Jennifer Laude hate crime

We cannot perhaps add anything more to the universal condemnation and loud calls for justice for the grisly murder of Jennifer Laude. There is no legal nor moral justification for an apparent hate crime.

Yet the BS Aquino government is failing us again. It is not standing up for its own people despite the horrible beastly murder.  It is simply pathetic to grovel for custody of a suspect just to routinely bring him to justice.

You bellow grandiosely that you have legal jurisdiction over a suspect yet you peep with a whimper over a simple exercise of custody?

And the US is flouting all laws of decency and humanity for its own military interests. Shielding US Marine Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton is unmitigated callousness.

What if it were an American transgender and a Filipino soldier? The latter would be instantly renditioned by the US and thrown overboard from the docks.

The nexus with scandalously one-sided “agreements” that institutionalize and legalize what are essentially master-slave arrangements like the so-called Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) on the one hand, and transgressions against our sovereignty, our laws, our environment, our dignity as a people and as human beings is patent as it is overt, on the other hand.

From Subic to Tubbataha, from Smith to Pemberton: it is one straight path to subservience and docility sanctified by legal gobbledygook and discombobulated by legal hermeneutics.

We told you so. These and other outrageous things are bound to happen. And will happen again.

But we will tell you again and again and again and again. Until lowly life forms camouflaged in elegant uniforms are brought to us for reckoning. Until you respect us as a people. Until you treat us as human beings.

Reference:
Edre U. Olalia
NUPL Secretary General
+639175113373

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National Secretariat
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL)
3F Erythrina Building
Maaralin corner Matatag Streets
Central District,Quezon City, Philippines
Telefax no.920-6660
Email addresses: nupl2007@gmail.com
and nuplphilippines@yahoo.com

Follow us on twitter @nuplphilippines and facebook @https://www.facebook.com/nuplphilippines
Visit the NUPL website at http://www.nupl.net/

http://www.karapatan.org/Unequal+US-PH+military+agreements+VFA-EDCA+license+to+violate+people%E2%80%99s+rights+Jennifer+Laude

“The killing of transgender woman Jennifer Laude by a US serviceman is the most recent vivid violation of people’s rights, a consequence of lopsided military agreements between the US and the Philippine governments. The US-RP Military Bases Agreement to the Visiting Forces Agreement and the US-GPH Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement have become licenses for numerous gross transgressions, especially on the rights of Filipino women and children,” said Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general.

An online US-based news site, www.marinecorpstimes.com cited an internal US Navy memorandum identified the perpetrator as a US Marine deployed to the Philippines as part of the Balikatan joint military training exercise. The suspect, whose identity is kept from the public, and three other Marines are in the custody of US Navy officials since Sunday.

The Balikatan joint military exercise is a component of the Visiting Forces Agreement which in effect ensures the permanent, albeit rotational, presence of the US troops in the country. “The newly signed EDCA ensures the increased and permanent presence of US military troops, anywhere and everywhere in the Philippines, at the expense of the Filipino people, both monetarily and in relation to our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she said.

Palabay warned that the “issue of jurisdiction and custody over the case may go the way of all previous cases where criminal accountability of US soldiers in Philippine territory were exonerated under the pretext of the MBA and the VFA.”

She stated that in 1987, a US serviceman stationed in the US base on Olongapo and accused in the rape of 12-year old Rosario Baluyot was “whisked out of the country to avoid prosecution.” The child later died from sepsis because parts of a vibrator that was inserted in her vagina remained stuck for seven months.

The rape of “Nicole” by US Marine Daniel Smith in 2005 was the first case where a member of the US military was tried, convicted and sentenced for a crime on Philippine territory. However, the local court ruling on the landmark case was overturned when Smith was secretly transferred from the Makati City Jail to the US Embassy’s custody in 2006.

“In both cases, the issue of US government custody on the perpetrators from the US military was invoked,” Palabay added.

“We call on the Filipino people to assert the country’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over the case, including custody and investigation of the perpetrator, and his prosecution. We demand justice and accountability. We call for the immediate junking of the VFA and the EDCA, which are threats to the Filipino people’s liberty and security,” she concluded. ###

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. 

The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA, Union of Workers in Agriculture) and its local affiliate in Tarlac, the Alyansa ng mga Manggagawang Bukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA, Alliance of Farm Workers in Hacienda Luisita), condemn in the highest terms Malacañang’s cruel and insensitive recent statements addressed to the victims of grave human rights abuses in Hacienda Luisita.

We are not surprised, however, that Presidential talking heads Abigail Valte and Manny Coloma have come to the immediate rescue of the President’s kin to downplay the crimes and to rub salt on the open wounds of beleaguered Luisita farmers. These obnoxious pronouncements only show that despite his denials, the President and his administration are very much involved in the Cojuangco-Aquino family’s crusade to maintain control of Hacienda Luisita.

Quick reaction statements against the Luisita farmers coming not from any spokesperson of TADECO or Hacienda Luisita, Inc., not from Peping or Ballsy, not even from Kris Aquino, but directly from Malacañang, send the public a clear and strong signal that the Aquino government will not allow truth and justice to prevail, even or especially within the President’s own backyard. Is it the policy of the Aquino government to block justice for Luisita farmers? Is it state policy to mock the downtrodden? Now we’ve just heard Malacañang practically say so.

We dare the Department of Justice (DOJ) to immediately act on the farmers’ complaints. The Office of the Ombudsman, the Philippine National Police (PNP), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) must also order the immediate probe of erring officials and personnel in Tarlac province positively identified by the farmers. We also call on the members of the Commission of Human Rights (CHR) in Central Luzon who have conducted field investigations in Hacienda Luisita in May to furnish the public with their reports and to continue investigating subsequent rights abuses in the area.

Serious abuses detailed by Luisita farmers in the complaints filed last Friday before the DOJ were committed by hired thugs, private security personnel, and armed state forces under the employ or with direct orders from the Cojuangco-Aquinos through their firm Tarlac Development Corporation (TADECO). These abuses cannot be possibly “recycled from 2010” as Malacañang foolishly suggests, for they were committed only since last year, 2013, when the DAR commenced the implementation of the government’s bogus land distribution in Hacienda Luisita.

These abuses were committed despite, or in cruel retribution for, the Supreme Court decision on total land distribution in Hacienda Luisita. Most victims are local peasant leaders, activists and the ordinary tillers who have fought fearlessly for land and justice since the historic sugar workers strike in 2004. Some of them are survivors who have suffered gunshot wounds or have lost their loved ones during the Hacienda Luisita Massacre and to subsequent political killings and enforced disappearances.

The recent violations are documented and occasionally posted real-time on social media as alerts with pictures or videos from AMBALA, UMA and the Hacienda Luisita Peasant Supporters Network. The escalating tension and persistent abuses prompted advocates led by UMA, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) and Anakpawis Partylist to launch national fact-finding missions in September 2013 and April 2014.

The disturbing situation in Hacienda Luisita also led to the establishment of Luisita Watch, a network of advocates for the land and justice campaign of Luisita farmers.

The reign of impunity in Hacienda Luisita has even compelled Filipino-American activists like Joelle Lingat, who was with Luisita farmers during the onslaught of Typhoon Glenda, to bravely confront President Aquino during his recent visit in the US.

Luisita farmers need all the help to keep the campaign for land and justice within the public eye. We call on the thousands of students, educators, artists, church workers, activists, alternative media groups, and advocates from North America, Europe and Asia who have seen the situation from recent exposure trips and visits to help the farmers expose grave abuses in Hacienda Luisita. Write about what you have seen, post your pictures, repost articles and share content with Luisita Watch through its blog and social media accounts and use the hashtag #LandJustice4LuisitaFarmers. Let us call the attention of concerned government agencies, international institutions and the mainstream media.

The Peasant Women International Fact-finding Mission on landgrabbing, initiated by UMA and Amihan, will further investigate abuses in Luisita from October 16-18. Complete affidavits with annexes of the most recent batch of Hacienda Luisita farmer-victims will be made available to the public by then.

Since the historic sugar workers strike and tragic massacre in 2004, thousands of human rights and agrarian reform advocates from all over the world have come to Hacienda Luisita to witness the see the real condition of the farmworkers. We also call on them to join or initiate activities leading to the 10th year commemoration of the Hacienda Luisita Massacre (#HLMX) on November 16. The Luisita farmers’ fight is an enduring inspiration to all advocates of genuine agrarian reform and social justice.

To Malacañang we say, “Challenge accepted.” Abuses in Hacienda Luisita are real – thousands of supporters will help farmers prove it.

Ranmil Echanis
Deputy Secretary-General, UMA
Convenor, Luisita Watch
#56 K-9 St., Kamias, Quezon City

PLEASE VISIT:
http://luisitawatch.wordpress.com
Tweets by LuisitaWatch
http://facebook.com/luisitawatch1
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Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura
(Agricultural Workers Union)
Philippines
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