“The attacks on Atty. Guillen and the Southern Luzon activists are not just a condemnable assault on a member of the legal profession and civil society actors, but also a stab to the heart of the Constitution…”
This latest spate of attacks against activists came a mere nine weeks since the PNP launched a similar operation in Panay island. Nine people were killed and 17 were arrested by the police in several indigenous Tumandok communities on Dec 30, 2020.
Five activists were killed and three arrested in a simultaneous police raid on March 7, just two days after President Rodrigo Duterte issued yet another kill order to finish off communist fighters in the Philippines.