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The first batch of the Morong 43 are finally free!

ICHRP Secretariat
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Congratulations to them, and wish all of them to be free before 2011

NFS Press release, Amsterdam December 18 – 2010

The Nederlands –  Filippijnse Solidariteitsbeweging (NFS) wishes to thank everybody in Holland who helped in the campaign for the release of the “MORONG 43”. Morong 43 is the collective name of 43 health workers who were illegally arrested and detained, tortured, and falsely accused of possession of explosives by the Philippine military. After 10 months of detention, 33 of the Morong 43 were released yesterday and today, and lawyers are still working on the release  of the 10.

Strong public pressure in the Philippines and from the international community played an important role in the successful campaign for the release of the 43 health workers.

“We tried our best to gather broad support for the campaign. Today, we have a reason to celebrate and raise everybody’s hands in the air,” said NFS chairperson Theo Droog . “We hope that the release is unconditional and guarantees against harassment and attacks against them.”

It has been 10 months since the 43 health workers were arrested, tortured and held under conditions that violate their human rights.

In behalf of the Johannes Wier Stichting , Nurses & Caregivers Netherlands, Catholic Woman’s Organization, Wemos and all individuals who called for the release, we would like to send our warmest greetings to the freed Morong 43, their families and friends. We wish that the other 10 will all be free still in 2010. Most especially, we wish the two mothers and the two babies health, freedom and well-being,” added the NFS chairperson.

The two new mothers, Mercy Castro and Judilyn Oliveros among the detained health workers. The two were moved from the Bicutan detention facility and placed under hospital arrest after strong public pressure forced the military to allow the two pregnant prisoners to give birth in a hospital. One of the babies was named Priselda, after “selda” referring to the prison cell. The other one was named Morong, after the place where they were arrested.

“Health, freedom and well-being — those are our wishes, not just for the Morong 43… also for everyone,” said Droog.

Clear and present danger

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Vantage Point
Luis Teodoro

WE CAN all sleep soundly each night in the certainty that the Armed Forces of the Philippines is on guard and watching over us. Regardless of such technicalities as due process and human rights, it is at this very moment protecting us not only from explosives experts pretending to be health workers, pregnant mothers and nine-year old girls able to carry and even fire M-16 assault rifles taller than themselves, but also from trade union leaders, community activists, lawyers, church people and even a botanist or two.

Like that other model of selfless, honest and efficient public service, the Philippine National Police, the AFP’s job is also to serve and protect. Neither always says who they’re protecting and serving, but they do occasionally mention something called “the people,” by whom we can reasonably surmise from their near-common histories and current actions they mean the hacenderos, the warlords, the foreign mining companies and the other worthies who have made this country such a heaven for themselves by making it hell for the 90 million others who have to live in this archipelago of fear. After all, there’s a rumor that even your friendly local warlord and hacendero are human, too. Think Ampatuan. Think local officials who mastermind the assassination of journalists. Think certain Philippine presidents.

Since the AFP was founded by the United States at the turn of the century, allegedly as an offspring of the Katipunan but in truth to hunt down its remnants, it’s been doing a great job of serving and protecting not only local worthies but also its primary foreign patron — the one that keeps it in arms and provides its chosen officers the training they need in, among others, the fine arts of torture and mayhem.

Recall the campaign against the Huks, and how certain units of the the AFP under the benign guidance of the Central Intelligence Agency did their bit for God, democracy, country and the United States by impaling on poles the severed heads of peasant leaders it had captured and parading them through the country’s villages to impart to the peasantry the signal lesson that it doesn’t pay to rebel, neither hunger nor oppression being reason enough to challenge the democratic order.

Recall the martial law period and how the officer corps defended democracy by serving and protecting Ferdinand Marcos, and how, later — much, much later — some of its members’ reinvented themselves as secret Marcos opponents, took credit for his downfall, and, by using the logic taught them in that magnificent wellspring of intellectual excellence, the Philippine Military Academy, they then condemned the release of Marcos political prisoners. Think Rex Robles. Think Gregorio Honasan.

Think of others such as Trillanes, who believe that launching a putsch overnight is on the same level of patriotism as years of fighting injustice. Think PMA Class of 1978. Think “the fist of martial law” (Alfred McCoy’s phrase in his book, Closer Than Brothers), and remember the brightest and the best sons and daughters of the Filipino people — poets, social workers, cancer surgeons among others — the AFP killed between 1972 and 1986 in furtherance of the democratic ideal. Think of the coup attempts from 1986 to 1989, and the bodies they left behind. Think Lean Alejandro; think Rolando Olalia. Think of the over 1,000 victims of extrajudicial killings between 2000 and 2010.

Now segue to the present, and think Morong 43. Listen to the AFP as it unashamedly announces to the world its conviction that due process, and by implication the very law itself, is a mere technicality. Thus did an AFP spokesman wave aside the Department of Justice’s findings — on which President Aquino III based his order to drop the charges against them — that the arrest of the 43 was flawed. Declaring that they would respect Mr. Aquino’s decision — suggesting thereby that the AFP had a choice in the matter — he also said in the same breath that the AFP “stands by” the “legitimacy” of the so-called operation that, armed with a warrant of arrest for a fictitious person, went on to blindfold the 43 men and women they found in an address the warrant did not specify, took them to one of their camps, and proceeded to psychologically and physically torture, humiliate and subject them to various indignities.

Many people have condemned not only the AFP’s violations of the human rights of the Morong 43, but also the statements the AFP made following the Aquino government decision to withdraw the charges against the health workers. But think national security. Think of clear and present danger; think dangerous tendencies — and think AFP.

Why should this great institution conceal its historic dedication to the defense of democracy, which it believes consists of short circuiting its own processes (or “technicalities”)? Why should it conceal its core principle that might is right — that being in possession of guns endows it with a power far above and beyond that of the courts and the Constitution? Shouldn’t we instead be thankful for the AFP’s most recent statements for being as candid as its communication skills allow, and for coming so close to declaring its true sentiments as it pursues its mission of defending democracy from itself?

Why should it pretend to a logic it doesn’t possess and to which it is immune, its officers having been indoctrinated, from their very first day at the PMA, that only the logic of violence is real, as upperclassmen demonstrate when initiating lowerclassmen into the values of the officer corps? And why should the AFP be made to fret over the fact that the health workers, during the months of their captivity, could have otherwise been serving the health needs of the neglected communities, since these very same communities are the infinite sources of the political and community activists, human rights workers and other malcontents whose very existence so offends their democratic sensibilities they’ve had to rid the country of hundreds of them?

Those who fear for the future of human rights, who’re alarmed by the violations of due process committed supposedly in the service of national security, need a reality check. They should stop expecting too much of an institution that, by serving and protecting, has been the force most responsible for keeping things the way they are in the country of our despair.

(BusinessWorld)

43 for the 43

ICHRP Secretariat
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For reference:    Dolores Balladares Norman Uy Carnay
UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK Chairperson             BAYAN-HK spokesperson
Tel. No.: 97472986                                         Tel. No.: 96472567

Forty-three HK OFWs stand up to free Morong 43

In a show of support, 43 OFWs in Hong Kong wearing placards saying “Support the hunger strike! Free the Morong 43 Now!” stood at Chater Road in Hong Kong and held a 43-minute program urging Filipino migrants in Hong Kong to back the call for the immediate release of the jailed health workers collectively known as Morong 43.

“Like our brothers and sisters, we too are hungry for justice. Their arrest was illegal and the charges were obviously trumped up. President Aquino should order the prosecution to drop the case, let go of the Morong 43 and take to justice those who perpetrated this condemnable human rights violation,” said Dolores Balladares, chairperson of the militant United Filipinos in Hong Kong (UNIFIL-MIGRANTE-HK).

The action, Balladares said, was conducted to show support to the Morong 43 who started a hunger strike last Friday, December 3. The strike is being supported by relatives of the jailed health workers and advocates for human rights.

“They have been tortured and the past 10 months have surely traumatized them. Even the Department of Justice and the President himself have admitted the irregularities of the arrest. The injustice against the Morong 43 must end,” she added.

BAYAN-HK spokesperson Norman Uy Carnay, meanwhile, reported that the action was the first in a series of protests they will conduct on the human rights situation in the Philippines. The actions, he said, will be held together with local organizations in Hong Kong under the banner of the Hong Kong Campaign for the Advancement of Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines or HKCAHRPP.

“On December 9, local people in Hong Kong from different professions and affiliations will hold actions that will highlight the various human rights problems in the Philippines such as extrajudicial killings, lack of justice for the victims of the Maguindanao Massacre, refusal to release political prisoners, the penchant of the military to file trumped up charges against activists like what they did to the Morong 43, enforced disappearance, and the blatant disrespect to life such as the indiscriminate firing that killed renowned environmentalist Leonard Co,” Carnay relayed.

Carnay said that President Aquino’s human rights record does not indicate significant improvements from the past administration’s “criminal regime”.

“The case of the Morong 43 shows that the Aquino government is not being decisive in turning the tide for human rights in the country. In fact, KARAPATAN’s report of a rise in number of victims of extrajudicial killings since Aquino assumed the presidency is a cause for serious alarm,” Carnay stated.

Finally, Balladares concluded that they will encourage more OFWs and their families to support the hunger strike of the Morong 43.

“Their release is one positive step for human rights that the Aquino government should take. He must act now or his administration will be known the same way as its predecessor – a murderer of people’s rights,” she said.

Karapatan to Pnoy: Stop retaliatory tactics against the Morong 43 on hunger strike!

ICHRP Secretariat
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*Female warden disallows visit of doctor of detainee’s choice*

The national human rights alliance Karapatan today called on the attention
of the Philippine government authorities to stop the retaliatory tactics
against the hunger strike staged by the Morong 43 political prisoners in the
Camp Bagong Diwa detention center.

Today is the third day of the healthworkers’ hunger strike for their
release. Karapatan particularly cited Camp Bagong Diwa Jail Warden Senior
Inspector Mary Jane Clemente’s refusal to allow doctors to check up on the
detained Morong 43 women.

According to Jigs Clamor, Karapatan acting secretary general and husband of
one of the female doctor detainees, Jail Warden Clemente told the relatives
that prison officials already have Bureau of Jail Management and Penology
(BJMP) doctors monitoring the detainees, so doctors from Council for Health
and Development (CHD) and Community Medicine Foundation (COMMED), health
groups supporting the detained healthworkers, are not needed to check the
detainees’ conditions anymore.

“Warden Clemente’s excuse that they already have doctors monitoring the
conditions of the detainees on hunger strike is an outright lie, specially
since, on the second day, an inmate was brought to my wife, Dr. Merry Mia
Clamor, for check-up!” he deplored.

Jane Beltran Balleta, a member of the Morong 43 and who is fasting, had
already suffered an epileptic seizure yesterday.

“The detainees have a right to be attended to by doctors of their own
choice,” Clamor said. “And Warden Clemente must allow the detainees to
exercise this right even if they are on hunger strike.”

Karapatan also denounced the imposed stricter visitation policies on the
women detainees. On Saturday, the women detainees were not allowed to be
visited as a group, instead they were only called one by one.

The Morong 43 detainees at Camp Bagong Diwa, Bicutan Taguig, went on hunger
strike and fasting since December 3, to protest their continued illegal
arrest, detention, torture and ill-treatment. Karapatan, and other local and
international civil society groups, including the leaders of the World
Council of Churches, support the calls for the freedom of the 43 health
workers.

“We reiterate our call, together with Senator Joker Arroyo, Rep. Erin Tanada
and partylist representatives, international as well as local groups and
civil society organizations, to the President and to Justice Secretary Leila
De Lima, to release the Morong 43 immediately, as a way to correct a most
grievous violation of their rights as human beings and as citizens of this
country,” Clamor added. “In fact, the present administration must review
the cases of the 371 political prisoners all over the country who must also
be released; detaining people for their political beliefs must not be
resorted to by a government which calls itself “democratic,” Clamor
concluded. ###
*———————————————————————
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. It was established in 1995.

Worldwide christian group alarmed by continuing rights violations in Philippines

ICHRP Secretariat
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by Ronalyn. V. Olea
Bulatlat.com [1]

MANILA — An international delegation of church leaders from the World Council of Churches (WCC) [2] came to the country Dec. 1 and witnessed the continuing human rights violations under the Aquino administration.

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide fellowship of 349 churches, denominations and church fellowships in more than 110 countries and territories representing 560 million Christians. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland and has a Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations.

The visit is part of the WCC’s “Living Letters” where representatives from other countries make an organized visit to a given host country for a particular compelling reason. They were hosted by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP).
Listen to the Rev. Dan Sandu of the Romanian Orthodox Church read the statement by the World Council of Churches about the human-rights violations in the Philippines.
Get the Flash Player [3] to see this content.

“We saw and heard the heart-breaking stories of victims of human rights abuses and their family members. We saw and felt the pain of those who have lost loved ones by extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, torture and enforced disappearance,” the nine-member delegation said in a statement.

A team visited the Morong 43 and had a dialogue with Secretary Leila de Lima of the Department of Justice while another team visited the workers of Hacienda Luisita. Before that, the delegates also talked with families of victims of human rights violations under both the Arroyo and Aquino presidencies.

The delegation of the World Council of Churches during a press conference on Saturday. (Photo by Ronalyn V. Olea / bulatlat.com)

The Morong 43 are the 43 health workers arrested on Feb. 6 in Morong, Rizal by about 300 combined elements of the police and military. Thirty-eight are now detained at Camp Bagong Diwa while five have remained under military custody. They started their hunger strike, Dec. 3 to pressure the government for their release.

“I have not seen any change,” Tony Waworuntu, former staff of the Christian Conference of Asia and a member of the delegation, said in a press conference, Dec. 4. Waworuntu first visited the Philippines in 2005 as part of the WCC delegation.

“I am disappointed to see that extrajudicial killings are still happening but I sincerely hope that it will stop,” said Rev. Tara Jewel Curlewis, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Australia.

The delegation also said they “saw and heard deep hopes that the President will keep his electoral promises to put an end to impunity with regard to extrajudicial killings, disappearances and abductions, implement genuine land reform, work toward reconciliation with justice and peace, and live up to his expressed commitment to give top priority to the peace negotiations.”

High Hopes on De Lima

The WCC delegates expressed high hopes on de Lima. “We saw, heard and rejoice in the resolve of… (Sec. de Lima) to have the charges against the 43 health workers withdrawn by December 10th, United Nations International Human Rights Day and if not by then, at least before Christmas,” said Rev. Dr. Dan Sandu of the Romanian Orthodox Church, reading from their unity statement.

“We also rejoice in her recognition of the existence of a culture of impunity that has resulted in extra-judicial killings and massive human rights violations, and her resolve to put an end to it. We affirm her belief that there is no inconsistency between human rights and justice; when you serve one, you?serve the other,” Sandu said.

The group joined the call for the immediate and unconditional release of the Morong 43.

Mardi Anette Tindal of the United Church of Canada said de Lima also spoke of a proposal to review all cases of extrajudicial killings. “She said that too few are being brought to justice,” Tindal said.

Hacienda Luisita

“The conditions of the farm workers at the Hacienda Luisita struck me,” Waworuntu said adding the distribution of land to the farm workers would make the Filipino people believe in Aquino’s promise of change.

The delegates called “for the immediate implementation of the decisions of the Presidential Agrarian Reform Council to distribute the land to the farmers.”

They also noted the presence of local and foreign military personnel in Hacienda Luisita and in other parts of the country and said this poses a threat to the local communities. “We call upon the Philippine? Government to repeal the Visiting Forces Agreement and withdraw all military presence from civilian communities,” they said.??Actions

The group said they will send letters of concern to international bodies, the Philippine President, the Department of Justice and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Curwelis said they would engage their churches and governments to raise the issue of human rights violations in the Philippines.

“I will return home inspired. There is strength of spirit in the people of the Philippines,” Tindal said.

“The will of God will prevail always. They [women of Morong 43] are fragile ladies but powerful. They did not meet us with despair, they encouraged us,” Sandu said.

Other members of the delegation include Vijula Aralanantham, Board Chairperson of Prison Fellowship International and Carmencita Karagdag, member of the WCC Central Committee. They are accompanied by WCC staff Segmenish Asfaw, Anastasia Dragan and Aneth Lwakatare. (Bulatlat.com) [1]

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