By National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL)

The National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) has condemned the snail-paced investigation of the Philippine National Police in the recent killing of a Baler RTC judge.

“It took the police several days to find out what the news outlets had reported on the day of the murder: that Judge Alaba acquitted an alleged NPA leader last year,” said NUPL secretary-general Edre Olalia.

Baler RTC Branch 91 Judge Jude Erwin Alaba, 45, was shot dead last Sept. 1 as he arrived at the regional trial court compound in Baler, Aurora. His wife Margarita, who was with him when he was ambushed, sustained a gunshot wound on her left arm.

The police had recently said they were dropping the New People’s Army (NPA) from their list of suspects. According to news reports, the police had earlier considered the NPA among the suspects because Judge Alaba had tried a case involving Delfin Pimentel, an alleged NPA leader. In that case, however, Alaba acquitted Pimentel, allegedly one of the regional leaders of the New People’s Army (NPA), of charges of multiple murder and frustrated murder, filed in connection with an ambush on the military 15 years ago. This year, Alaba also dismissed the charges of illegal possession of firearms against Pimentel and his wife Imelda.

The police has released a sketch of the suspected killer, and said they have witnesses who have heard alleged gang members discussing a plot to kill Alaba.

Olalia said the ambush – at the parking lot of the Hall of Justice in Baler, at 2 o’clock in the afternoon – highlights the ineptness of the Aquino government in protecting its citizens, much less its hardworking public servants.

“The judiciary is supposed to be one of the partners of government in seeing to it that justice is done. The ineptness with which the police is investigating this case is a clear message to the killers that they can literally get away with murder,” Olalia said.

“Unlike the bogus cases that are often filed against the political prisoners, which are eventually dismissed, we call on the police to prove us wrong by catching for once the real culprits and filing a case that will stand in court.”

Aldaba, a graduate of the UP College of Law, was one of the college’s awardees in public service. The Supreme Court had earlier condemned the killing and asked the authorities to “take all necessary steps with all deliberate speed to do justice for Judge Alaba and his wife by fully investigating the crimes.”

For its part, the NUPL shall do whatever is within its mandate and resources, including bringing this to the attention of international lawyers groups and institutions that are keenly concerned with attacks on lawyers and judges and their adverse effect on the independence of the judiciary and ultimately the so-called rule of law.

Reference:
Edre U. Olalia
Secretary General
+639175113373

Alnie Foja
Asst. SecGen for Protection and Welfare of Lawyers
+639479761197

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

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Visit the NUPL website at http://www.nupl.net/

“We want international bodies to know what is happening in Mindanao—that the Lumad, in defense of their land, are being killed and forced to leave their communities,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said.

Karapatan brought to the attention of the United Nations Human Rights Council the killing of Lumad leaders Dionel Campos and Datu Juvello Sinzo, and ALCADEV school director Emerito Samarca. Karapatan asked for an investigation on the killings and the evacuation of almost 3,000 Lumad in Surigao del Sur through letters* sent to Dr. Chaloka Beyani, SR on the Promotion of the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons; Christof Heyns, Special Rapporteur (SR) on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Michel Forst, SR on Situation of Human Rights Defenders; and Victoria Lucia Tauli-Corpuz, SR on Rights of the Indigenous People’s. “We are asking the UN HRC to investigate and recommend actions to the Philippine Government on these issues,” Palabay added.

It was the morning of September 1, 2015, when the Magahat/Bagani paramilitary forces under the 36th and 75th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army gunned down Campos in front of the whole community in Km. 16, Diatago, Lianga, Surigao del Sur. Sinzo, who was separated from the crowd, was tortured by hitting his arms and legs with wooden stick before he was shot. Samarca, on the other hand, was found dead inside the classroom of ALCADEV with an ear-to-ear slit on the throat and gunshot wounds in the chest. “The 36th Infantry Battalion (IB), 74th IB and the Special Forces were at the periphery,” Palabay recounted the accounts of the witnesses.

“While the AFP can lie through their teeth about their involvement on the killings and all other atrocities of its paramilitary groups, the motives are crystal clear: eliminate those who are perceived as enemies of the state, including those who fight for their land and their rights. There is no way the government can deny this as long as it implements counter-insurgency programs like Oplan Bayanihan. The paramilitary groups is one way of tackling this dirty war against the Filipino people. It is no wonder why the AFP has not disbanded these groups—because they work together,” Palabay said.

The killing of Fr. Fausto Tentorio, the massacre of the Capion family, the murder of Datu Jimmy Liguyon, the Tabugol brothers, among others was done through the use of paramilitary forces who are known in many names—the Civilian Auxiliary Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU), the Special Civilian Armed Auxilliary, the Investment Defense Force, Bagani Forces, Magahat-Bagani, Alde Salusad’s group, and the De la Mance group, to name a few.

Back in 2012, Heyns and then UN SR on human rights defenders Margaret Sekaggya have already sounded the alarm bells on the role of the paramilitary groups in the killings. Their statement can be viewed through this link: http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12333&LangID=E

In the same year, during the UN’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the Philippines there were already recommendations from member Nations to disband paramilitary groups that perpetuate serious abuses. “The BS Aquino government has rejected this and even continued to multiply and allowed the proliferation of these groups as force multipliers. We reiterate our position that the political killings happening right now is part of the government’s policy and not simply an internal conflict among indigenous people’s as the government wants the public to believe,” Palabay ended.

** Copies of the complaints are available upon request.

http://www.karapatan.org/Karapatan+raised+issue+of+Lumad+to+UN%2C+calls+for+probe

Reference:
Cristina “Tinay” Palabay
Secretary General
+63917-3162831

Angge Santos
Media Liaison
+63918-9790580

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PUBLIC INFORMATION DESK
publicinfo@karapatan.org
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Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights
2nd Flr. Erythrina Building
#1 Maaralin corner Matatag Streets
Central District, Diliman
Quezon City, PHILIPPINES 1101
Telefax: (+63 2) 4354146
Web: http://www.karapatan.org

KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties.  It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign. 

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.