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Time to lift the long shadow of Dictator Marcos from the Filipino People

ICHRP Secretariat
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Time to lift the long shadow of Dictator Marcos from the Filipino People

International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines

Over the night of 21-22 September 1972, the dictator Ferdinand Marcos decreed Martial Law, ensuring that his Presidential term did not come to an end, allowing him to arrest his political competitors, and seize their assets.

Marcos had the blessing of US President Richard Nixon, under the pretext that Marcos was a strong ally against communism in the Cold War and in the last phase of the American War in Vietnam. US military bases at Clark and Subic enabled massive air and naval bombardment of Vietnam for years, as well as being notorious sites of sexual exploitation of women and children.

Indeed, Marcos used the then small but growing armed revolutionary movement led by the re-established Communist Party of the Philippines as a pretext for Martial Law, even though it was not an immediate threat to the Philippines state. That despicable figleaf of anti-communism is long gone as a cover for the present-day gross abuse of human rights.

Martial Law was a nightmare for the Filipino people of all classes, with arbitrary political killings, disappearances, torture, and political prisoner camps all over the country. The war against the Moro people raged in Mindanao. Trade unions and student campaigns were repressed

Under the earliest Structural Adjustment Program of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, Marcos created the world’s first Export Processing Zones with its tax holiday for foreign corporations, and “no-union, no-strike” rules. Marcos began state-sponsored export of labour. De-forestation was rampant, with consequences now evident in repeated flood and landslide disasters.

Dictator Marcos created the category of ‘crony capitalism’, and his cronies remain today as powerful economic and political players in the Philippines.

When Marcos had Senator Benigno Aquino Jr. assassinated on 21 August 1983 at the Manila International Airport, the simmering mass movement against the dictatorship erupted. By the end of 1985, he was forced to call a ‘snap election’ for 7 February 1986, which was won by a united opposition led by Mrs. Corazon “Cory” Aquino, mother of the current President. Marcos intended to fraudulently claim victory but was thwarted by an attempted coup which was itself saved by the famous “people power” uprising. The dictator fled to the protection of the US in Hawaii.

It was the Filipino people who removed the dictator in February 1986, with the sympathy of the world’s people, but without any help from the states who loudly proclaim their democratic credentials, in Europe, North America or the Pacific.

The euphoria of that democratic triumph was still echoing around the world, but in the Philippines it did not last long: KMU union leader and political figure Rolando Olalia and his driver Leonor Alay-ay were assassinated on 13 November 1986, protesting peasants were massacred at Mendiola on 21 January 1987, and BAYAN leader Lean Alejandro was assassinated on 19 September 1987. Reactionary groupings in the armed forces launched six coup plots against President Aquino, the most violent being in August 1987.

This powerful reassertion of military power in Philippines society, financed by US military aid, made the Cory Aquino presidency even worse than the Marcos era for cases of human rights abuse, despite its initial steps in releasing all political prisoners, declaring a revolutionary government until a new democratic Constitution was adopted by the people in February 1987, holding elections, and then making the profound decision by the Senate to reject any extension of the US Military Bases Agreement in 1991.

Today, 41 years later, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines calls the international community to attention for the shocking abuse of basic democratic and human rights that continue in the Philippines today. Despite a veneer of democratic institutions and elections, life for most Filipinos is one of grinding poverty, with all protests met with brutal force by the state – arbitrary execution, torture, arbitrary detention, judicial abuse, repression of the people´s organized actions.

Marcos casts a long shadow, but the international community can finally dispel it, in the bright light of scrutiny by civil initiatives, UN institutions and credible courts.

The Philippines is NOT a model of democracy. Following the steps of his predecessors, President Benigno Simeon Aquino III is implementing an undeclared Martial Law. The extrajudicial killing of 142 human rights advocates, political activists and development workers (and frustrated killing of 164 more), the 449 political prisoners being held in detention centres, the 16 cases of enforced disappearance, 76 cases of torture, 540 cases of illegal arrests and more than 30,000 victims of forced evacuation all attest to this reality. The impunity enjoyed today by the current Aquino presidency has its roots in US military aid now under the banner of ‘war on terror’, and the discredited ideology of unfettered ‘free trade and investment’ known as neo-liberalism or the ‘Washington Consensus’

This impunity must be ended by a combination of direct people’s action and state action.

Which government will be the first to refuse to have a state visit from President Aquino until General Palparan is put on trial for abductions and extra-judicial killings?

When will the the governments of the United States, Australia and other countries stop military aid and training to the Philippines until root-and-branch reform of the Armed Forces of the Philippines is under way?

Which government will call in the Philippines Ambassador to demand an end to repression of trade unions, farmers, student and other people’s organizations in the Philippines?

Which international figure will be the first to use their public standing to denounce the impunity of the Aquino presidency?

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines welcomes all organizations who share our passion for human rights and peace to join us in rising to this challenge.

Reference:

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

Your support is needed to free Joel Q. Yagao

ICHRP Secretariat
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Your support is needed to free Joel Q. Yagao

Dear Friends,

Below are the links to statements and appeals coming form various organizations and networks concerning the case of our colleague, Joel Q. Yagao.

We will be very glad if your organization, too, can release such a statement or an appeal to help us pressure the government and the state security forces to drop all the cases against Joel. Forwarding this letter to your networks will also be appreciated.

Finally, we thank you for your endless support to our work for human rights of the rural poor, and we are wishing for your sustained accompaniment while we are confronting the darkest days where we are persecuted for living out our preferential option for the poor.

Free Joel Yagao, NOW!
Stop persecuting church workers and human rights defenders in Mindanao and the Philippines!

Very sincerely yours,

Sr. Ma. Famita N. Somogod, MSM
Coordinator

Philippines: Trumped-up charges of murder brought against human rights defender Mr Joel Q. Yagao 

Front Line Defenders is concerned for the safety and the physical and psychological integrity of Joel Q. Yagao, in the light of the severe charges trumped up against him. Human rights defenders working on issues such as indigenous and land rights and access to natural resources face an alarmingly high level of violence and harassment in the Philippines, both by state and non-state actors and especially in the Northern Mindanao region. Front Line Defenders has reported on a substantial number of cases where such human rights defenders were killed or targeted by the army or police forces. (more…)

Philippines: Immediately and Unconditionally Drop All Charges Against Human Rights Defender Joel Q. Yagao

Human Rights Ambassador for Salem-News.com, William Nicholas Gomes is concerned for the safety and the physical and psychological integrity of Joel Q. Yagao, in the light of the severe charges trumped up against him. Human rights defenders working on issues such as indigenous and land rights and access to natural resources face an alarmingly high level of violence and harassment in the Philippines, both by state and non-state actors and especially in the Northern Mindanao region. (more…)

Rev. Deacon Chris Sullivan: Letter of Concern on the Case of Joel Q. Yagao

I am very concerned at the pattern of harassment and assassinations of Church human rights workers in the Philippines and I urge your government to take firm action to make sure that these vulnerable Church members are properly protected. (more…)

 

RURAL MISSIONARIES OF THE PHILIPPINES-Northern Mindanao Sub-Region (RMP-NMR)
Room 01, Kalinaw Lanao Center for Interfaith Resources
0016 Bougainvilla Puti, Villaverde
9200 Iligan City, Philippines
T/F: +63 (63) 223 5179

S: rural.missionaries

W: www.rmp-nmr.org

European friends remember James Balao, 5 years since abduction

ICHRP Secretariat
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European friends remember James Balao, 5 years since abduction

Solidarity groups from Europe remember the disappearance of James Balao five years ago. They join the Balao family, James’ friends and colleagues, in calling on Philippine government officials to let him go home, and in calling for a stop to all enforced disappearances.

Please see below statement, photos, video report and poem from Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Today, the 17th of September 2013, we count the 2128th day of his disappearance. James was an indigenous activist of the people — and environment movement in North-Luzon, Philippines and one of the founder of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA). He was captured by security of the police an military power in La Trinidad, Benguet.

The Monday demonstration in Stuttgart counts the days of his disappearance and demands from the government of the Philippines to stop at once all violations against the human rights, specially the killings and disappearances.

We want to know, what happened to him and we demand urgently: Stop impunity!

His friends, his family and the international community will go on with our demands until we know the complete truth. On the other side the government of Germany talks a lot about human rights and interferes in the sovereignty of states, but they support the government of Aquino III or former president G.M. Arroyo… what a shame and what a lie.

We will keep the fallen always in mind

Monday-demonstration in Stuttgart, Germany

Photos from Stuttgart, Germany:

James Balao is with us
What they did with you?
Where are you?
5 years are gone
since you was enforced captured
by the secret services.
Your family and we do not know
anything about your disappearance.
But we want to hear the truth,
Mr. President!

You lead a war against the people
with all means of betray
and terror with the only purpose
to upheld the power to exploit
the nature and the people
for enriching yourselves and the riches.

The history of the Philippines,
of the workers, peasants and oppressed
is the history of the class-struggleeverywhere.

Spartacus was crucified,
Jerg Ratgeb, a famous painter in Germany
was killed in the “War of the Peasants” 1525
by dividing his body by four horses.

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht
were cowardly murdered as well.

Thousands of freedom fighters were killed by the fascism,
unknown fighters, women and men,
barbarous and inhuman.
Thats the reality up to now.
We can’t understand,
but we have to.

The footprints of blood all through the history
will only then end, if we can live
in a liberated society of mankind
and nature
— free of the system of profit
— there is not much time left!

Today, at the 2128th of your disappearance,
your cry for freedom is not forgotten.
Your banner is uphold in the fights
in Rojava, Egypt, Columbia and in Chile,
where Viktor Jara was liquidated by 44 shots
40 years ago on the 9/11 1973
before they demolished his hands
to prevent him from singing with his guitar.

But his songs accompanies our march for freedom
and dignity and encourages us.
The fallen are with us
and we change our sadness into power.

You know that!

Statement by the Nederlands-Filippijnse Solidariteitsbeweging

na vijf jaar is james balao nog niet terecht

Het is vandaag precies vijf jaar geleden dat mensenrechtenactivist James Balao ontvoerd werd vlakbij een schooltje in Benguet, op het eiland Luzon in de Filippijnen. Volgens verschillende bronnen zit de overheid achter zijn verdwijning.

James Balao is medeoprichter van de organisatie ‘Cordillera Peoples Alliance’, die opkomt voor de rechten van inheemse volkeren. Voor zijn ontvoering schreef James in een email aan zijn familie hoe hij sinds juni 2008 gevolgd werd.

Familie en vrienden blijven geloven dat hij nog leeft, en blijven zoeken. De reportage van Roel Nollet over James uit 2009 werd genomineerd voor de Concentra Award.

Zie voor de reportage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NA8E5f2uSc

Call for release of Ericson Acosta, land reform advocates arrested in Hacienda Luisita

ICHRP Secretariat
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Call for release of Ericson Acosta, land reform advocates arrested in Hacienda Luisita

We have a pork barrel king and a despotic landlord for a President.

The Free Ericson Acosta Campaign (FEAC) calls for the immediate and unconditional release of former political prisoner and cultural worker Ericson Acosta and 11 other delegates to a Hacienda Luisita fact-finding mission violently arrested by the Philippine National Police (PNP) Tarlac early today.

In a text message, Ericson Acosta describes the arrest as follows:

We were charged with malicious mischief, illegal assembly, direct assault, and trespassing. I lost my slippers during the violent arrest and we were only read the Miranda rights at the police headquarters where we are currently detained.

With me arrested are Anakpawis Representative Fernando Hicap, Danilo Ramos of Anakpawis party-list, Florida Sibayan, acting chairperson of Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Asyenda Luisita (AMBALA), Sister Patricia Fox of the Zion Sisters, Kerima Tariman, Rene Blazan, Karl Mae San Juan of Anakpawis, Ronald Matthew Gustillo, Luz Versola, Pong Sibayan of Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA),

Walking back to Balete, where the picket line of the farm-workers is located, we were violently arrested upon the order Supt. Razalan. The arresting police force consisted of seven armed men in plain clothing and armed supervisors of Cojuanco-owned Tarlac Development Corporation.

Four women were injured during the arrest including AMBALA acting chair Florida Sibayan, who passed out and incurred a head contusion.

We were practically arrested by the Cojuanco-Aquino family to hide the anomalous and violent implementation of a flawed land distribution scheme.

If the police will not drop charges against us, we will remain here for the night as it is Makabulos Day.

In a desperate move to maintain its illegal and contested ownership of the more than 6000-hectare Hacienda Luisita, the Cojuanco-Aquino family mobilizes the repressive forces of the police and military to terrorize and inflict violence on land reform advocates and famers.

Hacienda Luisita has historically been the economic base upon which the Cojuanco-Aquino built and maintained its political power. With the Supreme Court decision ordering the distribution of this vast land to the farm-workers, the Conjuanco-Aquino family, through no less than President Benigno Aquino III, continues to wield its political power to enforce fascism against the farm-workers and advocates of genuine land reform advocates.

Reference:

Anakpawis Rep. Fernando Hicap
+63920-227-1620

Balao family speaks about James’ 5th year disappearance

ICHRP Secretariat
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Balao family speaks about James’ 5th year disappearance

17 September 2008. Tomay, near Camp Dangwa … the usual morning routine of mothers and their children walking to the elementary school, early bread delivery truck parks in front of Saymore’s store. The quiet day was disturbed when the people witnessed the terrible abduction of James. Five men showed their inhumane cruelty to him — a kind and quite soul of a man. These evil men sneered and threatened the people with their guns, locked his jaw and shoved him in a white SUV.  All he could say was, “ask these men, what have I done wrong.”

Dear everyone,

James was lost to us on this day.  Maybe you remember. Yes, he is the same person still missing.  James Balao, our brother — the same person abducted by the military and the same man we, his family and closest friends, seek to this day. Five long years of worry, unsettling emotions and feelings, anger and anguish, frustration, being threatened ourselves for trying to find him… name it…we have gone through it.

Five long years passed, to those who have him, please, have a heart and let him come back home to us. If you killed him, like what our late father said, give us back his bones so that we can give him a proper burial

James was abducted under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her brutal internal security policy Oplan Bantay Laya.  She was heartless.  Hundreds went missing like James and more than a thousand people were killed and tortured.  Enemies of the State  subjected to the terror of the policy are teachers, doctors, nurses, journalists, educators, agriculturists, social workers, even students, farmers, indigenous peoples – honorable men and women who have the will to serve their fellow men.  These are the people who tirelessly help the people safeguard their land and rights.

It is painful to see that this violation continues to this day with no desaparecido reunited with his or her family and that to this day, the present President allows enforced disappearances under his Operation Plan Bayanihan.

Together with our family, the Cordillera Peoples Alliance, Cordillera Human Rights Alliance, Desaparecidos, various local and international groups, we continue our search for James Balao and the campaign to end enforced disappearances.

We want our brother back home. We need him and we miss him. His friends need him too and so do the people whom he had served.

We will not stop until we find him.

For justice and freedom,

Nonette Balao
Winston Balao
Joni Balao-Strugar

Cordillera Human Rights Alliance
17 September 2013

We continue to search for James Balao and for justice

James Balao, founding member of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance was abducted in Tomay, La Trinidad last September 17, 2008.  State security forces took him as he was trying to get home.  He remains a desaparecido up to this day.

His enforced disappearance was part of the implementation of the national internal security policy Oplan Bantay Laya (Freedomwatch) under then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s regime.  He is among the more than 200 men and women – parents, sons and daughters – taken away from their families and work, denied their rights, and denied the people knowledge and access on their welfare and whereabouts.  The reason for this is that they are critical of the government’s policies that contradict human rights and the people’s dignity. The unjust cost of their political dissent is the denial of their rights.

Before James was silenced by his abductors, James pleaded to the onlookers, “Saludsuden yo man dagitoy nu ania ti basol ko? (Please ask them what I have done wrong?).  James did nothing wrong but be with the people in the assertion of their human rights and dignity.  Nobody should be subjected to this grave violation and placed outside the protection of human rights and the law.

It has been five long painful years of searching for James.  Misinformation about his whereabouts to deliberately derail the search has compounded the level of anxiety from not knowing where he is and in what state he is.  His parents both died in 2010 without seeing him.  His family and colleagues have been subjected to surveillance, threats and harassments in the search for him.

Inspite of the difficulties, the persistence of the Balao family, his friends, colleagues and human rights groups and the support from various local, national and international groups has been unwavering.  It is a source of strength.

The task remains.  The search must continue.

Last April, Judge Jennifer Humiding of the Benguet Regional Trial Court Branch 63 issued a report to the Supreme Court regarding the investigation of the case of James Balao. The report is part of the continuing case regarding the Petition for the Writ of Amparo for James filed in 2008. Judge Humiding recommended for the following:

  1. “The incumbent chief of staff of the AFP and the director general of the Philippine National Police to directly and personally monitor the efforts of the SITFG-Balao until its conclusion.”
  2. The conduct of parallel investigation by the National Bureau of Investigation and the Commission on Human Rights.  These parallel investigations are expected to provide a system of check and balance to the investigation being conducted by the AFP and PNP.
  3. “All the concerned officers and authorities shall make available all documents they have on JAMES BALAO and make accessible all the officers who had anything to do with the abduction, or who had knowledge of the abduction; as well as to be granted access to camps and safehouses that could give leads to the whereabouts of JAMES BALAO.”
  4. Regular reports regarding the investigation should be submitted to the Supreme Court.

This report comes from findings that not enough was done by the State to locate James – a clear portrayal of impunity in this country.

We vow to persist in the campaign and the search.  If he is alive, we hope that he will receive news that we continue the search for him.  This will provide him strength and hope wherever he is being kept or detained.  If he is not, his family has every right to have him and to closure.  Only our collective efforts will lead us to him and to justice.

SURFACE JAMES BALAO!
STOP ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES!

For reference:

Atty. Jennifer Asuncion
Vice Chairperson
Mobile number:  09175553118

Jude Baggo
Secretary General
Mobile number: 09189199007

email: chra.karapatan@gmail.com

cordillera human rights alliance
55 ferguson road,baguio city, philippines
telefax: +63. 74. 443. 7159
telephone:  +63 74 304 4239
cp:  +63 918 919 9007

 

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