Since March 2019, the 85th IBPA has been involved in human rights violations against coconut farmers in Quezon. Farmers in Macalelon and Lopez towns have been forced to evacuate due to continuing harassment and accusations of being supporters of the New People’s Army.
Both smile easily, laugh heartily. Rey is fond of thinking up his own jokes. Cora is the more serious type but her candid remarks would send Rey into laughter without her meaning to. Definitely a happy couple loving what they do. Cora’s late Inay once told her, how come you choose to be poor yet…
Because what Parlade is doing is taking a page from Palparan’s, and Marcos’, and ultimately, the CIA’s playbook. He thinks that barbarity will result in fear, and thus compliance. He thinks that the way to curb legitimate dissent is by becoming an aswang; a murderer in the night, and desecrator of the flesh.
“We were shocked. If there were really guns or explosives there, these will surely be found in less obvious areas. That’s a no-brainer.”
“The arrest of the Tacloban 5 (us) through the Armed Forces of the Philippines-Philippine National Police tanim ebidensya (planting of evidence) scheme is a manifestation that President Duterte’s administration and his cronies in the AFP in Eastern Visayas are trembling in fear because the legal activists, despite our young age and short experience just like what the AFP would say, did not fail to reach the grassroots.”
Her arrest “demonstrates the tendency of the Duterte government to weaponize the law in aid of its self-declared war waged against terrorism at the detriment of the lives and well-being of innocent people working in legal organizations in order to help the basic sectors of our society fight for and defend their basic, fundamental rights…
“But now more than ever, the RMP will live out its commitment to be servant-leaders with the poor farmers, fisherfolk, agricultural workers, and Indigenous Peoples so that all may truly experience God’s compassion and mercy in the here and now.”
“The arrests of Cumpio and, before her, Krueger, the red-tagging of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and other press freedom groups and advocates, the continued attempts to shut down Rappler, ABS-CBN and the Philippine Daily Inquirer, are all part of this government’s efforts to silence the free exchange of ideas and coopt media into mouthing only what it allows.”
“We condemn the Leyte police and state forces for this latest attack on Eastern Vista, our fellow community journalist Cumpio, and against people’s groups in Leyte. We demand their immediate and safe release, and call on the public to denounce this latest attempt to silence and intimidate independent media and human rights defenders.”
The human rights group stated that “no legal documents were processed to authenticate the identities of the two remains,” and that they were only positively identified as Pinza and Candor upon exhuming.
“If their claims that they were killed in an encounter were true, then why can’t they show the body to the family? Why are they so adamant in insisting that they have already buried the two while claiming they are still unidentified?” asked Karapatan in a statement.