STATEMENT
11 March 2018

The International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) strongly condemns the “terrorist” tagging of hundreds of Filipinos by the government of Pres. Rodrigo Duterte.

A petition filed by Senior State Prosecutor Peter Ong with a Manila regional trial court on February 21 and only made public last week provided a list of 461 names and 188 aliases that the government sought to declare as “terrorists”.

The list includes CPP founding chairman Prof. Jose Maria Sison and his wife Juliet de Lima, Luis Jalandoni and Coni Ledesma, Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, among other consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in the unilaterally cancelled Peace Talks with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).

Among those listed are defenders of indigenous peoples. These include Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, who served as former chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues before she was named UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People in 2014. Also named in the petition are: Beverly Longid, Global Coordinator of the International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL); Sandugo Co-Chairperson Joanna Cariño; Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) Chairperson Windel Bolinget; and at least 10 Lumad leaders in Northern and Southern Mindanao.

Also in the list are nine members of the human rights group Karapatan arrested in November 2017 in Negros, trade union organizer Maoj Maga and NDFP peace consultant Rafael Baylosis abducted and now among the more than 400 political prisoners in the country.

Many of those on the list are identified only by aliases such as @Boy Negro, @Kelly, @Fidel and John Does.  Practically anyone can be a target of this mad witch-hunt.

Given Duterte’s bloody record of extra-judicial killings (EJKs) where thousands have been summarily killed since he assumed office, this list constitutes what human rights groups call “a government hit list”. He is effectively giving the military and police the green light to arrest, detain, abduct or summarily kill the listed individuals without due process. Various reports including those of UN special rapporteurs have found that terrorist or communist-labelling had frequently preceded cases of extrajudicial killings.

Many in the list are peasant leaders, union organizers, local activists, human rights defenders and known internationalists. It contains the most ardent defenders of sovereignty, social justice, democracy and people’s rights in the Philippines.

The list is a vain attempt to intimidate and silence Duterte critics who are now calling for his ouster and presents the strongest opposition to his increasingly dictatorial and fascist regime.

Duterte’s ambition to “Build, Build, Build” for foreign creditors and investors is supported by his repeated “Kill, Kill, Kill” admonitions.

We continue to be deeply concerned about Mr. Duterte’s instructions to his military to “flatten the hills” as he called for aerial strikes and bombings of indigenous lumad schools and communities to open the lands for corporate mining and plantations.

There are strong indications that Duterte’s red-tagging and anti-communist witch-hunting are instigated by the failing U.S. global war on terror and imperialist agenda in the Philippines. These follow the U.S. listing of “foreign terrorist organizations” since 2002 and, most recently, the inclusion of the Philippines, along with Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria, in its new Overseas Contingency Operations dubbed Operation Pacific Eagle – Philippines, starting in October last year.

The government petition cited “terrorist and outlawed organizations, associations and/or group of persons” pursuant to Section 17 of R.A. No. 9372 of The Human Security Act of 2007 patterned after the U.S. Patriot Act.

The undue termination by President Duterte of the peace talks between the Manila government and the NDFP eliminated an opportunity to address the fundamental roots of the armed conflict in the Philippines.  It derailed efforts to offer substantial socio-economic and political reforms for the people and, instead, paved way for intensified conflicts.

We call on all peoples and nations of the world to join us in denouncing the US-Duterte regime for its anti-people war, fascist crackdown and tyrannical rule. Let us urge our governments  to instruct their diplomatic missions in the  Philippines  to extend support and protection to the listed individuals as they will be facing acute risks to their lives and safety.

We urge governments to sanction and pull-out all loans, aid and support to this regime who has totally lost any remaining sense of legitimacy before the international community.

We seek justice for all victims of rights violations. We will move to indict the US-Duterte regime for its war crimes before an independent international people’s tribunal before the end of this year.

The Filipino people can no longer suffer alone. We must make the international indignation and cry for justice and peace to bear on the Duterte government.

We call for global solidarity and protest actions before Philippine embassies and consulates in all major cities of the world against the government’s terror listing.

Defend human rights defenders!
Free all political prisoners!
Stop the U.S. war machine, stop the killings in the Philippines!
Support the peoples struggle for justice, peace, genuine democracy and freedom!

Reference:
Peter Murphy
Chairperson, Global Council
International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP)
Mobile: +61 418312301

ICHRP STATEMENT
26 February 2018

The International Coalition on Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP), a global network of solidarity groups, organizations and rights advocates outside the Philippines, today released its findings on the impact of martial law on human and people’s rights in the Philippines, after its International Solidarity Mission (ISM) in a total of four regions in Mindanao from February 18 to 25, 2018.

“First and foremost, we deplore the cases of harassment and threats faced by international human rights monitors of the ICHRP during the course of the ISM in Mindanao. We believe that peoples, activists and human rights defenders from outside the Philippines have the right to extend international solidarity to the individuals, groups and communities in the Philippines facing various attacks and threats to their political, civil, social and economic rights. We also believe that these harassment and threats are sorry attempts by the Duterte administration and its State agents to cover-up the real situation in the Philippines,” said Peter Murphy, an Australian activist and Chairperson of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP).

On February 22, ISM delegates, including five foreign human rights observers, were on their way to General Santos City, when they were held at a police-manned checkpoint at Brgy. Palian, Tupi, South Cotabato. All participants were ordered to show their identification cards, including that of the five foreign rights advocates. The IDs issued by the Bureau of Immigration for two foreign church workers of the United Methodist Church were confiscated by police. They were all then escorted to Bureau of Immigration Region 12 field office in General Santos City reportedly for “verification.” Police personnel who accosted the mission delegates did not present any written document to specify reasons for their actions. They were released from police custody after negotiations.

Also, on February 19, other participants to the said mission were denied entry to the Lumad communities in Brgy. Diatagon, Lianga, Surigao del Sur by soldiers from the 75th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army. The ten mission delegates, five of whom are internationals, were accompanied by Lianga councilor Sammy Dollano and Friends of the Lumad in Caraga chairperson Bishop Modesto Villasanta. Further, on February 21, a government appointed “tribal chieftain”, accompanied by military in civilian clothes, entered the community of Hayon to warn the group that they did not ask for his permission to be there. After leaving the community, the delegation was stopped at two different military checkpoints, and in the last one, even held for over two hours.

The ISM delegates released the following (initial) findings based on their factfinding missions in Caraga, SocSKSargends, Northern Mindanao region and Southern Mindanao region:

1. Military operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in the Caraga region, even exacerbated after the declaration of Martial Law in Mindanao, have endangered the lives, livelihood and rights of poor peasants asserting their right to own the land they till, of indigenous people’s communities, causing forcible evacuation of Lumad communities resisting the entry of destructive mining and other businesses in the region. Students and teachers of alternative learning institutions are also in peril, because of pronouncements by Duterte himself and his military that these schools are training grounds of the New People’s Army (NPA) and, thus, should be bombed. Peasant and indigenous people’s leaders, Lumad school teachers and other human rights defenders face trumped up criminal charges which were initiated by the military, police and the Department of Justice to harass and malign defenders, in an attempt to silence them into passivity. [Refer also to the 2018 Feb 23 ISM Caraga statement]

2. The Armed Forces of the Philippines, in cahoots in foreign and local big businesses, have instigated a brutal war against indigenous people’s communities in the SocSKSargends region, which resulted in the massacre of eight Lumad leaders in Lake Sebu, South Cotabato. Efforts to provide free and relevant education through alternative learning institutions put up by indigenous peoples such as the Center for Lumad Advocacy and Services, Inc. are being frustrated by repeated attempts to criminalise these institution’s teachers such as Jolita Tolino, who was illegally arrested on February 8, 2018, and Pastor Kama Sanong, an officer of the Parent-Teacher-Community Association of CLANS who was arrested on July 11, 2017.

3. The delegation to the Northern Mindanao region visited Marawi City evacuees in Iligan City, Saguiaran and just inside the northern boundary of Marawi City. They found the evacuees highly stressed and agitated because relief goods from the Dept of Social Welfare and Development had been cut of in mid-January in Iligan City, and sharply reduced in Saguiaran and Marawi City itself. Evacuees in Iligan City have been ordered to leave the city by February 28, by the Mayor but have no indication about where they may be re-located. In fact, they all wish to return to their areas in Marawi City and start again with whatever resources they have, but realise that this is unlikely. Evacuees in Saguiaran Municipality have also been told that they must re-locate in March, but also have no information about where. A new site, dubbed a Temporary Evacuation Centre, is being constructed at the edge of the Marawi City area, composed of several hundred small bunkhouses, set on concrete slabs and serviced with sealed roads and a sewerage system. It appears anything but temporary. Evacuees continue to say guardedly that they will not tolerate the grabbing of huge parts of the urban area of Marawi City, and hint that President Duterte will face a bigger conflict there. They view Martial Law as a device to block their return to Marawi City and call for it to be abolished.

4. The ISM delegates from the different regions converged in Davao City to attend the Human Rights Summit on February 23. They were supposed to visit communities at Compostela Valley where human rights violations are so rampant. However, reports reached the organizers that the community members were called by the AFP nearest battalion telling the people to “clear their names”. They advised against the mission going to their areas and just agreed to send some families to meet with the delegation. They were eventually able to meet with the missioners the day after, even as they expressed fears that their movements were being monitored by the AFP. Peasant organizers are subject to the “crackdown/lockdown” of the martial law, and as widely known are frequent targets of EJKs, trumped up charges among other grave human rights violations. It has been learned that several families from Talaingod and other communities in Compostela Valley are evacuating because of hamletting and threats. There are around 60 families of Lumads who are now in the Sanctuary area, and still counting. This is due to the massive militarization happening in their ancestral lands prohibiting them to go their farms.

“Aside from State policies regarding martial law and Oplan Kapayapaan, Pres. Duterte’s pronouncements clearly incite his State forces to commit human rights violations and war crimes, including his orders to shoot female rebels in their vaginas. His proscription of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) as terrorist organizations bode ill for the peace process between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). Clearly, he is fomenting war and unpeace against his own people,” said Julie Jamora, a US-based rights activist and member of Gabriela-USA.

ICHRP, together with Ibon International, also launched a booklet entitled ”Duterte Killings Continue: State Terror and Human Rights in the Philippines.”

“With this publication and the facts we gathered in this recent ISM, we plan to bring our observations and recommendations to the parliaments and governments of different countries such as Australia, the US, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, and European member states like Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, among others. We call on peoples from various countries to pressure their governments to withdraw State funding for military operations in the Philippines. We should never be a party to the slaughter of and other human rights violations against the Filipino people,” Murphy emphasized.

Murphy also announced plans of the coalition to initiate an International Peoples’ Tribunal, which will hold to account Pres. Duterte on people’s rights violations in the Philippines.

“International solidarity is the response of oppressed peoples and advocates of just and lasting peace to fascist and authoritarian regimes like Duterte’s. We will not relent in our consistent support for the campaigns of the Filipino people for human and people’s rights in the Philippines and elsewhere,” Murphy concluded. ###

View short video here: https://vimeo.com/ichrp

Reference:
Peter Murphy
Chairperson, Global Council
International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP)
Mobile: +61 418312301

RE: Illegal arrest and detention and trumped-up charges against trade union organizer Marklen Maojo Maga

24 February 2018

Dear Mr. President,

The Canada Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights (CPSHR) strongly condemns the recent abduction and illegal arrest of union organizer, MARKLEN MAOJO MAGA on February 22nd 2018 by elements of the Philippine National Police (PNP). Maojo Maga, is a union organizer with Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU)/First Labor Movement, an independent national labour centre in the Philippines. Majo Maga, is a full- time union organizer in Central Luzon, which is home to at least 1,757 factories and nearly 143,698 workers. Majo Maga organizes workers in the port areas and in the factory belts in Central Luzon.

After dropping off his son at school in San Mateo, Rizal, Maojo Maga was
abducted by plainclothes men who later identified themselves as elements of the Philippine National Police (PNP). He was neither told that he was being arrested nor was he read out his rights. He was handcuffed and blindfolded and his family and lawyers were only notified of his arrest much later that night. Maojo Maga is charged with the murder of an unnamed soldier in Agusan Del Sur, Mindanao in the southernmost area of the Philippines. He is also charged with illegal possession of a .45 caliber pistol with a clip of seven bullets of ammunition, the standard short arm of the PNP. His family and colleagues believe that the gun was planted by the military when he was taken and that these charges are trumped up charges, as shown in other arrests of activists and community organizers. Two days before Maojo Maga was taken, the PNP had accused him of being a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and of the New People’s Army (NPA), which have been labelled as “terrorist” organizations by the Duterte government.

The criminalization of union organizing and other forms of dissent in the Philippines is an old tactic used by the Philippine government, the military and the police to delegitimize the people’s right to dissent, unionize and demand their rights as workers. This was evident in the mass arrests of union workers in the banana plantation in Compostela Valley, Mindanao as members of the NPA. Since Rodrigo Duterte’s taking power, 22 union activists have already been killed.

The arrest of Maojo Maga follows that of his father-in-law Rafael Baylosis who was earlier arrested and detained on charges of illegal possession of firearms. Baylosis is a consultant of the member of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in the Peace Negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines. The arrest and detention of Baylosis violates the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), a peace agreement that assures all consultants and members of the NDFP negotiating panel immunity from surveillance, harassment, search, arrest, detention, prosecution and interrogation.

Mr. President, as defenders of human rights, we want to let you know that your fascist attacks against the Filipino people, the people you sworn to protect, will not be tolerated, particularly in the international community.

CPSHR demands the immediate release of Marklen Maojo Maga, Rafael Baylosis and all political prisoners in the Philippines. We demand a stop to the use of trumped up charges against members of unions and people’s organizations thus, criminalizing legitimate dissent.

We demand a stop to the systematic repression of progressive forces who that dare to speak out against the violent and anti-people policies of the government.

We remind the government that 32 years ago, in 1986, a people’s uprising took down the Marcos dictatorship. The Duterte government cannot suppress a people’s movement that grows in strength and power, which expands in every city and village and is strongly embraced by the masses because its resistance and defiance is just and righteous.

Furthermore WE CALL for the Philippine government to:

Continue the peace talks and build towards the advancement of Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER), which includes the issue of free land distribution to farmers and  farm workers;

Pursue its commitments under the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) which includes the right to freedom of thought and expression, freedom of conscience, political beliefs and practices and the right not to be punished or held accountable for the exercise of these rights, and the right to free speech, press, association and assembly; and

Adhere and respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and all major Human Rights instruments that it is a party and signatory.

Respectfully,

CANADA-PHILIPPINE SOLIDARITY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

*The Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights (CPSHR), is a solidarity organization that works for the defence and protection of human rights in the Philippines.

H.E. Rodrigo Duterte
President of the Republic
Malacañang Palace,
JP Laurel St., San Miguel
Manila Philippines
Voice: (+632) 564 1451 to 80
Fax: (+632) 742-1641 / 929-3968
E-mail: op@president.gov.ph or send message through http://president.gov.ph/contact-us/

Hon. Jesus Dureza
Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process
Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP)
7th Floor Agustin Building I
Emerald Avenue
Pasig City 1605
Voice:+63 (2) 636 0701 to 066
Fax:+63 (2) 638 2216
Email: stqd.papp@opapp.gov.ph, feedback@opapp.net

Ret. Maj. Gen. Delfin Lorenzana
Secretary, Department of National Defense
Room 301 DND Building, Camp Emilio Aguinaldo,
E. de los Santos Avenue, Quezon City
Voice:+63(2) 911-6193 / 911-0488 / 982-5600
Fax:+63(2) 982-5600
Email: info@dnd.gov.ph, webmaster@dnd.gov.ph

Hon. Vitaliano Aguirre
Secretary, Department of Justice
Padre Faura St., Manila
Direct Line 521-8344; 5213721
Trunkline: 523-84-81 loc.214
Fax: (+632) 521-1614
Email: communications@doj.gov.ph

Hon. Jose Luis Martin Gascon
Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights
SAAC Bldg., UP Complex, Commonwealth Avenue
Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines
Voice: (+632) 928-5655, 926-6188
Fax: (+632) 929 0102
Email: chairgascon.chr@gmail.com

Hon. Petronila P. Garcia
Ambassador, Philippine Embassy Ottawa
email: embassyofphilippines@rogers.com

Hon. Frank Neil Ferrer
Consul General, Philippine Consulate General in Vancouver, BC
Email: vancouverpcg@telus.net

Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights (CPSHR)

4794 Fraser Street, Vancouver, BC V5V 4H3
Email: cps_hr@yahoo.ca

For reference: Adrian She

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Canada-Philippines-Solidarity-for-Human-Rights/

Member: International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP-Canada)/
Stop the Killings Network (STKN-Canada)/ International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS-Canada)/International Women’s Alliance (IWA)/ Mining Justice Alliance (MJA)

Associate Member: International Migrants’ Alliance (IMA)
Partner: Eco-Justice Working Unit, Anglican Diocese of New Westminster/ Justice Advisory Circle- United Church of Canada/Alliance for People’s Health (APH)
Proud Supporter of Bayan-Canada/Migrante-Canada