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Liezel Asuncion, widow of slain labor leader Emmanuel “Ka Manny” Asuncion, recounted the harrowing events of that day, detailing how the police raided their home and shot her husband. "They claimed my husband fought back, but I was there—I saw what really happened," she said. Asuncion highlighted the use of defective search warrants and fabricated charges that have plagued similar cases against activists.
"The right to free speech is not absolute; it imposes limitations on
its exercise to ensure that it will not impinge upon the rights of others. It does not protect defamatory statements," the local court declared.
ACT Chairperson Vladimer Quetua said the complaint filed “is clearly another attempt to stir trouble and divert attention away from Vice President Sara Duterte's misuse of public funds, whether in the Office of the Vice President or Department of Education.”
“There is no difference (between Marcos Jr. and Duterte). If not slapped with trumped up charges, people are being killed to silence them,” Defend Southern Tagalog spokesperson Charm Maranan said during the program at the Liwasang Bonifacio.
Domequil sisters are no different than any other normal girls. They fangirl over the One Direction band and their songs. They used to giggle over the KathNiel love tandem. The arrest of Marielle has turned their world upside down but their bond grew stronger.
“The issuance of Writs of Habeas Data and Amparo from the Supreme Court is important in our ongoing legal battle to know the truth, achieve justice, and to surface Dexter [Capuyan] and Bazoo [De Jesus],” the parents said in Filipino.
Human rights lawyer Edre Olalia said that the award is an “extraordinary recognition by one’s own peers,” an acknowledgment of people’s lawyering as a legitimate field of practice.
“This is not just a fight for the two of us but for all environmental and human rights defenders in the Philippines."
“The police and military are subjecting Ritual’s family to harassment and psychological torture. They are forcing an undue process and adding unusual requirements to prove their identities as kin."
In all cases of enforced disappearances, Irene Khan urged them to provide information on the policies, procedures and measures adopted to prevent and investigate enforced disappearances carried out by members of State security forces or any other agent acting on their behalf or with their acquiescence.
“These executive orders and the NHRAP are desperate attempts by the Marcos regime to cover up its sordid human rights record. These are hypocritical actions while it continues to implement policies that infringe on Filipinos' basic rights and freedoms and wantonly violate IHL," said Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay.
“Jay-El was a son, a brother, and a leader. He deserved a future, not a bullet."
United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion Irene Khan urged the Philippine government to review cases of journalists facing charges in court, asking as well about the status of yet unsolved media killings in the country.
Jerrie Abella, an AI campaigner, detailed the three critical stages where human rights violations occur: during arrests, within drug detention centers, and post-release. Abella described so-called "drug rehabilitation centers" as punitive detention facilities where individuals, including adolescents, are subjected to invasive drug tests and forced treatment. These centers, he said, do not offer rehabilitation but instead serve as sites of coercion.
"Justice is holding Duterte and his accomplices accountable. They are responsible for thousands of extrajudicial killings."
Eusebio Pelayo, 69, a community leader and a Molbog resident in Mariahangin, Bugsuk, Palawan, is summoned to court on December 4 due to a criminal complaint filed by Caesar M. Ortega, described as the “Authorized Representative of Land owners situated within Bowen Island” in the document. Ortega is NCIP’s former OIC executive director of the NCIP and Ancestral Domain Office’s (ADO) former director.
“I can’t accept until now. It has been 15 years, but there is still no further action. I lost my trust in the government,” said Catherine Nuñez whose son Victor, a UNTV reporter, was one of the 32 media workers and 26 others killed in the bloody massacre.
“We cannot sleep well these days because we fear that they will enter the community. Our husbands have skipped work and our livelihoods have been paralyzed just so we can defend our ancestral land from their attempts to seize it. Our children sometimes do not have anything to eat.”
Veloso’s case was brought to international attention after she was sentenced to die in Indonesia. Prior to this, her family spent more than five years seeking government assistance to prove that she was a victim of human trafficking.
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