ADVERTISEMENT
A day before the World Press Freedom Day, a former NUJP officer was shot dead in Capiz and a campus journalist's house was raided in Bicol.
A pastor and a youth leader were arrested in early morning raids in Camarines Sur and Albay.
According to their lawyer, there was no preliminary investigation conducted. The accused also did not receive a copy of the subpoena, affidavits of the complainants and other pertinent documents about the case.
In its second manifestation, the group stressed that the SC should revisit the CA ruling as their leaders and members continue to experience judicial harassment, threats, and red-tagging by military and police authorities, including those perpetrated by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) spokesperson and Southern Luzon Command chief Antonio Parlade Jr.
In a statement, Karapatan said that a thorough review of the application of search warrants used by the police to conduct simultaneous raids on December 10 last year “is a matter of justice."
"Leaders like Joseph and Pol have no desire but to see the people of the Philippines live fair and just lives. Their arrest and imprisonments only further show the correctness of their work and the Duterte government's failure to prioritize the true needs of the people during a global pandemic."
Human rights lawyer Neri Colmenares assailed Solicitor General Jose Calida for red tagging him and other progressive legislators during the online oral arguments on the Anti-Terror Law, April 27.
"State forces will always be there to call us into submission, to prevent us from performing our sworn duties as lawyers. But I come to realize that there is no other way to stop the rights violations but to fight. Fight the system that breeds them."
This translates to an average of seven lawyers killed every year.
"Indeed, it is tragic that so many have been victimized; but the perpetrators and the people behind them are sorely mistaken if they think that violence can defeat people’s advocacies. In the long run, impunity simply cannot prevail over demands for justice and accountability."
“No prisoner can be safe from the rising threats of the highly contagious disease inside the world’s most overcrowded and ill-equipped prison facilities with the most haphazard policies."
"Not being required, and in fact prohibited by law, the organizers should not be forced, and are within their right, to refuse to sign any disclosure forms. Lest some of the red-faced government officials forget, the 1987 Constitution recognizes the right of all citizens to participate in governmental and societal concerns, and mandates that these rights shall not be abridged."
The prosecutor noted that the statements of the witnesses, co-witnesses and the circumstances leading to the identification of Jenelyn Nagrampa-Caballero and Pastor Dan San Andres “are tainted with doubt and irregularity.”
Pason’s family hailed from the municipality of Toboso. Their family later moved to Silay City, where he took on all jobs possible to make ends meet. As a dedicated uncle, he sent his nieces to school.
“There is a clear and systemic pattern of vilifying human rights defenders as ‘terrorists’ or ‘subversives’ that has started even before the Duterte regime.”
Apart from the red-tagging of Joseph Canlas on social media, threats were felt by members of his family in their own homes.
Under the Anti-Terrorism Act or Republic Act 11479, the Anti-Terrorism Council is given vast powers, including the power to designate individuals and groups as terrorists without due process.
“Unionists are not terrorists. Terrorists do not fight for wages, decent conditions, and workers’ rights. Terrorists are those who intimidate, arrest, and kill people who stand up for justice and the common good.”
Joseph Canlas is a peasant leader and community organizer based in Central Luzon, where he led various campaigns and struggles against landgrabbing and land-use conversion in many farming communities in the region.
“For decades now, UCCP-Haran Center has been a known sanctuary for Lumad people in Southern Mindanao, whose communities have repeatedly been terrorized by the Philippine Army and paramilitary groups. The UCCP Haran is simply performing their calling to ‘participate in the establishment of a just and compassionate social order."
A community of readers and supporters that help us sustain our operations through microdonations for as low as $1.