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Rights groups call for prosecution of brains behind Burgos disappearance

ICHRP Secretariat
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Rights groups call for prosecution of brains behind Burgos disappearance

Karapatan, Desaparecidos hold picket at Justice Department

By Karapatan
Desaparecidos

“Niloloko niyo kami! Pwedeng kasuhan ang kamay ng krimen pero ang utak ay hindi?” (“You are deceiving us! Why are you only prosecuting the small-fry but letting the masterminds go scot-free?”) remarked Lorena P. Santos, daughter of a desaparecido and Secretary General of Families of Desaparecidos for Justice (Desaparecidos) at the picket held today at the Department of Justice (DOJ).

lorna-jonasSantos referred to the 3 September 2013 resolution by the DOJ to drop military officials, led by Brig. Gen. Eduardo Año, from the list of respondents to the criminal charges of arbitrary detention, murder, and obstruction of justice on the enforced disappearance of Jonas Burgos.

The resolution, reviewed and penned by Assistant Prosecutor Gerard Gaerlan, and approved by Prosecutor General Claro Arellano, only recommended for the filing of charges against Major Harry Baliaga Jr.

The other respondents dropped from charges are Brig. Gen. Eduardo Año, Lt. Col. Melquiades Feliciano, Lt. Gen. Romeo Tolentino, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano and Dir. Gen. Avelino Razon Jr. The DOJ only recommended the filing of charges against Major Harry Baliaga Jr.

“Hindi pwedeng dinukot ni Maj. Baliaga si Jonas nang walang order galing sa superiors niya, (Maj. Baliaga could not have abducted Jonas (Burgos) without his superiors’ order.)” Santos said.

Año was the head of the operating arm of the intelligence group of the Philippine Army when the abduction happened.

Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general said, “the DOJ decision confirms our apprehension about the much publicized creation of the Inter-Agency Committee on extra-legal killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other grave violations on life, liberty and security of persons.  It is a shame that after announcing that it will give priority to the Burgos case, the DOJ, as the lead department of the Inter-Agency Committee, exonerated the brains of the crime and then covered up for Año’s responsibility and accountability.”

“If this is how the DOJ acts on its ‘priority cases’, how else would it act on the cases involving lesser known victims of human rights violations?,” Palabay asked.

“Nakakagalit na sa kabila ng mga ebidensiya at testimonya na inihapag ng pamilya Burgos ay hindi pa rin mapanagot ang mga maysala sa pagkawala ni Jonas. Saan pa kami lalapit at magrereklamo para makakuha ng hustisya, kung ganito ang nangyayari? (It is enraging that despite the evidences and testimonies presented by the Burgos family, perpetrators are still spared from prosecution. Where else could we go to get justice?),” Santos added.

“From the DOJ’s recommendation, we fear that the trial on the Burgos case will lead to a circus, but not to where Jonas is,” Palabay concluded.

The groups called on DOJ Sec. Leila de Lima to prosecute Gen. Año and other military officials removed from the respondents.

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

Lorena Santos
Secretary General
DESAPARECIDOS
+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 Bldg., #1 Maaralin corner Matatag Sts., Central District
Diliman, Quezon City, PHILIPPINES 1101
Telefax: (+63 2) 4354146
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. 

Stop persecuting church workers, free Joel Q. Yadao, NOW!

ICHRP Secretariat
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Stop persecuting church workers, free Joel Q. Yadao, NOW!

Rural Missionaries of the Philippines

We deeply abhor the arrest of Joel Q. Yagao, a pillar and long-time member of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, assigned to organize and assist peasant organizations in towns of the eastern part of Misamis Oriental, including Gingoog City.

Joel — 44 years old, married with 2 children — was arrested around 11:00 AM of 08 September 2013 at the compound of the Roman Catholic Church in the town of Villanueva while meeting another lay co-worker in preparation for the month-long commemoration of the October Peasant Month. The arresting team was led by Capt. Joe Ryan Manalo of the Philippine Army. He was implicated in the pre-2013 elections armed encounter between Mayor Ruthie Guingona’s convoy and the New People’s Army (NPA) in the hinterlands of Gingoog City, and is currently charged of double murder and multiple murder.

Joel has been responsible for sound community-based agrarian campaigns in the past five years in the eastern part of Misamis Oriental, assisting organizations like the Balingasag Farmers’ Association and other community-based organizations of peasants under the Misamis Oriental Farmers’ Association (MOFA). Thousands of poor farmers in eastern Misamis Oriental towns benefited from these agrarian campaigns, including efforts to increase farm gate prices of bananas, increase of wages of manghornalay (seasonal agricultural workers) and elimination of usury, among others.

We denounce the trumped-up charges against Joel. We denounce this act of judicial harassment to disable Joel from doing his human rights work for the peasants of eastern Misamis Oriental. We call for his immediate release.

We criticize the continued harassment and intimidation being inflicted by the state forces to the members of RMP-Northern Mindanao Region. Our office and staff have been put under intensified surveillance this year, causing dislocations in our work for human rights in the company of poor farmers and indigenous peoples.

We regard with disgust the continued attack against church workers and advocates, farmers and indigenous communities, and all other human rights defenders in Mindanao and the entire country. We condemn the evil structures that perpetuate human rights violations and impunity.

We proclaim to carry on our accompaniment of the rural poor in their journey for the fulfillment of life and dignity.

We will join and assist thousands of poor farmers and indigenous peoples from Misamis Oriental to march this October Peasant Month to protest landlessness and the sustained persecution of human rights defenders working for land rights and access to resources.

Stop persecuting church workers, free Joel Q. Yadao, NOW!

(sgd) Sr. Ma. Famita N. Somogod, MSM
Coordinator

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

Zamboanga Crisis: A fiasco of Aquino’s peace process in Muslim Mindanao

ICHRP Secretariat
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Zamboanga Crisis: A fiasco of Aquino’s peace process in Muslim Mindanao

Moro-Christian People’s Alliance

“The ongoing political crisis in Zamboanga City gives away Aquino’s failure to address the Bangsamoro Question amidst his claim of success of the GPH-MILF peace negotiation,” according to Antonio Liongson, spokesperson of the Moro-Christian People’s Alliance (MCPA).

“It is a serious price that Aquino has to pay in belittling the significance of the 1996 Final Peace Agreement of the GRP-MNLF in pursuing a just and lasting peace Southern Philippines,” Liongson added.

Clearly left out in the Aquino GPH-MILF peace talks and peace policy in Mindanao, Prof. Nur Misuari, founding Chairperson of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), declared independence of the entire Mindanao, including Palawan and Sabah, and announced the formation of the “Bangsamoro Republik” before an assembly of MNLF members in Talipao, Sulu last 12 August 2013.

Misuari invoked a 1960 UN General Assembly Resolution that granted independence to all colonized peoples in the world.  He declared that the “Bangsamoro Republik” is a sovereign nation under the colonial occupation of the Government of the Philippines.

Malacañang, through Secretary Edwin Lacierda, dismissed MNLF’s claim of being left out and said that the Framework Agreement of the GPH-MILF peace negotiation will benefit all the Bangsamoro. Deputy Spokeswoman Abigail Valte also pointed out that the 1996 GRP-MNLF Peace Agreement does not include any secession.

Liongson said that this is not the first time that the Aquino government’s belittling attitude toward important stakeholder organizations in addressing the roots of the decades-long armed conflict in Mindanao resulted in a war situation, warrantless arrests, forced displacement of thousands of Bangsamoro/non-Moro civilians, and loss of lives.

In February – March 2013, a standoff and armed confrontation between the Royal Security Forces of the Sultanate of Sulu & North Borneo, led by Raja Muda Agbimuddin Kiram, and the Malaysian Armed Forces in Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysia over the issue of reclaiming Sabah caught the Aquino administration off guard. The two-week standoff has caused the forced displacement of thousands of Moro and non-Moro families, who have lived and worked in Sabah for years.  The displaced Moros (majority of the Tausug tribe) returned to Mindanao with little assistance, if any, from the Aquino government.

The Sabah standoff was triggered when President Aquino deliberately ignored the two letters of Sultan Jamalul Kiram III of the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo about the Philippine Sabah claim to be considered in the GPH-MILF peace talks which is facilitated by the government of Malaysia.  Feeling snubbed, Sultan Jamalul Kiram III decided to revive and pursue the Sabah claim on his own initiative.

He sent his younger brother Agbimuddin Kiram, the crown prince, accompanied by some 200 members of the Royal State Forces of the Sultanate, to Lahad Datu, a coastal village in Sabah, Malaysia to start the process of reclaiming Sabah.  Historically, Sabah belongs to the Sultanate of Sulu.

“To address the roots of the Moro Question and attain a just and lasting peace in Mindanao, President Aquino  must conduct a comprehensive and genuine peace policy with  the active participation and involvement not only with the Moro Islamic Liberationm Front (MILF) but of other legitimate stakeholder organizations that include the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) of Prof. Nur Misuari and the Sultanate of Sulu & North Borneo led by Sultan Jamalul Kiram III.

“Even the MILF breakaway group, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM) led by Ustadz Ameril Omra Kato, must be considered, as it is fighting for the same legitimate issues of the Bangsamoro. All these organizations have been fighting for the Bangsamoro people’s homeland and right to self-determination,”  Antonio Liongson concluded.

Reference:
Antonio Liongson
National Spokesperson
Moro-Christian People’s Alliance
CP #0905-8248028

Church groups denounce military harassment of Pastor Mangao

ICHRP Secretariat
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Church groups denounce military harassment of Pastor Mangao

By National Council of Churches in the Philippines

The National Council of Churches in the Philippines stands in solidarity with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, in the face of the persecution of its church workers for their courageous defence of the poor and the disenfranchised. The UCCP denounced the recent harassment and surveillance of Pastor June Ver Mangao, a UCCP pastor assigned in Mabitac, perpetrated by intelligence agents of the 1st Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army under the command of Col. Jose Augusto Villareal.

The NCCP is outraged that the military continues to brand church workers who stand with the poor as leftists and targets them to surveillances and harassment. In the continued climate of impunity that prevails in the Philippines, where perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and human rights abuses are not brought to account for their actions, any tagging by the military of church workers as leftists puts the lives of all church workers in potential danger. The NCCP denounces this vilification of  church workers. Jesus Christ calls people of faith to stand in solidarity with the poor and oppressed. This faithful advocacy of the Christian gospel neither makes churchworkers enemies of the state nor leftists.

Pastor Mangao, is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary (Philippines) and a former exchange student of the Stockholm School of Theology (Sweden). He has exemplified this commitment to the poor through his involvement with the church in Mabitac, its community outreach program to the poor in Brgy. Kabulusan, Pakil, Laguna, and his chairmanship of the Community Ministries Committee of the Northeast Southern Tagalog Conference of the UCCP. Pastor Mangao has also been involved in the Prison program of the UCCP in Laguna Provincial Jail.  He conducts regular visitation to political and other prisoners and has organized the church’s advocacy on their behalf.

The NCCP calls on our member churches and international partners to pray for and maintain continual vigilance against signs of abuse of power and authority by the military. We call for a change in the culture of impunity in the Philippines, where human rights defenders and church people, are subject to killing, disappearance and harassment, and where perpetrators are not brought to account. The NCCP calls on the government of the Philippines to respect the human rights of all citizens and to cease from engaging in harassment, labelling and surveillance of human rights defenders and church workers. The NCCP urges the President to exercise his command responsibility to ensure that our churchworkers do not become vulnerable to harassment, surveillance and labelling, that place their lives at risk and undermine their vocation to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ among and for the poor. Let us uphold the persistent prayer and call that all of God’s children live in peace in their homes, in their workplaces and in their communities.

REV. REX RB REYES, JR.
General Secretary
National Council of Churches in the Philippines

THE MOST REVEREND EPHRAIM S. FAJUTAGANA
Obispo Maximo XII, Iglesia Filipina Independiente
and Chairperson, National Council of Churches in the Philippines

P466M reward for “communists” a waste of people’s money — Karapatan

ICHRP Secretariat
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P466M reward for “communists” a waste of people’s money — Karapatan

By Karapatan

“Local government secretary Mar Roxas should be held accountable for the organized racket of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Department of National Defense (DND) through the P466million bounty for individuals whom they accuse as communists,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay.

The Karapatan statement was issued in time for the hearing of the DILG 2014 budget by Committee on Appropriations at the House of Representatives. Palabay said the joint DILG-DND memorandum 14, announced by Roxas in November 2012 provides for P466million reward for those who can provide information that could lead to the arrest of 235 wanted individuals listed as “communists”. The said list has been kept confidential until now and, even during the DND budget hearing at the House of Representatives last Sept. 3.

Karapatan called the scheme an “organized racket,” citing the cases of arrests, torture and detention of security guard Rolly Panesa and farmer Olegario Sebas. Both were wrongly tagged as leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA).

“The reward money is better used in productive endeavours that will  benefit thousands of hungry and homeless Filipinos instead of pay-offs to so-called informers who are used to arbitrarily arrest, detain, torture or kill innocent people,” Palabay added.

Panesa was arrested on October 5, 2012, tortured and detained for 11 months because he was mistaken to be “Benjamin Mendoza”, an alleged high ranking regional officer of the NPA.  On August 29, the Court of Appeals (CA) ruled positively on Panesa’s petition for writ of habeas corpus, citing his case as a case of mistaken identity, and ordered the jail warden of Camp Bagong Diwa to release him from prison.

Sebas, 65, was arrested on December 25, 2012 by the joint forces of the Philippine Army and the Philippine National Police in Tubod, Manjuyod, Negros Oriental. Sebas was mistaken to be the top NPA cadre “Felimon Mendrez”, a subject of four arrest warrants for rebellion. Sebas was detained in the BJMP District Jail in Bayawan City for three weeks and was released when the court granted his petition for writ of habeas corpus.

Last month, AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Emmanuel Bautista personally handed P5.25M and P5.6M rewards to informants who “identified” Panesa as “Benjamin Mendoza” and Sebas as “Felimon Mendrez,” respectively.

“Now that the Courts have ruled in both cases that they got the wrong men, the big question is where is the P10.8million bounty? Or has the money been pocketed already by entrepreneurial generals?” Palabay asked.

Karapatan research showed that the DILG has P73.6 billion at its disposal for the implementation of the counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan, including P306 million for intelligence funds.

DILG FUNDS FOR IMPLEMENTATION OF OPLAN BAYANIHAN 2014 (proposed)
PNP 71,945,660,000
Support for Peace and Order Councils (DILG) 33,830,000
Comprehensive Local Integration Program (DILG) 74,036,000
PAMANA 1,547,470,000
TOTAL 73,600,996,000

“Many of these items, including intelligence funds and the budget for PAMANA program, are discretionary in nature and are not subject for audit by the Commission on Audit (COA). These programs are also conduits in the implementation of Oplan Bayanihan’s components, specifically the psyops and intelligence aspects,” Palabay added.

Karapatan reiterated its call to scrap Oplan Bayanihan and echoed the people’s clamor to redirect huge amounts of government money “to social services like hospitalization and medical care for the poor and marginalized, education and subsidies to public colleges and universities and, housing facilities where people could access the funds directly and benefit from, instead of ending up either in the generals’ pockets or used to violate people’s rights.”

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
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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