliation.

This is proof still how slow and frustrating – like traffic in EDSA – the justice system can be.

Impunity for rights violations persists because patent trumped up charges ripen into court cases that takes eons to resolve and demands tedious, cumbersome legal disentanglement.

All those responsible for her misery must be made to account and restitute the irreparable damage to her and her dead baby daughter. Else, justice will come at the right time.

Reference:
Atty. Maria Kristina Conti
NUPL Asst. SecGen for Campaigns
09175393139

Atty. Edre U. Olalia
NUPL National Secretary General
09175113373

National Secretariat
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL)
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Central District, Quezon City, Philippines
Telefax no.920-6660
Email addresses: nupl2007@gmail.com
and nuplphilippines@yahoo.com

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