BY JHONG DELA CRUZ
Posted 6:45 p.m., June 27, 2006

Militants hold a die-in protest against the rampant political killings on Gastambide St., a stone's throw away from the Chino Roces Bridge in Mendiola, June 27 PHOTO BY AUBREY MAKILAN

Some 3,000 protesters successfully outflanked a police blockade on yet another attempt to hold a protest rally at Mendiola.

Elements of the Manila Police District set up a blockade at the corner of Earnshaw and Legarda Streets but failed to prevent the protesters from going through Gastambide St., a stones throw away from Chino Roces Bridge, where they held a program.

The protest rally was held in the wake of the filing of the second impeachment complaint filed Monday by concerned citizens and civil society groups, supported and endorsed by the opposition, at the Office of the Secretary General of the House of Representatives.

Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Teddy Casiño said the protest rally was also in support of the filing of the impeachment complaint, which charged the president with culpable violation of the Constitution, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes and betrayal of public trust.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is in Rome to visit Pope Benedict XVI, came under fire when she ordered the release of P1 billion to beef up the government counter-insurgency campaign.

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance) and its allied organizations denounced the order saying, “Mrs. Arroyo has given the go-signal for more killings and greater impunity” in the guise of flushing out the insurgency to usher in developments in the countryside.

The Pope reportedly praised Arroyo for signing a law abolishing the death penalty but this, according to Bayan Secretary General Renato Reyes is a farce as rights violations step up as evidenced by the spate of killings victimizing mostly activists and journalists.

Human rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) recorded 690 activists killed under the 5-year term of Arroyo. Of this number, 360 were members of militant groups.

Reyes said Arroyo’s declaration of an “all-out war” against the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New Peoples Army (NPA) is being undertaken not only in the countryside where the CPP-NPA is waging a 37-year old rebellion but also in Metro Manila.

“The police do not want to recognize our right to peaceful assembly to express our grievances,” he said adding that they should be allowed to hold their program at Mendiola since Arroyo is away.

“Arroyo is not in Malacañang, who are they protecting?” he said.

He also said the city government of Manila failed to act on the protesters’ application for permit to rally filed June 20, which under a court ruling is considered approved. Bulatlat