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“Why target the bookstores? Why do this in the city? Is this part of a destabilization plot to stall elections? Is this just a beginning of something bigger?”
“We should not allow Duterte and NTF-ELCAC to use red-tagging as a political weapon to divide the opposition. We should push back against the escalating attacks against Robredo and the political opposition."
“Is this really the mindset of the armed state agents, that they will just shoot the non-combatants? Not only shooting to disable them but shooting to kill them." - forensic expert Raquel Fortun
The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) said that the court's findings "only prove how State forces are hell-bent at quelling the exercise of labor rights being promoted by trade union organizers such as Dennise Velasco as well as activists in general.”
The bodies of three of the five victims in the New Bataan massacre were finally released to their families, according to Save our Schools Network.
“Throughout their years of service, Chad, Jurain, and Elgyn had been subjected to threats, harassment, intimidation, including death threats, red-tagging and terror-tagging, and surveillance. It is then even more deplorable that the people who take up the initiative to serve in far-flung communities, where the Duterte government cares little to address the needs of its residents, are targeted and killed,” SOS Network said.
“Doc Naty also reserves all her rights to pursue legal remedies against those police officers who violates her rights with impunity and went against established procedure when they took her from her home in San Juan on Feb. 18., denied her access to counsel and family. And transported her without notifying any familiar member or counsel.” - FLAG
The CPP-NPA continues to thrive especially in the remote areas of the country because its politics of empowerment resonates not just with the oppressed but all those who wanted to build a new future founded on justice and equality.
“Those behind these corrosive violations should no longer operate with impunity."
“It is not only untrue, it also perpetuates the dangerous narrative that journalists are communists or rebel sympathizers for reporting that (which) does not parrot what the government says. It (is) also the kind of labeling that has raised concerns over how the Anti-Terrorism Act will be implemented."
The campaign asserting their rights and welfare won for them some of their much-deserved benefits, and led to the expansion and consolidation of their unions and organizations.
Under Duterte, red-tagging is used as a weapon to silence dissent and as justification for human rights abuses.
"I wish the vice president would find time to sit with me and discuss what happened to my husband. As a woman like me, I believe she would understand my plight."
Today, Bayan Muna is set to file its candidacy papers before the Commission on Elections as it seeks for re-election in the 2022 polls. This despite the red-tagging and other attacks it was subjected to under President Rodrigo Duterte, including a state-sponsored “zero vote” campaign against Bayan Muna during the 2019 midterm elections where they still emerged victorious.
Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said the two former generals are facing complaints and allegations of human rights violations and war crimes. Their appointment, she added, only means that they are not going to be held accountable for these acts.
“There is no excuse for the State to commit any form of human rights violation against any of its citizens, including Human Rights Defenders. Thus, the red-tagging of Northern Dispatch as a creation of the CPP and its personnel as communist front personalities constitutes human rights violations.”
“Fear is still there, but the need to stand by our principles always wins. We also need to continue campaigning for the welfare of our fellow government workers.”
“Rather than listen to all the valid criticisms, DND continues to brush aside the damning evidence against them by escaping institutional accountability.”
Karapatan-Caraga said that Julieta Gomez and Niezel Velasco are both engaged humanitarian work over the years. In fact, the group said that “officers and personnel of some of government agencies in the region know them personally as they have coordinated activities particularly with the Department of Social Welfare and Development and local government units in the Surigao and Agusan provinces and several municipalities.”
“Release your incontrovertible evidence in public.”
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