“The multiple deaths resulting from the execution of search warrants, the claims that the police planted evidence in the course of the search, and the perceived misuse of court processes to attack activists and dissenters all demand comprehensive reforms in the issuance of search warrants and their implementation.”
By DEE AYROSO
“Domestic remedies have been ineffective at providing redress and at halting continued abuses. The power imbalance between victims of state violence, and perpetrators who have the backing of government apparatuses, is grave. Structures to redress this imbalance are lacking.”
She graduated in 2014 feeling on top of the world, not because she was one step closer to escaping the life she left behind in Batangas, but because she finally understood her role as a daughter and a daughter of the nation.
Manny Asuncion was the very definition of an organizer: patient with the masses, always willing to serve the people, and filled with righteous anger against injustice.
“We are deeply worried that these latest killings indicate an escalation in violence, intimidation and harassment and red tagging of human rights defenders.” — UN
“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…”
Human rights group Karapatan Timog Katagalugan said Dumagat Sierra Madre members Puroy dela Cruz and Randy dela Cruz were shot dead by the police in Sitio Mina, Barangay Sta. Inez, Tanay, Rizal. Urban poor activists Abner Esto and Edward Esto were also killed by the police in sitio Macaingalan, Barangay Puray, Rodriguez, Rizal as part of the Conduct of Simultaneous Implementation of Search Warrants dubbed COPLAN ASVAL by the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines across four provinces last March 7.
“This is not enforcement of the law anymore, this is wild, wild west where they just kill without distinction.”
Defend-Southern Tagalog said the incidents, dubbed as Bloody Sunday, took place a day after Duterte ordered his troops again to “finish off and kill all communist rebels.”
When your voice no longer bears the weight
of what you must say, then language must have gone away,
or forcibly buried underground,
silenced the fascist way.