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New Zealanders press for justice for Italian missionary gunned down in Philippines

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New Zealanders press for justice for Italian missionary gunned down in Philippines

Remembering the life and martyrdom of Fr. Fausto ‘Pops’ Tentorio, PIME

By Auckland Philippines Solidarity

Two years since the killing of Fr. Fausto ‘Pops’ Tentorio, PIME, Auckland Philippines Solidarity (APS) together with church leaders in New Zealand gathered at St John’s Presbyterian Church to remember the martyrdom and lighted candles for justice for Fr. Pops.

Fr. Pops’ dear friend and fellow PIME missionary Fr. Peter Geremiah noted in a Justice for Pops (JPM) statement, “During the time of Cory Aquino the killers of Fr. Tullio Favali PIME were sentenced to life imprisonment even though their leader, commander Bukay Manero, was the most famous asset of the military during Martial Law who eventually served 23 years in prison… Now under Cory’s son who is president now, is justice possible for Pops and other victims of extra-judicial killings?”

“It is lamentable that top military officers denied any knowledge of the Bagani force during last year’s Congressional hearings into Fr. Pops’ case, despite repeated testimonies of witnesses on the killings and harassment perpetrated by this paramilitary group against the local civilian population over the years,” Cameron Walker, Spokesperson of Auckland Philippines Solidarity (APS) said.

Witnesses in North Cotabato, including a former Bagani force member, have claimed the paramilitary group is responsible for the killing.  Other serious allegations have been made that the Armed Forces have previously worked with the Bagani force.

“As we have seen in other international situations, such as in Colombia and Northern Ireland, state collusion with paramilitary groups has led to serious human rights violations”, noted Walker.

Rev. Prince Devanandan of the NZ Methodist Church noted at the memorial gathering for Fr. Pops, “We live today in a world where money has become more important than human life. The military in the Philippines and many countries controlled by the multinationals are only taught to kill those who resist injustice, but not taught to respect human life and dignity.”

Father Pops provided services for poor indigenous communities in North Cotabato Mindanao and also campaigned for an end to the forced displacement of communities by large mining companies, an end to human rights abuses by paramilitary groups and for the fair distribution of land.

In recent years other progressive church people have been murdered for taking a stand for the rights of the people.  After taking an active stand in support of the striking sugar workers at the Hacienda Luisita, owned by the Cojuangco-Aquino family, the Most Rev. Alberto Ramento, Bishop of the Philippine Independent Church was murdered in 2006.   Assassins broke through the rectory where Bishop Ramento was staying at around 4:00 am of October 03, 2006 in the Parish of San Sebastian, Tarlac City. After waking him from his sleep the assassins fatally stabbed him.

“The best way to honour Father Pops and his great legacy of social work in Mindanao is to bring those responsible for extrajudicial killings of people’s advocates to justice.  We call on President Aquino, as Commander and Chief of the Armed Forces to ensure all those responsible for extrajudicial killings within the security services are brought to justice and paramilitary groups, such as the Bagani force are dismantled.” Walker concluded.

Reference:
Cameron Walker – ph.solidarity@gmail.com
Spokesperson, Auckland Philippines Solidarity (APS)

CARPER conduit for land reconcentration — IBON

ICHRP Secretariat
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CARPER conduit for land reconcentration — IBON

Leasehold farmers have increased by more than 100% since 1988

By IBON

While peasant groups lament food insecurity as the world observes World Food Day, research group IBON affirmed that government’s land reform continues to facilitate the reconcentration of lands in the hands of the wealthy.

“Although the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program extended with reforms (CARPER) has stricken out the voluntary land transfer (VLT) option through which landowners have been able to retain land ownership by merely transferring their title to beneficiaries of their choice”, IBON said, “the program still has not guaranteed land transfer to tillers substantially.”

According to IBON, public clamor against schemes that allowed landowners to evade land redistribution led to the phasing-out of the VLT mode. However, the circumvention of the amendment by antedating VLT applications submitted 2009 onwards, and the exemption of VLT applications submitted between June 2008-2009 during the 14th Congress deliberations leading to CARPER, still finds 25.9% of the accomplished land acquisition and distribution (LAD) as of March 2013 under the VLT option.

Further, IBON pointed out that while CARPER supposedly focuses on the Voluntary Offer to Sell (VOS) and Compulsory Acquisition (CA) modes of redistribution, a larger 35% of LAD was accomplished through VOS and VLT from 1997-2012, while only 4% were distributed using the CA scheme.

IBON elaborated that most farmers whose lands were ‘acquired’ through VOS and VLT are among the growing number of tenants who enter into lease and leaseback arrangements with agribusiness corporations and former landowners. DAR data shows that leasehold farmers have increased to at least 1,216,430 in 2012 from 555,232 in 1988.

IBON research found farmers and farmworkers leasing awarded land back to corporations or landowners even to the point of getting hired by these entities. Other farmers lease the lands to corporations, organizations, and financiers who have their own pool of farm workers. According to the DAR, there are at least 48,436.9 hectares covered by Agribusiness Venture Agreements (AVA) that include joint venture agreements and contract growing. Aside from this, some farmer beneficiaries or farmworkers are given the option of resorting back to tenancy and obliged to pay a fixed rent for each cropping period.

IBON also said that the CARPER still retains the stock distribution option (SDO) and other non-land transfer schemes of the old CARP. The research group noted that the SDO was one of farmworkers’ decades-old issues with Hacienda Luisita, the distribution of which, up to now remains problematic.

 

Interview with Auckland Philippines Solidarity about Fr. Pops Tentorio

ICHRP Secretariat
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Interview with Auckland Philippines Solidarity about Fr. Pops Tentorio

By CAMERON WALKER

Justice for Fr Pops!

Here is the podcast of the interview I did yesterday on bFM about the life of Father Fausto Tentorio — Father Pops — a Priest who was murdered by a right wing paramilitary group in Mindanao, southern Philippines.

Green Desk with Sustainable Simon | 95bFM
http://www.95bfm.co.nz/default,213113.sm

Heartless: Military, police file motion to re-arrest innocent man

ICHRP Secretariat
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Heartless: Military, police file motion to re-arrest innocent man

On the military’s motion questioning the court’s ruling releasing security guard portrayed as top rebel leader and asking for his rearrest: Heartless

By National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers

The military and police officers’ “Urgent Motion for Reconsideration and for Order of Re-Arrest” of our client Rolly Panesa is not only a desperate act but is simply heartless.

Private security guard Panesa was portrayed by the military and police as a supposed ranking leader of the New People’s Army in order to fetch a multimillion bounty of P5.8M despite overwhelming evidence that he is not Benjamin Mendoza. After almost a year of unjust incarceration, the Court of Appeals eventually saw the lies and inconsistencies of the military’s professional witnesses and finally ordered his immediate release last August.

This latest Motion is simply untenable. In our Comment filed yesterday, we asserted that there is no legal or factual basis to reconsider the August 27, 2013 Decision since the same is fully in accordance with law, jurisprudence and the evidence. It is plain recycled hogwash aimed at saving face for a high-profile bungled money-making racket.

To start with, why would the military and police now question the jurisdiction and authority of the court to determine the identity of Panesa – an issue intrinsically decisive of the legality of his arrest and detention for which the remedy of habeas corpus was intended as an extraordinary remedy to afford a speedy and effectual relief to persons who are illegally detained – when they have actively and assiduously participated the proceedings through their lawyers who fought tooth and nail to keep him? They are simply estopped and cannot have their cake and eat it too.

The subject Decision cannot be more clear, categorical and unequivocal, both legally and grammatically, when it said that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus is hereby issued immediately and that the Jail Warden is commanded to forthwith execute the writ for our client’s discharge from confinement and to release him.

It would not be amiss to point out certain crucial points in this tragedy to put all these in the proper perspective. This is actually and in reality not a case of “mistaken identity.” The respondents-movants, shamelessly aided by their unscrupulous lawyers who wittingly or unwittingly have tinkered with the life of an innocent ordinary security guard who did not know what hit him, have actually simulated the arrest to justify a wrongful and unjust detention.

The only motivation of such callous injustice is the handsome bounty (Php5.8 Million pesos) over the head of one Benjamin Mendoza who is allegedly a ranking rebel leader and the unworthy brownie points that come along with it in the process. Panesa is not the first victim of such money-making scheme. That it is covered by a dangerous “secret bounty list” issued by the Department of Defense and Department of Interior and Local Government in a Memorandum dated November 2012 simply institutionalizes this injustice.

Finally, is it not plainly stretching credulity or credence that a supposedly wanted high-ranking rebel leader like Panesa – who so naturally comported, deported and proven himself in and out of court as nowhere remotely close to being such – would personally and publicly file and pursue immediately after his release criminal countercharges for torture and other crimes against his captors and their handlers and errand boys?

Would it not have been inordinately convenient and easier for him to have just run posthaste back to the “mountains” on the one hand if he were indeed a rebel leader as he is being portrayed by respondents-movants or that he could just have “moved on” and lived a quiet life and charge all these to (sad) experience on the other hand if his rights, liberty and dignity were not trampled upon with impunity?

References:

Edre U. Olalia
National Secretary General
+639175113373

Ephraim Cortez
Assistant secretary general for Legal Services
+639175465798

Jailing of scientist sabotages anew people’s rehabilitation in typhoon-disaster areas — Karapatan

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Jailing of scientist sabotages anew people’s rehabilitation in typhoon-disaster areas — Karapatan

By KARAPATAN

The arrest and illegal detention of a University of the Philippines professor in Cateel, Davao Oriental by the 67th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army is yet another blow on the typhoon Pablo victims’ self-help rehabilitation efforts.

“To throw Prof. Kim Gargar in jail on trumped up charges because he wanted to help the Pablo victims in rehabilitating and developing their communities is not only violating his rights but is also injustice to the communities he is assisting. Prof. Gargar should be immediately released,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay.

“It is disgusting enough that the BS Aquino government failed to provide support for the typhoon victims. But it is more detestable that the government and its armed forces’ militarist efforts to prevent the people, those who were devastated by the typhoon and those who support them, from taking up the initiative to help themselves and better their situation,” she said.

Prof. Gargar, according to his organization Agham, opted to be temporarily seconded to Panalipdan-Southern Mindanao to directly help in the efforts to restore the communities. When he joined a humanitarian mission to the Pablo-devastated areas in April this year, Prof. Gargar saw government’s inaction and neglect amid massive destruction, and the need to support the people in the rehabilitation work.

Prior to Prof. Gargar’s arrest and detention, Cristina Jose, a barangay councilor in Bagangga, Davao Oriental, and leader of Barug Katawhan (People Stand Up) was killed on 4 March. Jose was one of the leaders of the typhoon Pablo victims who demanded the release of relief goods from the warehouse of the Department of Social Work and Development (DSWD), saying they were discriminated against by the government agency because of the military’s red tagging.

Jose was shot, by three men aboard a motorcycle, on the left side of her back, with the bullet exiting through her right breast.

Elements of the 67th Infantry Battalion — the same military unit responsible for Prof. Gargar’s arrest — had branded Jose as “kagawad ng mga NPA” (the New People’s Army’s councilor). Jose received threats prior to her death. Jose was among those who assisted Karapatan to investigate cases of human rights violations after the 67th IBPA conducted military operations in Jose’s community in January 2013.

In July, members of an international solidarity mission mostly from the United States, who visited the communities hit by typhoon Pablo were “appalled that they saw more soldiers than rehabilitated homes.” They also experienced first-hand military harassment when in less than five minutes upon their arrival, military assets were already taking their photos.

“The illegal arrest and detention of Prof. Kim Gargar, justified by red tagging, is yet another desperate move by the BS Aquino government to suppress the people’s collective action towards meaningful change,” Palabay said.

Karapatan calls for the immediate release of Prof. Kim Gargar and the immediate pull-out of military and paramilitary units in civilian communities as it warned of “more indiscriminate attacks against the people with less than three months left before Oplan Bayanihan’s deadline, and with the people becoming dissatisfied with government due to massive corruption.”

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

Angge Santos
Media Liaison
+63918-9790580

———————————————————————
PUBLIC INFORMATION DESK
publicinfo@karapatan.org
———————————————————————
Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights
2nd Flr. Erythrina Bldg., #1 Maaralin corner Matatag Sts., 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.

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