Why the Laud quarry, ‘mass grave’ for DDS victims, haunts Lascañas
When a death squad maintained by the mayor of the Philippines’ largest city goes on a killing spree, where do they bury the bodies?
For their biggest dumping ground – where hitmen had confessed to having buried thousands – the notorious Davao Death Squad (DDS) had a six-hectare quarry owned by policeman Bienvenido Laud in Barangay Ma-a.
In an affidavit submitted to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in October 2020, a copy of which was obtained by Rappler, former DDS insider Arturo Lascañas detailed how the Laud quarry had become a “mass grave” for persons whom then-mayor Rodrigo Duterte had ordered them to kill.
DOJ’s review of the drug war’s extrajudicial executions veils truth on Duterte’s central policy of killing
Back in April 2019, the Supreme Court ordered the Solicitor General to release to petitioners, all records of extrajudicial killings related to the government’s war on drugs. It turned down the appeal of the Solicitor General to keep the files with the government for reasons of national security. The petitioners-FLAG and CENTERLAW, should have received the records of at least five thousand cases of killings during police operations. The petitioners have also asked the Supreme Court to declare the war on drugs unconstitutional. The PNP and the Solicitor General eventually sent copies of what CENTERLAW described as “rubbish” documents, mostly unrelated to the drug war.
Opinion: Duterte is worried about the ICC. He should be. | by Carlos H. Conde
Clarita Alia remains anguished, nearly 20 years after I first heard her express her grief.
“His name was Danilo Lugay,” she told me over the phone recently from Davao City, in the southern Philippines. Police killed Lugay in September 2020 during a drug raid; a news report of the killing said he had fought back and police officers shot him. Lugay, 28, was the grandchild of Alia’s sister Naneth.
Alia’s voice cracked as she described what happened — the same pained voice that I heard when I interviewed her in 2002 for a report on the killing of her sons Richard, Christopher and Bobby, all teenagers. Assailants later murdered a fourth son, Fernando, in 2007. This unimaginable family tragedy gave Alia, a vegetable vendor who lives in a slum community, the label of poster mother for the city’s bloody “war on drugs,” in which police use extrajudicial executions instead of prosecutions as a primary method of punishing criminal suspects.
Killing State: Confronting the Normalization of State Violence in the Philippines
The Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA), Fastenopfer, Franciscans International (FI), and the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) would like to invite your organization or representatives to the “Killing State: Confronting the Normalization of State Violence in the Philippines” on Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 5PM Philippine time.
Bishop Alminaza statement on the murdered human rights lawyer, Rex Fernandez
“There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” – John 15:13
On behalf of the Visayas Clergy Discernment Group (VCDG), a 2008 CBCP initiative to address social concerns, I express our grief over the senseless murder of human rights lawyer Rex Fernandez. He was killed last August 26, 2021 in Cebu City.
Lawyer Rex Fernandez, a former Redemptorist seminarian, had a heart for the people and had touched so many lives.
Victims and their families will engage a justice system that they can trust- iDEFEND
The report of the ICC registry indicating an overwhelming support of victims and their families towards an investigation into the war on drugs by the International Criminal Court, proves the lack of credibility of the Philippine system to provide justice to more than thirty thousand cases of extrajudicial killings in the country.
According to the Victims’ Participation and Reparations Section of the registry, there had been more than 200 submissions to the ICC supporting the request of the prosecutor to launch a formal investigation into the human rights violations in the country. The VPRS cited that some reasons given by the victims are the reign of impunity entrenched by the President, the unending trauma that they endure, and their conviction that their relatives did not fight back against authorities.
AMRSP solidarity statement for Mayor Aquino’s death, Otto de Vries, bloody Sunday, and the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines
From AMRSP FB page
We hoped for peace, but no peace came. We hoped for a time of healing, but found only terror.’ – Jeremiah 8:15
What is happening in our land?
Violence continues to spiral uncontrollably and with such impunity in our beloved land. So much pain and anguish, hatred and division have afflicted our peoples and nation that we seem indifferent to these deadly events happening in our midst.
Activists and Journalists Targeted as Draconian Anti-Terror Law Challenged in the Philippines
Screen grabbed from CIVICUS Monitor website
Philippines’ civic space rating was downgraded by the CIVICUS Monitor in early December 2020 from ‘obstructed’ to ‘repressed’. The rating change was driven by attacks on human rights defenders and journalists, the vilification and criminalisation of activists, the assault on press freedom, and the passage of new draconian anti-terror law.
On 15th December 2020, the office of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prosecutor said there was a “reasonable basis” to believe that crimes against humanity were committed during Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs.
In January 2021, Investigate PH, a group of individuals and civil society groups, formally launched an independent international probe into the human rights situation in the Philippines. Organised by US-based International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP), the group is composed of representatives from various lawyers’ and faith-based groups, as well as trade unions in the United States, Canada and Australia. It said it would release three reports to be submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The first two reports will be released for upcoming UNHRC sessions in March and July 2021. The group will also submit findings to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In recent months, human rights defenders, trade unions and journalists have been arrested on fabricated charges or killed. The Department of National Defence terminated a decades-old agreement that prohibits state forces from entering University of the Philippines’ campuses without prior notice to school officials while security forces raided an indigenous Lumad school in Cebu City. Civil society groups are challenging the draconian anti-terror law in the Supreme Court.
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Sanlakas vehemently condemns the brutal and brazen execution of Sonya Gregorio and Frank Anthony Gregorio
SANLAKAS STATEMENT ON SONYA AND FRANK GREGORIO’S MURDER
Sanlakas vehemently condemns the brutal and brazen execution of Sonya Gregorio and Frank Anthony Gregorio. This was not an isolated incident as their deaths add to the growing number of casualties whose deaths have been perpetrated by the police. The police has been emboldened by President Duterte’s marching shoot-to-kill orders against citizens on the pretext of fighting crime. This recent display of barbarism and callousness highlight the danger the public faces in the hands of the police.
Police brutality no longer hides in the cloak of darkness as impunity takes on new heights.
To date, criminal prosecution of erring police officers remains slow while crimes committed by the police continue to rise. This in itself is injustice.
There can be no justice if no less the President is quick to give scalawags in uniform a free pass.
We demand that Duterte condemn and give full justice to not just the merciless killings of the Gregorios but all murders that have been committed as a result of the bloodlust that is the war on drugs being waged in the last 4 years, and the attack on activists, workers, peasants, journalists, lawyers, and IPs.
Stop the killings NOW!
#EndImpunity
#StopTheKillingsNow
#EndPoliceBrutality
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AMRSP STATEMENT ON THE MURDER OF SONYA AND FRANK GREGORIO
He comes. He ever comes.
This succinctly summarizes the reason for this merriment and celebration of this Christmas season. Despite the fact that we are living in a time of pandemic, as Christians, we are forever anticipating to celebrate the birth of Christ in our world.
In the midst of all our preparations, our senses are jarred with the brutal and cold-blooded murder of Sonya and Frank Gregorio. In the video clips circulating on social media, we witnessed their fate at the hands of Police Senior Master Sergeant Jonel Nuezca, who, without hesitation, brandished his power as a law enforcer and shot both mother and son. This reminds us of Lamech, known in the Old Testament for his reckless killings:
“Lamech said…: “Hear my voice; … listen to my utterance: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for bruising me” (Gen 4, 23).
It pains us to see how cheap life is valued by many in power nowadays. Equally disturbing is to hear how others defend this brazen act of injustice.
As Christians, our primary duty is to protect and respect all life, from conception to natural death. Did not our Lord say that He came to earth to give fulness of life to all? (cf. Jn 10,10). This duty should be more solemnly felt this season. We cannot afford to repeat Herod’s penchant to murder even his wives, his children and other relations on the basis of suspicion. We cannot afford to repeat his ordering to murder the innocent children in pursuit of the life of the newborn Baby Jesus.
The Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines expresses our condolences to the bereaved family of Sonya and Frank Gregorio. We will keep their souls in our prayers. At the same time, we also express our concern for all those traumatized and shocked by what we saw in the videos.
We also join the many calls for justice, not only for the Gregorios, but for all victims of violence at the hands of those in power. As one nation, may we find ourselves united in breaking the prevailing culture of violence, impunity and injustice. We re-affirm our commitment for life and for peace.
As we wait for the coming of our Savior, we say: “Halina, Hesus, aming Mananakop dusa ng ‘Yong bayan, masda’t abut-abot. Sa pag-ibig, salat; katarunga’y kapos. Tangi kang pag-asa, O Hesus!” Come, Lord, heal our minds. Heal our souls.
For the AMRSP: Sr. Malen A. Java, RC Fr. Cielito R. Almazan, OFM Co-Chairpersons
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Duterte has forfeited the Philippines’ EU trade privileges
By Joseph Purugganan
File Photo from Focus on the Global South website
In 2014, Trade Justice Pilipinas supported the Philippines’ pursuit of favorable trade privileges from the EU, hoping they would deter human rights abuses. Six years later, that hope has disappeared, and so should those privileges.
On 17 September, the European Parliament issued a resolution expressing its “deep concern over the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines under Duterte”. The resolution condemned the “thousands of extra-judicial killings and other serious human rights violations related to the so-called war-on-drugs” and the “threats, harassment, intimidation, rape and violence against those who seek to expose allegations of extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations in the country”.
While many of the points raised in the Resolution were addressed to the Philippine government, some were directed toward the European Commission – the principal executive body of the European Union. In Item 20 of the resolution, the European Parliament “calls on the European Commission, in the absence of any substantial improvement and willingness to cooperate on the part of the Philippine authorities, to immediately initiate the procedure which could lead to the temporary withdrawal of GSP+ preferences”.
The Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP+) program was granted by the EU to the Philippines in 2014 to incentivize sustainable development and good governance. It allows duty-free entry of more than 6,000 exports from the Philippines to the EU. These privileges were granted on condition of the Philippine government’s fulfillment of its obligations under 27 conventions on human and labor rights. As cited in the resolution, for 2019 alone, trade preferences were given to 25 percent of Philippine exports to the EU, amounting to around 2 billion euros.
Duterte’s lieutenants responded to the European Parliament’s resolution by downplaying the concerns it raised.
“No reason for the EU to revoke these privileges,” said Philippine Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez.
“They have descended to the level of stupidity,” said foreign affairs secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., referring to the European Parliament.
These flippant retorts of Duterte’s deputies are to be expected. Duterte has built his personal brand upon open defiance in the face of criticism, especially of his human rights record. More startling, however, was the response of Harry Roque, a former human rights lawyer who now serves as Duterte’s spokesperson, who said: “If they want to add to the burden of the Filipino nation during this pandemic, so be it, so be it. We will accept that as history repeating itself.”
Roque recognizes the importance of GSP+ privileges to the Philippine economy, yet he lays the blame for their potential withdrawal upon the European Parliament. He appears to be in need of a reminder that the Philippine government only secured those privileges in the first place by accepting the conditions that the government is now brazenly violating.
Roque’s retort exposes the rot at the topmost levels of the Philippine government. In the face of all criticism, this government consistently opts to shoot the messenger rather than look inward and alter its behavior. The government responded similarly to the report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) in July, which expressed concerns over “widespread human rights violations and persistent impunity.” There was no acknowledgement of shortcomings or failures, nor any commitment to correct mistakes or fulfill obligations.
Trade Justice Pilipinas (TJP), a platform convened by Focus on the Global South campaigning for just trade and investment policies, has been monitoring the Philippines’ GSP+ status from the start. When the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was preparing its application in 2014, it sought TJP’s help in securing the support of our allies in Europe for the Philippine government’s bid.
We supported the government’s application for two main reasons:
We felt any positive conditionality that could push the government to fulfill its international human and labor rights obligations should be supported.
We recognized the potential economic benefit that could arise from increased market access, which we were hoping would also benefit workers in the sectors covered by the GSP+ program.
But just as we advocated for the granting of these privileges when it seemed the conditions would be met, we have advocated just as forcefully for their withdrawal since it became obvious that the Philippine government has no interest in meeting these conditions.
The European Parliament’s resolution to withdraw the Philippines’ GSP+ status follows years of sustained advocacy at home by Trade Justice Pilipinas, the Trade Justice and Corporate Accountability Cluster of the Asia Europe Peoples’ Forum (AEPF), and the Germany-based Action Network for Human Rights (AMP), among other international networks.
In 2018, Trade Justice Pilipinas stated that “the human rights dimension must be stressed and strengthened further as a cornerstone of EU-Philippines relations”, and we called on the EU to “prove its commitment to human rights by reiterating human rights provisions in future agreements, including the proposed EU-Philippines free trade agreement. Otherwise, it risks eroding further [the EU’s] already diminished image as a defender of human rights and, at worst, highlights its complicity in the violations and atrocities being committed by the Duterte administration”.
In 2019, we issued another statement noting that under EU regulations, “where a GSP+ beneficiary country no longer fulfills the conditions or withdraws any of its binding undertakings, the Commission shall be empowered to adopt a delegated act…to remove that country from the list of GSP+ beneficiary countries”. We further noted that the regulations “allow for temporary withdrawal of the trade preferences for, among others, serious and systematic violation of principles laid down in the conventions”. The statement concluded with a call for the EU Commission “to immediately commence the withdrawal procedure of the trade preferences granted under the GSP+ mechanism”.
In 2020, we joined other human rights groups and networks in an open letter addressed to EU Trade Commissioner Paul Hogan that reiterated our concerns over the deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines under Duterte and reminded the Commission of the findings of its own assessment reports:
In the GSP+ assessment reports on the Philippines covering the periods of 2016-2017 and 2018-2019, the Commission had already expressed grave concern regarding the human rights situation in the country. We underlined the fact that the latest assessment report already highlighted a number of concerning issues including the war on drugs, shrinking civil space, the attacks against human rights defenders, the possible lowering of the minimum age of legal liability, and the reintroduction of the death penalty. The report even concluded by stating: “The campaign against illegal drugs in the Philippines continues to be a matter of grave concern, in particular a large number of related killings and prison overcrowding. Reintroducing the death penalty for drug-related offenses would be a worrying development and constitute a violation of the ICCPR’s Second Optional Protocol.”
To be clear, the European Parliament resolution will not cause the withdrawal or suspension of the GSP+ privileges; only the European Commission has the power to initiate this process. However, the resolution sends a very strong challenge to the Commission to live up to its responsibilities under the program.
There is now an urgency to the call for the withdrawal of GSP+ privileges. While conservative estimates place the number of extrajudicial drug-related killings at around 8,000, there is no official public record and no way to count killings that the police have not begun to investigate. Moreover, the death toll continues to rise as the government enjoys complete impunity for its deadly and useless war on drugs.
Roque wants to blame the EU for inflicting additional pain on the Philippines while the country reels from the impact of COVID-19, but he shows no remorse for the extrajudicial killings that have gone unchecked since the start of the pandemic. This is a government addicted to blaming others for its own misdeeds. To Roque and Duterte, human rights defenders are to blame for tarnishing the image of the country, and the EU is to blame for potentially damaging the economy.
The truth is the opposite. Just as the economic hardship afflicting Filipinos is a consequence of the government’s failed policies, the future losses triggered by the withdrawal of GSP+ privileges would be a consequence of the government’s ongoing human rights abuses.
We supported the previous government’s bid for GSP+ when it committed to upholding the dignity of its citizens. Now that Duterte and his cronies have abandoned that commitment, they have no one to blame for the fallout than themselves.
Joseph Purugganan is head of the Philippines office at Focus on the Global South.
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ALRC, KARAPATAN to UNHRC: Spate of killings in PH remains
On the eve of the submission of the joint statement of the Asian Legal Resource Center (ALRC) and Karapatan to the United Nations Human Rights Council on the spate of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, the Calago couple was killed and burned by elements of the 11th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental.
“…Despite the Government’s assurances that it would take ‘firm measures to address the problem of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances,’ extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and targeted attacks against human rights and political activists have continued without relent under the administration of President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III,” said ALRC and Karapatan in the joint statement , which was submitted to the 29th session of the UN Human Rights Council and was circulated in full by the Secretary-General to the UN member nations on May 25, in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31.
On May 24, 2015, at around 10 p.m., a loud sound of budyong (a sea shell used to signal for help) awakened Marcela Madronero. She immediately rose and saw the roof of her brother Endric Calago’s house in flames. Then she heard Rosalie, her brother’s wife, who shouted, “Help us, the Army is here!” Then Madronero heard a burst of continuous gunshots. Afraid that they too might be shot, Madronero and cousin Dante Flores did not go to the Calago house until 5 a.m., when Madronero heard the wailing of Erly Calago, daughter of Endric and Rosalie. When Madronero and Flores rushed to the couple’s house, they saw the house razed to the ground, including the bodies of the couple. Endric’s body was found near the balcony with several gunshot wounds. Rosalie’s body was just outside the kitchen door, totally burned.
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Sentro hails arrest of Palparan, calls for no ‘VIP treatment’ and swift conviction
The Sentro ng mga Nagkakaisa at Progresibong Manggagawa eagerly welcomes the capture early this morning of fugitive retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan; but expresses at the same time apprehension that he will also be accorded VIP treatment in a “special jail” – like Janet Lim-Napoles and her “pork barrel senators” – and the lawsuits against him will drag on for years – like what happened to the Marcoses, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the Ampatuans, and their ilk.
Dubbed “the butcher,” Palparan left a bloody and terrifying trail of murders and abductions of social activists wherever he was assigned an army command – from Mindoro, Romblon, Samar to Central Luzon provinces. Like a Grim Reaper, his mere presence in an area was a portent of increased number of extrajudicial killings or “salvaging,” forced disappearances of perceived anti-government individuals, and active harassment of mass organizations. Still, Arroyo lavishly praised Palparan for his “successful” counterinsurgency campaigns from 2001 to 2006, when he retired. He went into hiding in December 2011 when a court ordered his arrest because of the 2006 kidnapping in Bulacan of two UP students, Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño, who both remain missing.
Of course, no direct evidence was ever gathered and not a single witness has yet surfaced to implicate Palparan as the mastermind behind these heinous crimes. This is understandable since Palparan and his gang – not unlike the liquidation crew of gangsters and secret military assassination units during martial law – will ensure at all costs that incriminating proofs will be eliminated and would-be whistleblowers will be bribed or terrorized or “silenced” outright. However, an investigation of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) admitted that there was “certainly (circumstantial) evidence pointing the finger of suspicion at some elements and personalities in the armed forces, in particular General Palparan, as responsible for an undetermined number of killings, by allowing, tolerating, and even encouraging the killings.”
Sentro calls on the Aquino government and the judiciary to ensure that Palparan and his cohorts should be immediately imprisoned in regular jails and not be given special treatment. They should be tried and convicted promptly so that justice will finally be served to their victims and the latter’s families.
The government should likewise vigorously work to end the impunity of violence against the people and their organizations; this includes the speedy resolution of abductions and murders of trade unionists and activists, including two Mindanao leaders of the National Confederation of Transportworkers’ Unions (NCTU-APL-SENTRO) – Antonio “Dodong” Petalcorin and Kagi Alimudin Lucman – who were slain within the span of one month (July) only last year in Davao City and Cotabato City, respectively.
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Dispatches: A Blow Against Impunity in the Philippines
By Phelim Kine
The Philippines Congress took an important step on Wednesday against unlawful killings by local officials by calling for an urgent official probe into “death squad” killings exposed in a recent Human Rights Watch report.
House Resolution No. 1222 directs the Congressional Committee on Human Rights to “conduct an immediate investigation, in aid of legislation, on the extrajudicial killings perpetrated by the Tagum Death Squad and allegedly created by local government officials in Tagum City, Davao Del Norte.” That resolution extensively references Human Rights Watch’s revelations of the existence, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, of a death squad linked to hundreds of killings in the past decade. The death squad was organized, equipped, and financed by then Tagum City Mayor Rey “Chiong” Uy and elements of the local police and municipal government.
The congressional resolution is a welcome change from the willingness of successive Philippine governments to turn a blind eye to such brutality. First in nearby Davao City and then in other cities across the country, unidentified gunmen often “riding in tandem” on motorbikes have executed petty criminals, suspected drug dealers, and street children in the name of cleaning up the city of its “undesirables.” Mayor Uy used to refer to them as “weeds.” Yet despite the magnitude of the killings, the administration of Benigno Aquino III has never gotten serious about addressing the problem.
The congressmen who co-sponsored the resolution, Rep. Carlos Isagani T. Zarate and Rep. Neri Javier Colmenares, deserve praise for their willingness to challenge the official silence and denial regarding extrajudicial killings. But their stand against impunity demands long-overdue leadership on extrajudicial killings.
Aquino first should publicly denounce local anti-crime campaigns that promote or encourage unlawful use of force. He also needs to direct the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct an investigation into such killings in Tagum City – and elsewhere in the country. The Justice Department needs to ensure the safety of witnesses and relatives of victims to help ensure successful prosecutions in such cases. The Commission on Human Rights can raise public awareness by organizing public hearings on death squad killings in Tagum and elsewhere, and the alleged involvement of local officials.
The Philippines Congress has sent a much-needed signal that the country’s culture of impunity for extrajudicial killings needs to come to an end. Now it’s up to President Aquino to translate that signal into meaningful action.
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It says much when the president of a country that time and again boasts of being a democracy insists that one of, if not the, worst wave of mediamurders does not constitute a national catastrophe.
No, we don’t believe President Benigno Aquino III is in a state of denial about the three latest killings, which happened in all of two weeks’ time, bringing the death toll for media since he came to office in 2010 to at least 21.
We believe he is clearly aware of how serious the problem is. The problem is, he keeps on looking for excuses to play down what the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism has called the worst annual incidence rate under any president.
In short, he just doesn’t care.
In a meeting with Filipino journalists in Tokyo, Aquino, as reported in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, said he would not treat media killings as a national trend unless “somebody can say that there is some sort of an established policy to kill a journalist of this particular position, mentality.”
According to the PDI report, Aquino said a “’correlation’ must first be established: ‘What’s common among (the killings) besides (the reality) that somehow they are connected to media’.”
“’Now if you don’t identify the problem correctly, you will not come up with a solution. The point is … we are 95 million Filipinos. It’s difficult to see the intent, especially for those … some might really be wanton and merciless and totally wrong,’ he said.”
Evidently, Mr. Aquino has not been listening, if he ever did in the first place.
Mr. Aquino, in case you missed it, we have never claimed the murders of our colleagues were the result of any “established policy” unlike, say, the extrajudicial killings of activists, environmentalists, indigenous people and other dissenters that human rights experts both here and abroad have rightly linked to a murderous counterinsurgency program that deliberately targets members of legal organizations.
What we HAVE said is that these killings are the inevitable offshoot of governance by expediency, which has seen administration after administration, bar none, allowing the corrupt, the warlords, the crime lords to reign supreme in their respective personal fiefdoms in the regions and provinces in exchange for their support.
It is a system of governance that has allowed local tyrants to keep their populations cowed and silence any attempt to unmask them while the national government turns a blind eye for fear of losing their loyalty.
But of course, no self-respecting president, especially one who has staked his name on “tuwid na daan,” would ever admit to that.
Thus the search for alibis, like Communications Secretary Sonny Coloma’s describing some of the victims as “not legitimate” to justify describing the problem as “not so serious,” or the attempt by an investigator to explain the recent killings as the offshoot of the victims’ less than impeccable ethics.
Admittedly, Philippine media have their work cut out to improving ethical and professional standards. But before sanctimoniously dumping the blame on the individual practitioner, especially the grossly overworked and underpaid variety that populate our provinces, shouldn’t we look first to those who keep them so overworked and underpaid that not a few succumb to the blandishments of those would have the news slanted in their favor? And if corruption were to justify murder, shouldn’t we be wondering, given the surfeit of evidence, why our corridors of power continue to be populated by the foremost purveyors of graft and who, by all indications, are the most likely brains in the murders of our colleagues?
So there, Mr. Aquino, is the “correlation” you claim to seek, the problem identified to which you must now find a solution.
That is, if you even care a whit to.
For reference
Rowena Paraan
Chairperson
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CTUHR reports rampant violations of union rights under Aquino
The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights reported of rampant union rights violations within the first half of Aquino’s presidency. The group cited 132 documented cases of violations to workers right to freely organize that victimized over 20,000 workers and other forms of human rights violations.
Violations of workers’ freedom to organize (also referred to as freedom of association or FOA) documented by CTUHR include non-recognition of unions, union busting, harassment of unionists inside the workplace, intervention on trade union affairs, anti-union discrimination and prohibition of the right to strike.
Forty-two (42) other cases of violations of collective bargaining agreements (CBA) and other CBA issues affecting over 11,000 workers were documented within the last three years since Aquino took office.
“The government boasts of achieving industrial peace and almost zero-strike incidence but this is not at all indicative of better conditions for unions and workers. The numerous cases of union rights violations and CBA issues is clear proof that conditions for union organizing has not improved at all,” Arman Hernando, CTUHR coordinator for documentation said.
Aside from these, CTUHR also documented over 84 cases of civil and political rights violations against workers and unionists which include cases of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, harassment, physical assault and filing of false criminal charges.
Alarmingly low union rate
The group described the number of unionized workers as “alarmingly low” covering less than 10% of wage and salary workers. Recent data on CBAs from the Bureau of Labor and Employment Statistics (BLES) also revealed that in 2011, only 326 CBAs are registered nationwide covering only 66,485 workers.
“This miniscule percentage of unionized and CBA-covered workers in addition to the persistence of union rights violations shows how terrible labor rights situation in the country is today. While the Aquino government is hell-bent in selling out the country to investors on one hand, it miserably fails to protect the rights of the majority who create the nation’s wealth on the other hand.”
“The right to form unions and collectively bargain is the very important to workers for it is the only means by which workers can empower themselves and claim their rights even at the factory level,” Hernando averred.
The group added that continued attacks by capitalists and state agents on workers who struggle to form organizations and unions contribute to this ever decreasing rate of unionized workers. Government policies that allow contractual labor also undermine workers right to organize.
“The Aquino government must be reminded that a truly developed society can only be achieved if its people are enjoying their rights. Economic growth or so-called ‘inclusive growth’ is meaningless and hollow if majority of the people are not empowered to claim their rights and do not feel the fruits of development,” Hernando added.
For Reference: Arman Hernando, CTUHR Coordinator for Documentation. 4110256; 0916.2484876
RELEASE
30 July 2013
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The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights strongly condemns the killing of Davao City transport leader Antonio Petalcorin, President of Network of Transport Organization-Davao (NETO-NCTU-APL). This is another blow to the working sector and a clear indication that human rights situation in the country has not improved.
According to reports, Antonio Petalcorin, was shot in the morning of July 2 by an unidentified man. Petalcorin was dead on the spot sustaining four gunshot wounds from a .45 caliber pistol. The killing happened amidst a strong campaign of Petalcorin’s group to oust the leadership of LTFRB (Land Transportation, Franchising and Regulatory Board) in Davao City because of alleged corruption.
As we mourn with Petalcorin’s family, friends and colleagues, we are also one with them on the calls for justice. We demand an immediate and thorough investigation of the case so that perpetrators may be held accountable to the law.
Moreover, we denounce Petalcorin’s killing for it is an outright attack on our collective rights and freedoms. Needless to say, extrajudicial killings hamper the workers’ and the people’s right and freedom to organize. Brazen violence has a chilling effect among the people and the community which has been used time and again by state agents to quell dissent and suppress legitimate and just demands of the people.
Petalcorin’s death highlights the persisting impunity which the Aquino administration failed to correct. In fact, human rights and labor rights situation has not changed, rather aggravated, within the first half of Aquino’s presidency. Petalcorin is the 5th transport leader killed in the first three years of the current administration. And to this day, Ernest Gulfo, Felix Cultura, Feliciano Infante and Emilio Rivera, just like hundreds of other victims of human rights killings, are still seeking justice.
As Pres. Aquino is about to deliver his State of the Nation Address in a few weeks, news on the widening gap between the poor and the rich underlines how his administration has abandoned the welfare and interests of the working class and marginalized groups. Amid this worsening economic condition for the majority, human rights killings and violations committed against workers and the toiling classes only paints a more grotesque picture of our current society.
We thus reiterate our challenge to Pres. Aquino to fulfill his promise that he shall put an end to all human rights killings. Until and unless these killings and other human rights violations are stopped and perpetrators are brought to justice can the Aquino administration actually brag of leading a straight path.
STATEMENT
11 July 2013
for Reference: Daisy Arago, Executive Director, Center for Trade Union and Human Rights, 411.0256.
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Women say YES to Development! Women say NO to Corporate Mining!
International Women’s Day. 08 March 2013. Today, we celebrate our hopes, our rights, our voices, our movements as we continue to work towards the elimination of violence and discrimination, our right to self-determination, our right to decide on our bodies, communities and natural resources. We voice out the development we want. We move towards equality and justice. We dance until we are all free.
As we celebrate this day we stand firm against those who dare to violate our hopes, our rights, our voices, and our movements. We stand firm against those who dare to destroy the lives we choose to live and the future we dream for our children. WE STAND FIRM AGAINST CORPORATE MINING, for mining companies dared to poison us, kill us, displace us, prostitute us, exploit us.
MINING POISONS our food and waters – mine tailings seeping through the water system, backhoes excavating our rice fields, coastal areas and mountains. Women toil more than twelve hours a day to produce and secure food for their families, to bring water to their homes, to gather medicines from their forests. Women regard the land and water as source of life; but yes, mining corporations easily disregard the value of life.
MINING DISPLACES rural women – away from their homes, their farms, their municipal waters, their forests. With diminishing sources of income due to degradation of their natural resources, rural women have to find work in the cities or abroad, with the risk of falling prey to trafficking and prostitution. Women are driven away from their families and communities; but yes, mining corporations easily disregard the value of family and community.
MINING WORSENS prostitution – peddling entertainment to investors and their male workers, peddling women next to the produce of the mines. Young women get attracted to jobs near the mining areas, many fall victims to empty promises of better incomes at the cost of their bodies and dignity; but yes, mining corporations easily disregard a person’s dignity.
MINING EXPLOITS workers – subjecting them to inhuman conditions and various risks to health and danger without any occupational safety hazards, without security of tenure, without decent pay. The government promotes mining for job creation but it has not delivered any impact on employment; but yes, mining corporations easily disregard the dignity of work.
MINING KILLS indigenous women – Juvy Capion’s and Cheryl Ananayo’s children sleep at night grieving the loss of their mothers, whose last cries were for their ancestral domains. Indigenous women laid their lives for their ancestral lands not because they wanted to merely benefit or profit from it, but because they wanted to protect the ties that bind them as a people, their cultural identity and integrity. This is the reason why there is the free prior informed consent (FPIC) that would protect indigenous communities from threats of encroachment; but yes, mining corporations easily disregard the right to self-determination, and bastardize the very spirit of FPIC.
With all its dominance and violence, corporate mining perpetuates patriarchy. It has deprived women’s voice to be heard in the communities. It has justified militarization in the country side. With all its capitalist greed, multinational mining corporations perpetuate wanton exploitation of the environment, and undermines national sovereignty. It has worsened impacts of climate change. It has threatened food sovereignty and national patrimony. But mining corporations cannot do it by themselves; but yes, government has long been by their side.
Today, in one voice, women from different communities, and languages, say –
Mining poisons our food and water.
Mining kills indigenous women.
Mining exploits workers.
Mining displaces rural women.
Mining worsens prostitution.
Protect women human rights defenders in mining areas.
STOP corporate mining!
Pursue a development path that uplifts the dignity and lives of the Filipino communities, nurtures the natural resources and environment, and eliminates all forms of violence against women.
Akbayan–Youth • Alliance of Progressive Labor • Amnesty International • Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM) • Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) • Asian Circle 1325 • Bagong Kamalayan • BATIS • Batis-AWARE • Buklod • Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino – Kababaihan • CATW-AP • Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA) • Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center, Inc • DAKILA Palawan Collective • Development Action for Women Network • Filipino Deaf Women Health and Crisis Center (FDWHCC) • Focus on the Global South • Free Burma Coalition • Freedom from Debt Coalition • Initiatives for International Dialogue • Kababaihan-Pilipinas • KAISA-KA • KAMP • Kasibulan • Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center (LRC-KsK/Friends of the Earth-Phils) • LILAK (Purple Action for Women’s Rights) • Medical Action Group • MFA • Partido Lakas ng Masa • Partido ng Manggagawa • PAHRA • PEACE • Philrights • Piglas Kababaihan • PKKK • PREDA • RENEW • Rice Watch and Action Network (R1) • SARILAYA • Transform Asia • Unlad Kabayan • WEDPRO • WomanHealth Phils. • Women’s Legal and Human Rights Bureau • Welga ng Kababaihan • Women’s Crisis Center • Youth and Students Advancing Gender Equality (YSAGE) • World March of Women – Pilipinas • numerous courageous individuals who joined through the event’s facebook page
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Unabated human rights violations continually hurt God and the Church
Most Rev. Gerardo A. Alminaza, D.D.
Head Convenor, Visayas Clergy Discernment Group
December 10, 2012
But as we commemorate the 64th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Universal Human Rights Day, we continue to assert that the unabated human rights violations in the country are fundamental breaches of the laws of God and the teachings of the Church.
Genesis 1:27 says that God created man in his own image. The human individual, then, possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 357). We see in our neighbors, the living image of our Creator, and we show our love of God and neighbor through respecting our neighbor’s dignity.
But the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) recently condemned the continuing human rights violations in the country under the Aquino government, particularly cases of extrajudicial killings of human rights defenders.
In Cebu, we support the advocacies of the Archdiocesan Discernment Group led by Cebu Archbishop Jose S. Palma in defending the rights of our marginalized brothers and sisters in the rural and urban areas.
The labor sector in the Mactan Export Processing Zone and in other factories in Cebu has to contend with unjust labor practices, union busting, contractualization, and many other oppressive and anti-labor practices.
In Barangay Luz of Cebu City, urban poor households were demolished even without adequate relocation sites facilitated. Former President Ramon Magsaysay gave them the relocation site in the said Barangay in the 1950’s.
The land tilled by farmers in Aloguinsan, Cebu since the time of their ancestors are now claimed by a rich landed family.
The local government is reclaiming seabeds in Cordova, Cebu in order to build golf courses and five star hotels. This will surely wipe out the livelihood of poor fisherfolks in the area, and will destroy seagrass beds and the ecosystem of corals connected to the double-barrier reef of the Danajon Bank in Bohol.
In other areas of the country, we are alarmed of the killing of anti-mining advocates who fight against large-scale mining.
The current human rights situation show that as a community, we have been remiss in respecting the dignity of our neighbors and the integrity of creation; and if this continues, justice and peace would be impossible to achieve.
As a community of persons, we must be steadfast in our duty to work for the good of all, the common good: to destroy the structures of sin, and build a society of justice, love and peace. May Jesus, the Prince of Peace of Christmas, defend the human rights of His brothers and sisters here in the Philippines and in the whole world.
For Reference:
BISHOP GERARDO ALMINAZA, D.D.
Auxiliary Bishop of Jaro/ Head Convenor of the Visayas Clergy Discernment Group (VCDG)
Tel. No. (033) 3291625
VISAYAS CLERGY DISCERNMENT GROUP
E-Mail Address: visayasclergydiscernment@yahoo.com
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MANILA — Justice Secretary Leila de Lima told a group of human rights watchdogs that had been instrumental in cutting United States military aid to the Philippines that the Aquino administration has taken steps to reduce cases of extrajudicial killings and related violations.
In a meeting on Tuesday at the Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C., De Lima said the government has not used violence, intimidation or threats to curtail rights of individuals.
Militants have since accused the government’s counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan of killing members of leftist organizations but the military claimed otherwise, saying the program is centered on resolving conflicts through peace process and community work.
“This Aquino administration can honestly and sincerely say this because we absolutely have nothing to hide,” said de Lima, former chair of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).
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