“We need peace, respect for our right to the land we till, and protection for the environment, for our children and the future generation.”

This was the statement of Datu Guibang Apoga, leader of the Salugpungan ’Ta Igkanugon (Pagkakaisa sa Pagtatanggol ng Lupang Ninuno), in a rare audience with representatives of human rights and people’s organizations in Talaingod, Davao del Norte, sometime during the four-day National Solidarity Mission organized by Defend Talaingod, Save Pantaron Range Alliance on 11-15 May, 2014.

Datu Guibang has led the Talaingod Manobos in the Pantaron Range in their defense of the mineral and resource-rich biodiversity area against the entry of mining and logging companies and military operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) since 1993.

Recently, more than 1,300 Manobos forcibly evacuated from the area after a series of aerial bombings, indiscriminate firing and other human rights violations of the the 68th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA) , 60th IB PA of the 1003rd Brigade, and the 4th Special Forces of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) which started in 3 March 2014. After the successful negotiations with the local governments of Davao City and Davao del Norte for the pull-out of the military in the area, the Manobos returned to their homes during the first week of May.

The solidarity mission validated reports on the threats, harassment, divestment of properties, encampment of schools and health centers, destruction of farms, and even sexual molestation in the various sitios in Talaingod.

“The AFP’s operations through Oplan Bayanihan in Talaingod and in the rest of the country have only resulted to grave human rights violations, and social and economic impact on the lives of the people. The need to resume the peace talks between the Aquino government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines is more pronounced than ever. The GPH and the AFP should stop its dirty war against the people and instead should address the roots of the armed conflict in the country,” said Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general who led the delegation of national organizations which joined the mission.

In a press conference after the mission, Palabay scored the AFP on the failure of Oplan Bayanihan’s militarist objectives, in addressing the plight of the Manobos and communities. “In the case of Talaingod, the AFP has miserably failed in breaking the organized strength of the Manobos in upholding their right to land, despite continuous military operations,” she added.

Palabay said that necessary social and economic reforms are vital components of an environment for just and lasting peace, reforms which are the next major agenda of the stalled GPH-NDFP peace talks.

“It goes to show that the Aquino administration and the AFP are not at all serious in addressing these urgent and comprehensive concerns, if all they do is unleash their war against the people through Oplan Bayanihan,” Palabay concluded.

Reference:
Cristina Palabay
Karapatan secretary general
+63917-3162839

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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.

As the Court of Appeals hears today the petition for the issuance of the writs of amparo and of habeas data filed by Atty. Maria Catherine Dannug-Salucon, the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) reiterates its unqualified support for its founding member and National Auditor.

The intense surveillance and imminent threats against her – several instances of military men casing and asking about her and her activities in their town in Isabela,  a motorcycle cutting off her car while pulling out of the garage, all tied together by information from credible sources and friends – are sometimes brushed off by others as “hazards of the trade.”

But Atty. Salucon holds the enviable distinction of being counsel for many political prisoners in Cagayan Valley and Cordillera, all arrested and accused by the military of perpetrating common crimes despite allegations of the political character of their alleged acts.

The evening after one of the hearings for another pro bono case, her paralegal human rights worker William Buggati was fatally shot by suspected members of the military while he was on his way home. Atty Salucon’s consistent success in exposing the weaknesses, blunders and shortcuts of the prosecution, as has been the experience of several others from our ranks, is the prime reason why she is being targeted now. The military cynically calls her a “Red lawyer” and a “tinik sa lalamunan” [pain in the neck] for successfully defending her clients and frustrating the military’s designs.

But as a real people’s lawyer, she is and will not be cowed by the harassments and the threats to her life and her security. Even with the death of her paralegal, Atty. Salucon did not once think of stepping into the sidelines.

Lawyers as officers of the court must be able to defend the people with confidence knowing that the courts also exist to protect us. Today’s hearing on her case is a woeful reminder of how grave the situation is, and that attacks against lawyers and judges are unabated, if unnoticed, in the midst of people’s protest against anti-people policies of the current Aquino government in the Philippines. At least forty-four lawyers and judges have been killed since 2001; twelve other lawyers have received serious death threats.

International organizations such as the Dutch advocacy group Lawyers for Lawyers (L4L) and the Lawyers Rights Watch of Canada (LRWC), among others, have warned President BS Aquino about the practice of labeling – combined with the pervasive climate of impunity – has in the past been identified by national and international fact finding missions as one of the main root causes for the spate of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines since 2001. The UN-accredited International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), of which NUPL is the Philippine affiliate, also treated Atty. Salucon’s case an important matter of serious concern at its Congress held in Brussels last month.

NUPL, the first awardee of the Belgian NGO coalition  “Stop the Killings” campaign, will raise before the United Nations Human Rights Council and specifically with the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges  and Lawyers, the serious situation of Filipino human rights defenders in Geneva in June.

NUPL, a pro bono association of human rights lawyers and law students, counts some 250 lawyers in private practice,  the academe, prosecutors, public attorneys, judges as well as executive officials and local and national legislators as members across the Philippines. It is the first organization to lobby for the institution of the writ of amparo as a judicial remedy, promulgated in 2007. It provides legal education, accredited through the Mandatory Continuing Legal Education program. It manages an anti-impunity campaign under the auspices of the European Union, with grants for several projects duly approved and commended. It is counsel in a number of high-profile public interest cases before the Supreme Court.

How the military finds its gall to label NUPL as “enemy of the state” is reckless and imprudent as we painstakingly work to correct injustices  through legal means.

An attack on lawyers for defending their clients is an attack on the so-called rule of law.  It is designed to discourage other lawyers away from representing “unpopular” clients or even from representing the lawyers who represent those clients. The vitriolic harassment and discrediting of NUPL and its members appears to be systematic, and symptomatic of skewed sense of justice in the country. Atty. Salucon’s case hence, is not about her alone, but about each one of us who stand in court and elsewhere against human rights violations.

We defenders are now ironically trying the amparo with all its limitations, with very little comfort from a fumbling and bumbling president who keeps on passing the buck to the judiciary for his accountability and responsibility for unsolved and continuing killings of activists and journalists.

Now is a challenge to our courts thus: whether it should keep its “dignified silence” far too long, or channel all the rage into action and protect also its own.# (kc)

Reference:

Edre U. Olalia
Secretary General
+639175113373

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National Secretariat
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL)
3F Erythrina Bldg., Maaralin corner Matatag Sts. 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/

Political prisoner Eduardo Serrano testified yesterday at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 97 to refute the false charges of kidnapping for ransom case filed against him. Serrano is the last witness slated to testify before the court finally resolves the case. Eduardo Serrano is among the 14 peace consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) who are currently detained. Atty. Rachel Pastores of the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) facilitated the direct examination of Serrano.

“Due to my close association and passionate cause with the farmers as a farming consultant and lecturer-trainer-adviser to farmers’ organizations and rural cooperatives, and as a recommended NDFP consultant to the peace talks between the GPH and NDFP on socio-economic reforms, I was branded by the military and police as an enemy of the state and subjected to their harassments, surveillance and intimidations. This led to my arrest without warrant on May 2, 2004 by unidentified armed men. While in prison, I was slapped with trumped-up criminal charges of multiple murders, kidnapping for ransom and attempted homicide … But the truth will eventually absolve me of these criminal charges,” Serrano said in a statement dated May 5, 2014.

Serrano narrated that on May 2, 2004, he was arrested by unidentified men in civilian clothes. The men dragged and forced him into a van where he was blindfolded. He was brought to Fort Bonifacio. The following day, he said, the military presented him before the members of the media as Rogelion Villanueva, a member of the New People’s Army. Later, the military brought him to the 204th brigade in Oriental Mindoro, and then to the Regional Trial Court Branch 40 of Calapan, Oriental Mindoro where he saw a commitment order issued against him. He also learned that his name was already inserted in the information for multiple murder and frustrated murder, allegedly committed on July 2, 2000. Serrano is protected from arrest and other forms of violations against him under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG).

Karapatan said Serrano is the longest held detainee among the 14 NDFP peace consultants who are JASIG-protected. “The case of the detained peace consultants is a violation of the JASIG and it shows BS Aquino’s refusal to go back to the negotiating table,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay.

In December 2013, Eduardo Sarmiento, also a peace consultant of the NDFP was convicted with life imprisonment for illegal possession of firearms and explosives. Sarmiento, who was a co-detainee of Serrano at Camp Crame, is now at the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City. Other NDFP peace consultants who are in jail are: Alan Jazmines, Tirso Alcantara, Jaime Soledad, Pedro Codaste, Emeterio Antalan, Leopoldo Caloza, Renante Gamara, Alfredo Mapano, Edgardo Friginal, Loida Magpatoc and, Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria who were arrested in March.

As of end March 2014, Karapatan documented 489 political prisoners, 62 of them were arrested this year.

“The JASIG was signed to ensure the safety of the NDFP peace negotiators and consultants. But the continuing illegal arrests, detention and filing of trumped up charges to peace consultants and other individuals and, the continuing human rights violations prove BS Aquino’s idea of peace is to gag or silence dissent. Obviously, the presidency is occupied by a war freak who is unfit to lead,” Palabay said.

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 Floor Erythrina Building
#1 Maaralin corner Matatag Streets
Central DistrictDiliman, 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.

On this 1st of May 2014, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) denounces the B S Aquino III Presidency for its abuse of the basic rights of the workers to assemble, to organise, to speak out and to collectively bargain; as we salute the resolute efforts of genuine unions in the Philippines to continue to organise, expand and struggle in the face of sustained repression.

During the term of President B S Aquino III, trade union leaders continue to be killed because of their selfless activity for the people, wrongly arrested and detained on ludicrous charges, and many more harassed by trumped up charges. As well the workers’ basic rights are abused in cases of violent police attacks on picket lines, the refusal by employers to recognise unions and to bargain, illegal dismissal of union members, and Assumption of Jurisdiction by the Department of Labor and Employment to stop legitimate strikes.

In addition, each day over 4,900 Filipinos are forced to go out of the country to seek work on two and three year contracts in almost every country in the world. They work away from their families and in hostile legal situations where there is often no real labor law, as in the Middle East, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Overseas contract workers face abusive employers, jail and execution, and deportation, as well as high risk in war zones in Syria and Lebanon, and Bahrain. While the B S Aquino III Presidency continued to ignore their plight while shamelessly taking taxes and fees, Migrante International continue to educate and organise, expand, protest, campaign and provide support to Overseas Contract Workers in need.

Workers also faced deadly violence in massive demolitions of their homes in San Roque, Quezon City, in 2013, to make way for speculative land developers associated with the super-wealthy elite. And in the Visayas they shared the horrific death toll and devastation from Typhoon Haiyan / Yolanda, where once again the organised workers delivered much needed relief while the B S Aquino III Presidency shunned the great need of the people in order to pursue its brutal counter-insurgency campaign Oplan Bayanihan II, across the devastated region.

This terrible record is part of the longstanding policy of suppressing the workers’ and people’s demands for dignity and human rights in order to maintain the grinding poverty which allows the government to promote the Philippines as a low-wage location for foreign investment, and to continue to expand the labor export program. This grinding poverty is itself a massive breach of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as of the Philippines Constitution.

Therefore the ICHRP calls on the International Labor Organisation, and the community of nations to treat the Philippines government as a rogue or pariah regime. Philippines labor law and policies are an affront to the core ILO Conventions on the right to organise, child labor, forced labor and discrimination. The Philippines government is acting in defiance of international law and standards, and thus the international community needs to end its impunity which degrades all nations.

To achieve this change in global attitudes towards the Philippines government, ICHRP calls on all trade unions and all organizations upholding human rights to join local Chapters of ICHRP and to highlight in their countries the grave abuses of workers’ rights and human rights that are so rampant in the Philippines.

ICHRP urges all trade union organizations to increase their solidarity with the KMU Labor Centre, and the public sector unions COURAGE, Alliance of Concerned Teachers, and Alliance of Health Workers, and with the Centre for Trade Union and Human Rights, and KARAPATAN, the national human rights alliance.

References:

Canon Barry Naylor
Chairperson, Global Council
International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP)
Office: +44 (0) 116 261 5371
Mobile: +44 (0) 775 785 3621

Peter Murphy
General Secretary, Global Council
International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP)
Mobile: +61 418312301