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Killings of activists must end in the Philippines: CIVICUS and Karapatan

ICHRP Secretariat
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Johannesburg, 30 July 2012: Global civil society network CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation and the Philippine-based national human rights organisation, Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights, urge the Philippines government to end persecution and extrajudicial killings of human rights defenders, and to carry out fair and independent investigations into all cases of extrajudicial killings and disappearances.
President Benigno Aquino III has promised to “resolve cases of extrajudicial executions and other violations of human rights.” Nevertheless, genuine reform to ensure the protection of civil society members continues to be lacking. The government continues to implement Executive Order 546, which allows the use of paramilitary forces and private militias to spearhead its controversial counter-insurgency programme, Oplan Bayanihan.

According to Karapatan, 99 instances of extrajudicial killing and 11 cases of enforced disappearance have been documented since President Aquino assumed office in June 2010. The majority of the victims have been farmers, indigenous peoples and activists advocating for land rights and environmental protection. Additionally, it is reported that at least 385 political prisoners continue to languish in prisons as a result of exercising the key civil society freedoms – freedom of expression, association and assembly.

“The rate at which human rights defenders are being killed in the Philippines is shocking,” says Mandeep Tiwana, Policy and Advocacy Manager at CIVICUS. “If the government is serious about its stated commitment to end rights violations, then it must withdraw the state of impunity that exists for military officials and members of government sponsored militias.”

Recently two prominent civil society activists were assassinated and an advocate for indigenous peoples’ rights was detained, further raising concerns about the ability of civil society to operate in the Philippines. On 3 July 2012, Willem Geertman, Executive Director of CSO Alay Bayan-Luzon Inc., a citizen’s disaster response group in Central Luzon, was murdered in his office compound. Days earlier, on 30 June, Romualdo Palispis, chair of the human rights organisation Justice and Peace Action Group in Aurora, was gunned down in front of his home. Both men were leaders in the campaign against corporate mining and logging and were actively engaged in mobilising opposition to the development of Aurora Province as a designated economic zone. On 4 July, Agnes Mesina, a volunteer for the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines Cagayan, was arrested during a meeting with a congressman. She is actively involved in campaigns against large-scale mining.

CIVICUS and Karapatan urge the Philippines government to uphold its commitments under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by: (i) ensuring thorough and independent investigation and fair prosecution of cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances; (ii) enacting legislation criminalising involuntary disappearances as a distinct crime and ratifying the UN Convention for the Protection of All Persons against Enforced Disappearance; (iii) issuing executive orders to security forces and government sponsored militia groups to allow safe exercise of the freedoms of association, expression and assembly by citizens.

The statement may also be viewed via this URL:
https://civicus.org/en/media-centre/press-releases/1007-killings-of-activists-must-end-in-the-philippines-civicus-and-karapatan-

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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
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.

Aquino’s warped sense of justice – GMA freed; torturer promoted, impunity ignored

ICHRP Secretariat
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Aquino’s warped sense of justice – GMA freed; torturer promoted, impunity ignored

July 27, 2012 – “And so this is justice under Aquino —  torturers are given plum positions in the military, and the rich, powerful and notorious human rights violators like Palparan and Arroyo are mockingly free as preying vultures. No wonder, Noynoy deliberately omitted anything on human rights and peace in his SONA, a tacit and dangerous signal for state security forces to continue to prowl, with terror and violence against the people.”

Thus said Karapatan spokesperson Cristina Palabay, after news came out on the court resolution granting bail for former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the designation of Morong 43 torturer Col. Aurelio Baladad as acting commanding officer of the 9th Infantry Division of the Phil. Army, shortly after Aquino’s State of the Nation Address (SONA). In his SONA, Aquino heralded the state of “justice” under his administration.

Karapatan supported the Morong 43 health workers who filed criminal and civil charges against Arroyo and Baladad, and the mothers of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno who also filed criminal cases against Palparan resulting to the issuance of an arrest warrant. The group also filed an opposition to the appointments of Gen. Jorge Segovia and Baladad at the Commission on Appointments based on the pending complaints against them.

“It is reprehensible that a former President and military generals, whose notoriety on human rights violations has been condemned by the Filipino and the international community, are now both walking free from accountability. The crooked path of impunity lies under Aquino,” Palabay added.

The group also scored the series of moves to cover up the liabilities of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police in the extrajudicial killing of Italian missionary Fr. Fausto Tentorio and Dutch development worker Willem Geertman. Prior to Aquino’s SONA, the PNP investigators have stated robbery as the main motive behind the killing of Geertman, while paramilitary elements were excluded by the Dept. of Justice from the list of suspects in the killing of Tentorio.

“These are among the cases of extrajudicial killings that all remain unsolved under Aquino.  Again, it begs the question: what kind of justice is Aquino harping on in his SONA? Clearly, it is the kind of justice that bears upon the poor and those working for meaningful changes in society, while promoting ‘justice’ for the moneyed and powerful,” Palabay concluded.  ###

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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
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.

Noynoy Aquino, zero on human rights on two counts—Karapatan

ICHRP Secretariat
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Noynoy Aquino, zero on human rights on two counts—Karapatan

Press Release, July 24, 2012 – Karapatan said that yesterday’s 3rd State of the Nation Address (SONA) only proved how Noynoy Aquino regards, or more aptly, disregards human rights.

Cristina Palabay, spokesperson of Karapatan, said that, “the police brutality that was used against the demonstrators and Aquino’s deafening silence on the increasing number of extrajudicial killings and intensifying military operations that continue to attack the people in the countryside and the reign of impunity provided the real picture of the state of human rights in the country.”

Palabay hits the authorities’ acts to prevent the demonstrators to go near the Batasan area, saying that it was in fact the authorities who violated Section 6 B of Batas Pambansa 880 stating that the “mayor or any official acting in his behalf shall act on the application within two (2) working days from the date the application was filed, failing which, the permit shall be deemed granted.”

Palabay explained that “the reaction of some of the protesters on the attempts of the police to block their peaceful march is out of frustration and anger over the arrogance and aggressive stance of the police and Noynoy’s SONA of lies on the real situation of the Filipino people. In the first place, this would have not happened had the authorities allowed the demonstrators to go near Batasan and had they not use their vehicles as a barricade against the people’s march.”

“On the one hand, there was police violence against the street demonstrators, majority of them were urban poor dwellers, jobless workers, landless peasants and victims of military operations in the countryside. On the other hand, there was Noynoy Aquino, inside the House of Representatives who painted a dream-like picture of the Philippines—glossy and overly decorated. Aquino’s SONA was simply crass.”

Karapatan asserts that Noynoy, “expectedly, would not dare thread on the issue of human rights because he will only expose himself as today’s number one human rights violator. His Oplan Bayanihan goes full swing as he greases the military machinery with all the favours he enumerated in his SONA.” ###

Reference: Cristina “Tinay” Palabay, Spokesperson, 0917-5003879
Angge Santos, Media Liaison, 0918-9790580
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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
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.

Lies, terror and violence in Aquino’s 3rd SONA

ICHRP Secretariat
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Lies, terror and violence in Aquino’s 3rd SONA

Press Release, July 23, 2012 – With his two years of presidency and three State of the Nation Address (SONA), Pres. Noynoy Aquino has peddled lies on the situation of human rights in the Philippines. He has been, in fact, inflicting terror and violence against the Filipino people.

The second year of the Aquino administration is being punctuated with shamelessly deceptive slogans on economic development and human rights to prop up the administration’s image especially in the international community. But it is clear that the Filipino people have seen the truth behind the cacophony of these lies. The severe landlessness and hunger, the multitudes of jobless and the growing number of homeless are more stinging realities, more visible, more audible and felt than any other PR spin from Malacanang.  Thus, the growing number of impoverished Filipinos had no recourse but to resist and struggle.

This resistance and legitimate opposition, however, are met with repression and terror by Aquino and the Armed Forces of the Philippines through the counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan. The bombs, the firing of guns, the killings are the government’s militarist ways to suppress and terrorize the people who refuse to be deceived and silenced.

In the two years of the Aquino administration, from July 2010 to June 30, 2012, Karapatan has documented 99 victims of extrajudicial killings; 11 victims of enforced disappearances; threats, harassment, and intimidation and forced evacuation of whole communities; cases of torture, rape, illegal arrests and detention, most are results of military combat operations being waged especially in the rural areas.

The series of attacks and violence against organized communities and human rights defenders and the latest wave of killings of human rights and environmental activists, like Romualdo Palispis, Willem Geertman and recently farmer Romulo Vaflor indicate the heightening terror and violence being instigated by state security forces and the Aquino government. This comes alongside the serious cases of rights violations brought about by militarization of organized communities especially in the Bondoc Peninsula; the violent demolitions of urban poor communities such as in Silverio, Paranaque, where guns were trained and fired at the barricading residents; the illegal arrest based on trumped-up charges against Makabayan coordinator and lay church worker Agnes Mesina; and the indiscriminate firing at the office of Bayan Muna in Catarman, Northern Samar.

To date, Karapatan has also documented the illegal arrest and detention of 107 individuals based on trumped up criminal charges, bring the total number of political prisoners to 385. The illegal arrest of consultants of the National Democratic Front continue with the arrest of trade union leader Reynante Gamara, while consultants Tirso Alcantara and Alan Jazmines are being subjected to inhumane and repressive conditions in jail.

Meanwhile, notorious rights violators such as Maj. General Jovito Palparan and several officials of the AFP and PNP remain untouchables from the bars of justice, as they continue to be coddled by the institutions and powers-that-be whom they serve. The Ampatuans who massacred journalists, lawyers and ordinary citizens have not been convicted, while former Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo enjoys the luxury of a hospital detention.

In his SONA in 2011, he pledged to immediately pass the Marcos Victims Compensation Bill to give justice and indemnify the victims of rights abuses under the fascist Marcos dictatorship. He has yet to deliver on this promise, while many of the victims, like martial Law activists Maita Gomez, Romy Luneta and Bong Barsoles, had passed away due to illnesses.

This is the state of the nation under Aquino – where justice has not been served, impunity prevails and his terror and violence against the people resounds.#

Reference: Cristina “Tinay” Palabay, Spokesperson, 0917-5003879;
Angge Santos, Media Liaison, 0918-9790580

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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
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.

Statement of support to the call of the UN experts and international human rights community on the situation of rights defenders in Mindanao

ICHRP Secretariat
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23 July 2012 –  A propos the assaults against human rights defenders working on land rights in Mindanao, we support the recent call of the United Nations Special Rapporteurs (UNSR) on human rights defenders and extra-judicial killings for the Government of the Philippines to adopt urgent measures to protect the life of rights defenders and ensure they are able to carry out their human rights work.

In Mindanao where human rights and fundamental freedoms are systematically violated, where community leaders and pro-reform organizations work amidst the climate of impunity, and are persistently threatened and violently repressed, the UN experts’ call for the authorities to carry out prompt, impartial and independent investigations into the growing number of threats and killings of rights defenders to hold perpetrators to account is urgent.

We affirm the observation of UNSR on extra-judicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, that many of the death threats and killings taking place appear to be perpetrated by paramilitary groups, as in the case of indigenous leaders and anti-plunder advocates Mampaagi Belayong of Esperanza in Agusan del Sur and Alvie Binungkasan of Gingoog City in Misamis Oriental who were both killed in the last quarter of 2009; of Arpe Belayong and Soltie San-ogan of Esperanza, Agusan del Sur on 30 June 2011; and of Jimmy Liguyon of San Fernando, Bukidnon on 5 March 2012. With this reality from the Mindanao grounds, we are again urging the Aquino government to disallow the use of paramilitary as investment defense forces.

Justice is still elusive for the friends and family of indigenous peoples’ rights advocate of fellow RMP-member Father Pops Tentorio who was killed on October last year.  The orphaned family of anti-dam leader Margarito Cabal of Kibawe, Bukidnon killed last April continues to live in insecurity and uncertainty. We commend the efforts of the New York-based Human Rights Watch that publicized the series of killings in Mindanao, and we criticize Malacanang’s denial as promotion of further impunity.

As members of the RMP living with the rural poor and joining them in their aspiration for the realization of land rights and access to common goods, we call the UNSRs to further urge the Aquino government to allow them to visit the country and for international human rights organizations to conduct further investigations in Mindanao grounds. In farming and indigenous communities with land issues, gatherings are strictly monitored.  Leaders are put under surveillance, sometimes ‘invited’ to the military camps for questioning. In farms owned by transnational companies, farmer-victims of land grabs who have been reduced to mere agricultural workers have been prohibited to form or to join unions, and the right to expression and to peaceful assembly, and the right to protest have been curtailed.

Furthermore, we make the statement that these civil and political rights curtailment are only consequences of the rural communities’ assertion for their economic, social and cultural rights.  They have fought hard against the government’s anti-poor policies favoring rich companies over the basic rights of its constituencies to work, eat and live.  And in reaction to their resistance, they are met with state and state-supported violence.  We call on for support for the protection of both the communities’ civil and political rights and their economic, social and cultural rights for one could not exist without the other.

We commend all Mindanao organizations that have brought these human rights violation issues to the international community. These incidents have been downplayed, dismissed as insignificant by the local and national government offices.  If not for the collective efforts of the organizations, a spiral of silence in these gravely abused communities will continue.  Even at the present, the Armed Forces of the Philippines is once more trying to conceal it by redirecting the focus to their propaganda against the communist New Peoples Army.  It is their futile attempt to evade answering directly the issues thrown against them.  Additionally, even as we tire of repeating ourselves, we reiterate that our responsibility is to see to it that they, the government and its armed forces as primary duty bearers, satisfy their role to protect and respect and fulfill the rights of the people.  We are appalled by the present situation where they, the duty bearers, the supposed protectors of human rights, are the ones violating it.

Our island is not alien to violence.  For centuries, it had been the land of solid resistance against the colonial aggressors – earning the reputation of being the land of barbarians and juramentados.  But for us who have been working in these communities who have only been asserting their right to live, it is the land of the brave.  Unfortunately and lamentably, the present administration only continued the vicious scheme of the previous administration.  It continues to support the use of brute and violence to force its so-called development projects on the peoples only hoping to live decently.

In President Aquino III’s coming third State of the Nation Address, we are sure the dire human rights situation in our island will be covered again by declarations of economic growth and progress.  For us, these are only statistics that mean nothing to a poor population that is growing hungrier by the minute.  Economic growth is meaningless to a family grieving for the loss of a father, a child, a brother or a sister.  We continue to maintain our call for justice – justice for the blood-drenched Mindanao, justice for the indigenous peoples who have for decades been considered illegal settlers in their own lands, justice for the farmers who could not afford the fruits of their hands.

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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  E: rmpnmr@gmail.com  W: www.rmp-nmr.org

“our love is not to be just words or mere talk but something real and active” –1 John 3:18

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