This video is called Ninoy Aquino: Worth Dying For (the last interview). About a Filipino politician assasinated on government orders.
This is an unofficial translation from the original in Dutch, an article by Folkert Jensma in Dutch daily NRC.NEXT 30 May 2008, pp. 10-11, paper edition:
ASSASSINATION BY HIRED KILLERS FAILED TWICEThe Philippine government tried to get rid of Communist leader Sison in Utrecht
The Philippine government sent hired killers to The Netherlands to kill the Communist Sison.
Details are coming out now
By FOLKERT JENSMA
The Hague. They stayed in the Amsterdam budget tourist hotel Tourist Inn at the Spui [downtown Amsterdam], the members of the Filipino ‘hit team’ which came to The Netherlands in October 1999 in order to perpetrate a political murder. Their target was Jose Maria Sison, the rather elderly Filipino Communist leader who has resided in Utrecht as an exile since 1987. Two men, with several thousand dollars cash and travelers checks. They had landed in Frankfurt and travelled by train to Amsterdam. There they bought two prepaid mobile cards and rented a car at Avis.
But the assassination of Sison was not committed. A second attempt with a second team, a few months later, also failed. The aspirant-killers first had difficulty in finding Sison. When they had found out his home, office and routes, they almost came into action twice. One time against the wrong person. Another time they got afraid and withdrew because Sison was walking, holding a child. Their rented car was also broken into – luggage gone. They gave a notification of this to the local police because of the insurance.
The killing was supposed be carried out with a knife and an axe. But it took so long The teams lost courage, felt literally cold in The Netherlands and they got worried about home. They also found that they were conspicuous. The Utrecht people walked around in the cool spring weather just in T-shirts. They had thick jackets. And they had to hide therein the axe. Why did Manila anyway want that it had to be done with a knife? A real gun, that’s what they wanted!
The details come from the interrogation conducted by the Nationale Recherche [National Criminal Investigation] in the end of February 2008 at the American army base, Clark, in the Philippines with Jose Ramos (53). This person stayed for weeks over seven years ago in The Netherlands with the objective to kill Sison. He dropped out because he heard that back home he had been put on record as “deserted” [AWOL “away without leave”]. That made him afraid. He feared that the secret service would kill him after the assassination.
Sison himself had in the meantime found out about everything. His sources in Manila had informed him by letter. And he gave a detailed notification to the Utrecht police. This latter warned the AIVD [General Intelligence and Security Service], and after this everything remained still. No one was arrested. “Too few reference points,” says the Public Prosecutor’s Office later.
Until last week. Then the current lawyer of Sison, Michiel Pestman, came back from vacation. He found six new folders with testimonies on his desk. It looked like “the nth installment” in the procedure of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to get Sison in jail for a double murder in the Philippines. For against Sison there are the necessary complaints (see sidebar). But in the dossier there was a little gift: the curious declaration of Ramos – who appeared to incriminate himself, and so delivered the first proof that the attack [assassination attempt] earlier was real.
Ramos had kept the hotel bill and gave this willingly to the Nationale Recherche. The witness Ramos had contact with the [Philippine] secret service, from whom he received money and travel papers. And thus there was a connection with the Philippine government. Even a failed attempt at political assassination, according to Pestman, is a violation of the Dutch sovereignty by a foreign power. Since when does a friendly country send death squads, to Utrecht, by the way?
The new information is for him also a chance to give a new turn to the Sison case. This Ramos and his travel companions must be extradited to The Netherlands. Or at least, in his estimation, they should be prosecuted in the Philippines. The Public Prosecutor’s Office says that the assassination was not carried out and thus it is not criminally punishable. But Pestman rejects the juridical argument of ‘voluntary withdrawal” [“vrijwillige terugtred”]. A ‘defective attempt’ remains criminally punishable if it is a grave crime which is committed ‘in association’. That was the case here. He now demands criminal prosecution.
In the dossier there was still something crazy. In one of the murders of which Sison is suspect, the police have discovered another suspect. A certain Edwin Garcia, also with connections to the secret service, who was supposed to also be in Utrecht. This man is supposed to have been recognized at the assassination of a renegade member of the party of Sison, a certain Kintanar. This person had gone over to the government side and appears to have organized the attack in Utrecht.
In that way, the ‘James Bond film’ was complete. The killing of Kintanar in the Philippines could have been organized in order to put the blame on Sison. Sison is supposed to then have a double motive. Revenge against a traitor from one’s own circle who also tried to kill him in Utrecht.
Did Sison really do it or was he caught? There is no concrete proof for this. Only indications. Pestman points to official Philippine requests to The Hague to have Sison prosecuted. The suspicion against Garcia precisely takes the burden off his client. Just like the attack [assassination attempt] in Utrecht, it proves that the Philippine state wants to go very far to put Sison out of the way. However, the Public Prosecutor’s Office sees no connection between the cases.
Pestman calls the whole case a “stinking game” [“onwelriekend spel”]. Pestman is still making complaints against all the steps that the Public Prosecutor’s Office takes against Sison. Up to now, he is declared correct by the judges. Against Sison there were insufficient serious complaints to seriously consider him a suspect. Pestman thinks that the case of the state is so weak that he would consider an interim dismissal disappointing. He prefers most a complete acquittal.
On June 10 the judge will issue a ruling on his complaint against the ‘notice of further prosecution’. Depending on that, the spokesman of the national office of the prosecutor says, “we are again evaluating the case”.
[Sidebar] Sison on the EU-terror list
Jose Maria Sison causes a headache to the US and the Philippines already for decades. Since last year, the national office [of the Public Prosecutor] in Rotterdam tried to get Sison behind bars for the killing of two renegade members of his party in the Philippines.
The national office acknowledges that Sison was not in the Philippines during the time of the killings and that he has not spoken with the actual perpetrators. But because of his leading political role, it finds Sison to be ‘functional perpetrator’ [‘functioneel dader’].
The Nationale Recherche, with American and Philippine support, carried out extensive investigation in the Philippines. Sison is since 2002 on the US and EU terror list. His bank account was blocked.
The EU Court of First Instance, part of the European Court of Justice, decided in 2007, that the listing on the terror list is unjust. The Council of Ministers however keeps him [on the list]. Sison was refused asylum in The Netherlands, but is tolerated because he cannot be expelled.
Dutch court orders frozen bank accounts of NDF unblocked
By LOUI GALICIA
ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau, ABS-CBN News Online, 6 June 2008
The District Court in The Hague has ordered the Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office to unblock the bank accounts of National Democratic Front (NDF) officers and others that were frozen in September in connection with the arrest of Jose Maria Sison last year.
In a hearing held at the Palace of Justice June 5, complainants including Luis Jalandoni, Connie Ledesma, Fidel Agcaoili, Dan Borjal and Jose Maria Sison and wife Juliet filed a motion asking the court to order the Prosecutor to unblock the bank accounts and to return the data and digital files that are still in the Dutch office’s possession.
“The prosecutor decided today that all the accounts are being unblocked from tomorrow, all the accounts of the complainers who are related to Mr. Sison,” Marcel van Wezel who is one of the five lawyers of the NDF and other complainants told ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau in an exclusive interview.
Simultaneous with the arrest of Sison, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair, last August 28, raids were conducted in his apartment, the NDF office in Utrecht and five houses of Filipinos.
PCs, laptops, CDs and documents were taken by the police from the raided establishments and in September, the NDF’s bank account and the personal accounts of Agcaoili, Juliet and other NDF members were blocked.
Months later, the PCs, laptops and some CDs were returned but not all NDF files and until this hearing the bank accounts remained frozen.
Van Wezel said that the blocked accounts were suspected of being connected to Sison.
“They thought that all the amounts of money in the accounts are belonging to Mr. Sison,” van Wezel said in the exclusive interview.
Agcaoili was very angry because, he said, that he and the other complainants do not have anything to do with the murder charges against Sison.
“Ang reklamo namin, hindi naman kami akusado o sinasabing akusado pero bakit yung aming mga account eh kasama sa blocked. Aming mga papeles at documento eh kasama sa pinagkukuha, eh ano ang batayan?” blurted Agcaoili to ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau.
“Ngayon nag-file ng kasagutan ang prosecutor. Ang sabi nila ang punto eh kasi tinitignan nila lahat ng mga possibilities in relation ke Joma sa ganito, mga ganyan dahil sa kanyang pagkakalagay sa terrorist listing kaya lumalawak ang kanilang pag-iimbistiga,” added Agcaoili.
Agcaoili also complains that it took nine months for the hearing to be held because of several postponements.
Sison agrees that the Prosecutor has no right to freeze the accounts, not even his wife’s account.
“They have nothing to do with the charge of inciting murder on Kintanar or even insinuation. Wala namang evidence ‘yong money landering, etc. Wala namang grounds,” Sison said.
Sison complains that the only real bank account blocked that belonged to him is his joint account with his wife and even this has no connection to the murders of Kintanar and Tabara.
“Sa lahat ng bank accounts na dinakma, ang bank account lang na tunay na akin eh ‘yong joint account namin ni Julie na doon na nakapasok ang aming Japanese yen na kinita namin bilang honoraria nung nasa Japan kami nung 1986 and then ‘yong bayad ng German publication house and American publication house. Binigyan ako ng several thousands of dollars for manuscript preps and royalties. Eh 1988 ‘yon so anong kinalaman sa 2001 and 2003,” said Sison who is also chief political consultant of NDF in stalled peace talks between the NDF and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).
“Asan ‘yong ‘limpak limpak na pera kay Sison dahil sa mga revolutionary tax’? Eh wala. ‘Yong mga bank accounts na kinuha eh pag-aari ng mga foundation at individuals na walang kinalaman sa akin, independent of me and I have no control” Sison said.
No decision yet on return of confiscated materials
Although the court’s immediate partial decision was a victory for the NDF, no decision has been issued yet with regards to its other complaint which is the return of the confiscated materials.
Pendong Jalandoni, son of the NDF chair Luis Jalandoni and also one of the five lawyers of the NDF and other complainants, said he is disappointed that there was no outright decision on the confiscated materials and thinks that the Prosecution is fishing for some other information.
“First of all, the people they raided. There’s no indication of any links or association with the criminal acts suspected si Prof. Sison of. Secondly, it’s a big fishing expedition and they took more things than necessary,” the younger Jalandoni said.
He said that documents such as the Permanent People’s Tribunal’s files from last year have no connection to the murder charges against Sison which took place four years ago.
“Those were documents related to events that took place four years after the murders so if there was a murder, it is very very unlikely na related pa ‘yan or there will still be communications four years after,” Pendong said.
He also thinks that the Dutch Prosecution office was gathering information about the Philippine Left because even the documents relating to the peace talks were seized and not returned.
Agcaoili confirms that there is a big bulk of files from the Joint Monitoring Committee between the NDF and GRP containing about 20 to 25 folders of materials against the Philippine government that remained in the Prosecutor’s hands.
“They confiscated all documents regarding peace talks. So very obvious that the reason for them to confiscate was not to find evidence on a murder case but to get information about the left opposition in the Philippines and to collaborate with different intelligent agencies,” Pendong said.
Pendong thinks that there is a very big political game at play.
“The outcome is clear that the Dutch government does not want to return or destroy those documents that clearly have nothing in relation to the murder case and it’s clear to me the political meaning of this persecution,” he added.
“They have shown some willingness to return some hard copies but the data, the digital information they’re not willing or destroy or even say they will not even give to Philippine authorities or other security agencies in the world,” said Pendong.
Pendong’s father, who looked very tired after the more than three hours of hearing of the Dutch court can only say one thing.
“This blocking and seizing of material and blocking of account are unfair and unjust and should be undone right away,” Jalandoni said.
Comment by Administrator — June 6, 2008 @ 1:21 pm
Time, Monday, Jun. 09, 2008
The Philippines’ Disappearing Dissidents
By Peter Ritter/Manila
On April 28, 2007, Jonas Burgos, a 37-year-old Philippine political activist, was eating lunch in Ever Gotesco shopping mall in Manila. At around 1:20 p.m., a group of four men approached his table. They spoke quietly to Burgos for about 20 minutes. Then the men began pushing him toward the mall’s exit. “I’m just an activist,” a waitress heard Burgos shout. A mall security guard approached the group. As the guard would later testify, the men warned him that they were police officers. They hustled Burgos outside and into a maroon Toyota. As the car vanished into traffic, the guard wrote down the license plate.
Burgos’ family began to worry immediately when he didn’t show up for a family event that evening. His mother, Edita, tried dialing his mobile phone, but when he answered, he seemed groggy, as though he’d been drugged. When she called again later, his phone had been turned off. Two days later, Edita Burgos called a hasty press conference to ask for help finding her son. Tips began to trickle in. One tipster, who claimed to be a former army intelligence officer, said that Jonas Burgos had been snatched by the Philippine military. “I had no sleep,” Edita Burgos recalls. “I was imagining all sorts of horrors.”
These are dangerous times for Philippine activists. A police task force assigned to investigate politically motivated killings says that 141 activists have been murdered since 2001, when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to power. All but a handful of those cases remain unsolved. Karapatan, a Philippine human-rights group, estimates a much bloodier tally: 902 murdered labor leaders, journalists, local politicians, priests, and peasant organizers. Dozens more activists have vanished. In June 2006, less than a year before Jonas Burgos was snatched, two young female organizers from the University of the Philippines were abducted at gunpoint in Bulacan.
The Philippine government has pledged to improve its human-rights record. Yet most of these abduction cases linger in limbo, stymied by the military’s recalcitrance or police ineptitude. A March report by the U.S. State Department noted that “judicial inaction on the vast majority of disappearances contributed to a climate of impunity and undermined public confidence in the justice system.” During a highly publicized six-month inquiry by the Philippines Court of Appeals, witnesses and military personnel offered tantalizing glimpses into the shadowy circumstances surrounding the brazen daylight abduction of Jonas Burgos. Yet when the proceeding concluded last week, Edita Burgos was no closer to knowing who took her son, or why. But that should not be surprising. As the case of Jonas Burgos demonstrates, families of the disappeared often expect to find neither solace nor justice in Philippine courtrooms.
Cycle of Violence
Experience had taught Edita Burgos to fear the worst. During the military dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, her husband, Jose, had published a popular opposition newspaper. The paper’s offices were frequently raided, and Jose Burgos was held under house arrest for two years. Jonas and his siblings were nursed on their parent’s leftist politics, often taking photographs or covering rallies for their father. The family was also steeped in Catholicism. After her husband died in 2003, Edita Burgos became a lay Carmelite nun. Jonas himself briefly considered joining the priesthood, but instead took a degree in agriculture, specializing in organic farming. When the family relocated from Manila to a farm in Bulacan province, Jonas adopted rural life wholesale. “He dressed like a farmer,” says Edita. “He was just like them in his manner, so he could relate to them. He had a rapport with the people.”
In Bulacan, Burgos began working with a peasant activist group, training farmers in organic techniques and giving political seminars. The government has accused the group of supporting the New People’s Army (NPA), a Communist insurgency that has festered for more than three decades in the country’s impoverished hinterland. But the peasant group’s leader, Joseph Canlas, says that neither Burgos nor his group was connected with the insurgents. Burgos certainly had deeply felt leftist sympathies. Yet even his own family cannot say for certain whether he was a mere fellow traveler or an active NPA supporter. On occasion, his mother says, he would disappear for weeks into the mountains. He would tell her he was meeting farmers in remote villages; she suspected he was meeting insurgents in their jungle redoubts.
Philippine police and military have long blamed the killings and kidnappings on internal purges within the Communist insurgency. The NPA does have a history of murderous infighting: in 2003, a former insurgent leader was gunned down in a Manila restaurant while eating lunch. But international and Philippine human-rights watchdogs allege that the military itself is responsible for many of the deaths and disappearances. According to Ruth Cervantes, a spokeswoman for Karapatan, the violence peaked in 2006, at the height of a new government offensive against the NPA. In a scathing 2007 report, Philip Alston, a special rapporteur for the U.N., wrote that the country’s military “is in a state of denial concerning the numerous extrajudicial executions in which its soldiers are implicated.” For the first time last year, the U.S. made some of its military aid to the Philippines contingent on the country improving its human-rights record. The international disapprobation was a source of embarrassment to an Arroyo administration already staggered by allegations of vote-rigging and corruption. And the government has taken steps to prosecute the killings more aggressively, including participating in a national summit last July on extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances. At that summit, the country’s Supreme Court declared a new remedy for victims of government violence. Adapted from Latin American legal systems, the writ of amparo—”protection,” in Spanish—would, in theory, disallow blanket government denials in cases were soldiers are suspected of kidnapping activists. Thus far, the new law has proven a qualified success, according to Neri Colmenares, a human-rights lawyer who has represented more than a dozen families of abducted activists. In one case involving two farmers who alleged they were detained at various army bases for 18 months and subjected to torture—including whippings with barbed wire and being bathed in their own urine—the Philippines Court of Appeals agreed that the military was culpable, and that military investigators had failed to sufficiently probe their complaint. But many other cases where the military is suspected of involvement in disappearances have resulted in few answers.
Dead-End Investigation
Burgos’ abduction grabbed headlines in the Philippines in part because of his family’s prominence during the Marcos era. Arroyo herself called Edita Burgos to assure her that police would pursue the case aggressively. But from the start the investigation seemed to sputter. A week after the abduction, police told Burgos’ mother that they’d found a corpse resembling Jonas. The man had been bound with a cord, strangled, shot twice in the skull, and dumped by a lonely country roadside. Edita Burgos insisted it was not her son. As part of their investigation, police also traced the license plate of the Toyota used by the kidnappers. They discovered that the plate had originally belonged to a vehicle in Bulacan. In July 2006, the owner of that vehicle was cited for illegal logging illegally, and the vehicle itself was impounded by the army’s 56th Infantry Battalion, also stationed in Bulacan. A second car allegedly used by the kidnappers was traced to a top military officer. Since then, the impounded car—and its license plate—have been sitting on an army base. The plate seemed to point to the military’s involvement in Burgos’s abduction. “This is vital information that connects the military to the case,” says Purificacion C. Valera Quisumbing, chair of the Philippines Commission on Human Rights at the time of the abduction. “We’re not saying they were the ones who did the abduction. We’re just saying that this is a vital connection.”
The military conducted its own internal investigation into the license plate. While that report recommended censuring three of the battalion’s officers for failing to keep track of the plate, it did not offer an explanation of how the plate became attached to the car used to snatch Burgos—other than to suggest that someone seeking to discredit the military may have snuck into the base and stolen it. In July, a senior government prosecutor announced that he wanted to interview six military officers in connection with Burgos’ abduction. He was immediately removed from the case. Senior military officers have offered their own explanation for the abduction. In a letter to the human-rights commission, General Hermogenes Esperon, head of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) at the time of the abduction, suggested that Jonas Burgos was, in fact, a high-ranking insurgent who went by the nom de guerre Ka Ramon. In August 2007, four months after Burgos disappeared, police produced three new witnesses: former NPA insurgents who claimed they had seen Burgos’ kidnapping. The ex-insurgents claimed that Burgos was an NPA member, and was targeted by his own comrades in a dispute over money.
General Esperon, who retired last month, declined repeated requests for an interview. A military spokesman, Lt.Col. Bartolome Bacarro, says that the military was not involved. “We as an organization categorically deny we were involved in the abduction of Mr. Jonas Burgos,” Bacarro says. “There is just a possibility that some AFP members might be implicated. If that happens, we would make available members implicated in the abduction in court. It is not a policy of the AFP to be involved in these kinds of activities.” Bacarro also says that he does not believe the military was investigating Burgos at the time of his abduction. But a confidential military memo dating from May 2007 places Burgos in the army’s “order of battle”—a roster of NPA insurgents targeted for arrest or elimination. Next to Burgos’ name is the word “neutralized.” The memo bears the name of the 56th Infantry Battalion’s chief intelligence officer, but is not signed. Bacarro will not confirm the document’s authenticity. “It is the subject of an investigation so we’re leaving it to the court to assert the authenticity,” he says.
Thus far, however, Philippine courts have shed little light on the murky circumstances surrounding Burgos’ abduction. As part of an amparo complaint filed by Edita Burgos, a number of military officers have testified; all have denied military involvement in the kidnapping. Burgos continues to insist that the army orchestrated her son’s disappearance. If he is still alive, she says she would like him released; if dead, she would like only to know where his body is buried.
In late March, Burgos’ family held a celebration for what would have been his 38th birthday at the Carmelite convent where Edita Burgos works. As she sat in the convent’s sunlit courtyard, in front on an untouched chocolate cake, a procession of care-worn middle-aged women came up to her. They were, she explained, mothers of other activists who have vanished. When the women had gone, Burgos continued: “This is not about Jonas alone. They are killing the future leaders of our country. If you kill these people, who will be left?”
Comment by Administrator — June 11, 2008 @ 11:00 am
Press Statement
12 June 2008
IADL AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATES
EXPOSE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN THE NETHERLANDS
By Coni Ledesma
International Committee DEFEND
We are deeply gratified and happy to learn that the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), together with other organizations of human rights advocates, adopted the common position of exposing the violation of human rights of Filipinos living in The Netherlands and defending said Filipinos, during the 8th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on 11 June 2008.
In representation of IADL, Atty. Edre U. Olalia, president of the International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL), made an intervention in the course of the consideration of the report of the Working Group on the human rights record of The Netherlands. He exposed the oppressive actions undertaken by the Dutch government against the members, consultants and staffers of the panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) negotiating with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).
He pointed out that the Dutch government and the GRP had collaborated in using false criminal charges against Prof. Jose Maria Sison, NDFP chief political consultant, as a pretext to arrest and detain him, raid the NDFP information office and the homes of the peace panelists, consultants and staffers of the NDFP and seize their computers, digital files, documents, bank accounts and many other things on 28 August 2007.
Olalia criticized the disparity between the pious pronouncements of the Dutch government about human rights and the continuing political persecution of Filipino political exiles, asylum seekers and refugees like Filipinos in the Netherlands who are in legitimate and democratic opposition to what they view as anti-people policies and programs of the Philippine government.
He called attention to the Gestapo-like simultaneous raids on the offices and residences in August last year of those associated with the NDFP negotiating panel. He described the NDFP as a national liberation movement, whose status is recognized under international law, and which has maintained an open international information office in the Netherlands for a long period of time, and is engaged in peace negotiations with the GRP.
Olalia protested, “How could arbitrary and indiscriminate carting away of an immense amount of materials, including the records and related study materials of peace negotiations since 1986 as well as complaints, evidence and files of the Joint Monitoring Committee, a body designed to monitor compliance with a bilateral agreement on human rights and international humanitarian law be justified?”
He pointed out that the Netherlands government gave credence to false information provided by the Philippine government, particularly from a body called the Inter-Agency Legal Action Group, which the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Prof. Philip Alston recommended to be abolished.
Olalia averred that peace advocates are concerned that the false criminal charges have paralyzed the said peace negotiations. He demanded that the Dutch government show respect for human rights by doing away with persecution through false or politically-motivated charges in order to strengthen the rule of law and promote the implementation of agreements between the GRP and the NDFP, such as the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). He called for the resumption of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations in order to pave the way for the end of the armed conflict in the Philippines and lay the ground for human rights to thrive.
He called attention to the Dutch government’s lack of respect for human rights by subjecting Prof. Sison to arbitrary arrest and continuing political persecution, labeling and legal harassment. He pointed out that the Filipino professor had lived peacefully in exile in the Netherlands and followed its laws for more than 20 years.
Olalia decried the fact that Prof. Sison had been hounded by false criminal allegations to deny him political asylum and residence, bar him from employment, deprive him of social benefits, freeze his bank accounts, stigmatize him and circumvent the legal protection afforded to him by Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Olalia challenged the UN Human Rights Council to react or respond to reports that Dutch and Philippine government authorities at the highest level have a long-running scheme to “oppress and criminalize” Prof. Sison by subjecting him to such false charges and to an endless politically-motivated criminal investigation by the Dutch State.
The oppressive policy of the Dutch government towards Prof. Sison does not cease despite the series of decisions of the Hague District Court on 13 September 2007, The Hague Court of Appeal on 2 October 2007, and the examining judge on 21 November 2007 that there is no prima facie evidence against him. The latest decision of the Hague District Court on 5 June 2008 declares that up to now there is no incriminating evidence against him.
Olalia stressed that persecution through false charges is a major form of human rights violation. The falsely accused is subjected to detention, humiliation, stigmatization, unnecessary expense of efforts and resources, loss of income and opportunities and public incitement of violence against his person and reputation.
He protested, “In this regard, how can the Dutch government guarantee that in the sphere of criminal investigation, prosecution and judicial decision-making, political interests are subservient to the supposed rule of law in the Netherlands so that the human rights of individuals who exercise their basic freedom of thought and expression are promoted and protected?”
He demanded that satisfactory answers be made to the questions he raised. He said, gWithout satisfactory answers, we are afraid that other individuals and organizations in the Netherlands will suffer the same fate in contravention of the basic international instruments to which the Netherlands has committed itself.h He asked the UN Human Rights Council to consider his comments when it decides to adopt the outcome of the review in plenary and to include them in the report of the Councilfs session.h###
Please contact:
For reference please contact:
Coni Ledesma
International Committee DEFEND
Email: defenddemrights@yahoo.com
Telephone: 00-31-30-8895306
Comment by Administrator — June 19, 2008 @ 4:49 pm
Mothers of ‘desaparecidos’ left to seek children, justice on their own
AMITA LEGASPI, GMANews.TV
07/17/2008 | 09:15 PM
If there is one person best placed to explain why the best definition of torture includes the deliberate infliction of mental as well as physical pain, it is Erlinda Cadapan, the 59 year-old mother of missing university student Sherlyn.
It is now more than two years since her daughter was abducted by suspected military agents and joined the long list of desaparecidos — human rights activists and political leaders who have ‘been disappeared’ and simply vanished.
Sherlyn, a sports science student at the University of the Philippines in Quezon City, was taken at gunpoint on June 26, 2006 alongside fellow student Karen Empeño and farmer Manuel Merino, who stepped in to try and help after hearing the girls’ scream. All three were reportedly bundled into a stainless steel jeep with license plate number RTF597.
The three disappeared two years ago last month while working as community organizers in Bulacan just north of Manila. Jonas Burgos was similarly working there at the time he was famously abducted from a shopping mall in Quezon City 10 months later.
“The only thing normal in my life is the abnormality of it,” said Mrs. Cadapan who, like Edita Burgos, mother of missing Jonas, refuses to give up looking or simply stay home waiting for news that might not ever come.
While the government and the executive may be systematically failing all those missing — unable or simply unwilling to help — the families of the disappeared refuse to give up and become silent victims themselves.
Mrs. Cadapan can no longer count how many times she travels three hours to Manila each week to give interviews, attend forums and speak at meetings. Often she arrives home late at night only to receive a text asking her to return to the capital the following day for another event.
Despite financial constraints and the incessant traveling that is taking its toll, she welcomes each and every invitation to speak.
“I have to do this as mothers who give up never find their children,” she told the Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project.
“I really need to remain active so the international community, our local media, even the authorities and, too, the perpetrators know that I know where my daughter is. The military is holding her and it is the military’s responsibility to help me find my daughter,” Mrs. Cadapan said.
Speaking last month in a live television debate, Mrs. Cadapan explained how she had repeatedly been turned away by soldiers at gunpoint when turning up at military bases to look for her daughter.
Last December, two farming brothers testified at the Court of Appeals how they had been held captive by the military alongside Sherlyn and the two others.
Raymund Manalo provided a detailed account of the time he spent with Sherlyn, Karen and Manuel as part of a petition for a writ of amparo served on the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) by Mrs. Cadapan.
The writ of amparo obliges respondents to prove they did not violate the human rights of the named people.
Manalo, whose testimony corroborated accounts given by other abductees, stated how he and his brother had been held captive alongside Sherlyn and the others in Camp Tecson in San Miguel in Bulacan. Camp Tecson hosts the First Scout Ranger Regiment. He added that they were then all transferred to the 24th Infantry Battalion (IB) camp in Limay in Bataan.
He testified how Sherlyn, who was expecting her first baby when abducted, was chained up, tortured and repeatedly raped. He also claimed that the two women suddenly disappeared from the military camp one day in June 2007 when he, his brother and Merino were all taken out and forced to sleep overnight in a nearby forest.
Manalo testified that they were brought back the following day but that neither he nor his brother ever saw Sherlyn and Karen again. He claimed Merino was subsequently killed and his body burnt inside the camp, and was told by a soldier not to bother looking for Sherlyn or Karen as they and Merino were “already together.”
The AFP continues to deny any responsibility for the abductions or knowledge about their whereabouts. However, the Court of Appeals has ruled that there was strong evidence that Merino and the others were abducted by the military. It moreover found that Major General Jovito Palparan, former commander of the 7th Infantry Battalion, “was not telling the whole truth,” and his men were “evasive and contradictory” in their claims to know nothing about the case.
Palparan, the army’s former counter insurgency chief and a fierce anti-Communist, has been charged by the media and human rights groups with responsibility for abductions and extra judicial killings. When it was finally published in February last year, the government’s own Melo Commission report claimed “there was an increase in activist killings in the areas where Gen. Palparan was assigned.”
Palparan denies any responsibility for extra judicial killings.
Still hoping
Yet despite testimonies, both Mrs. Cadapan and Karen’s mother, Mrs. Concepcion Empeño, are still hoping that their daughters will one day return safely home.
“The only hope I am holding on right now is that I will be able to see Karen soon,” Mrs. Empeño said in a phone interview. “We are always waiting for her. I will always keep on searching.”
Says Mrs. Cadapan: “I never thought that something bad would happen to my child because I see nothing wrong with her being an activist, helping the people who were not familiar with the laws and the benefits they should be receiving. To me this constitutes helping the government but the government obviously thinks otherwise.”
Mrs. Cadapan added that it was only after her daughter disappeared that she realized their family had been under some kind of surveillance. Still, though, she cannot quite believe it.
“I never thought my family would be a victim of a human rights violation by the government. I am respected in our community as the secretary of the homeowners association. When the head is not available, people come to me and so I never had any inkling that we had a problem with the authorities,” she said.
Now though her heart is full of pure anger for those she considers responsible for her daughter’s disappearance.
“When I imagine how they tortured my daughter, my anger with the government boils up as I expect them to protect and serve the people as mandated by our Constitution,” Mrs. Cadapan said.
Perhaps not unexpectedly, the case of their missing daughters has turned both mothers into activists themselves. It is both part therapy and part solidarity. The mothers of the disappeared help and strengthen each other. Many of them also look to and receive support from the human rights group Karapatan.
According to its general secretary, Marie Hilao-Enriquez, Karapatan provides a range of services to the families of victims including legal support, assistance and even counseling.
“Our office is an office in the morning and a safe house in the evening for people to come when they need to,” she said, adding that they encourage the relatives to organize themselves into a group “because it is only when they are together that they see hope”.
Mrs. Cadapan agrees. By bonding together and with the support of groups like Karapatan and support among the media, the families of the victims are able to gain strength from each other, and to make a lot of noise and heap pressure on those deemed responsible for the desaparecidos — both perpetrators and the politicians who claim to be in charge. - Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project
Comment by Administrator — July 21, 2008 @ 1:52 pm
Published on Bulatlat (http://www.bulatlat.com)
The Philippine Labor Situation
As the global economic crisis reaches new lows this first half and with worse to follow in the coming months or even years, the Philippine labor force is being battered by one gut-level whammy after another. While the effects of the surge in prices of petroleum products, rice and electricity are indeed being borne by all sectors of society, the country’s 36-million labor force is taking the lion’s share of the beating by virtue of its ever-growing abundance in an ever-shrinking economy.
BY THE ECUMENICAL INSTUTUTE FOR LABOR EDUCATION AND REASEARCH (EILER)
LABOR WATCH
Posted by Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 30, August 31-September 6, 2008
As the global economic crisis reaches new lows this first half and with worse to follow in the coming months or even years, the Philippine labor force is being battered by one gut-level whammy after another. While the effects of the surge in prices of petroleum products, rice and electricity are indeed being borne by all sectors of society, the country’s 36-million labor force is taking the lion’s share of the beating by virtue of its ever-growing abundance in an ever-shrinking economy.
The highly-unpopular government under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is trying to handle the situation by instituting populist policies designed to take the heat off its governance, while conveniently avoiding crying solutions that could make significant inroads towards addressing the roots of the problem. Labor and general public unrest fulminates as the regime continues to hedge on its social obligations, while faithfully observing policies it deems required to keep it in good terms with foreign and local big business interests, as well as with multilateral funding institutions (MFIs) that grant its perennial request for loans. What’s in store for Philippine workers the rest of this year and beyond is foretold by the following objective reading of the local labor situation.
Criminally-low wages
By its own minimalist computation, the Arroyo government pegs the family living wage (or daily-cost-of-living/DCOL for a family of six) to be P894 ($19.466 at an exchange rate of $1=P45.925); on the other hand, the current nominal minimum wage (including ECOLAs) is only P382 ($8.535) in the National Capital Region (NCR), translating to a wage gap of P512 ($11.148). This also means that the nominal wage is only 42.7 percent of the living wage.
Real minimum wage is at P243.31 ($5.297) with 2000 as the baseline year. While nominal minimum wages across regions are higher now on the average by 39 percent as compared with those in 2001, the year that Mrs. Arroyo took over as President of the country, real minimum wages are now lower by 7 percent than those at the start of her term.
In the face of such an “indecent” disparity, the current administration still refuses to legislate a P125 ($2.72) across-the-board wage hike, long demanded by militant labor unions under the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) and the broad alliances of the Wage Increase Solidarity P125 in 1999-2000 and the Unity for P 125 at present., and on the basis of social justice. At the very least, doing so would have raised the nominal minimum wage to P507 ($11.039), still in deficit when compared with the living wage but certainly providing some immediate relief and better elbow room for minimum wage earners to weather out the crisis, until the necessary next round of increases. But since Arroyo’s assumption of power, she has only approved an accrued measly basic wage hike of P62 ($1.35) and with the rest as incremental increases in cost-of-living-allowances (COLA), including the P15 ($0.326) and P5 ($0.108) NCR increase last June 14.This has hardly made a dent on the wage gap of P260 ($5.66) then existing in 2001 and the P384 ($8.36) increase in the family living wage (or DCOL) that has piled up on top in the last 7 years, leading up to the current wage deficit of P512.
Hiding unemployment, “globalizing” jobs
Stymied by worsening landlessness in the countrysides and a chronically backward industrial sector, job generation under Arroyo’s watch has failed to keep up with a constantly growing labor force, currently at 36,450,000, of which 33,536,000 are officially “employed”. The country’s unemployment rate worsened from 9.58 percent in 1996-2000 to 11.4 percent in 2001-2005.
After arbitrarily redefining “unemployed” beginning in April 2005 to exclude own-account, domestic household and unpaid family workers, the Arroyo government was able to magically reduce subsequent unemployment figures by 1.8 million. The current joblessness statistic of 2.9 million was derived using this manipulative computation, easily rectified by using the old definition, which puts the country’s real unemployment rate in double-digits and makes it the highest in Asia. Underemployment, on the other hand, is at 6.6 million individuals.
State-sponsored schemes to sop up the country’s surplus labor have reached new heights, with the Arroyo government throwing its full weight behind such services-oriented solutions as labor-export and business-process outsourcing (BPO), twin mantras for “development” under neoliberalism aggressively promoted by MFIs such as the IMF-WB and the ADB. While these stop-gap measures do give some temporary relief to a regime beleaguered by social pressures of its own making, they have only further exposed Filipino workers to violations of core labor standards here and abroad while drawing the economy farther away from a much-needed comprehensive and strategic industrialization program.
Last year, the number of documented overseas Filipinos have reached 8.7 million. Around 5 million of these are contract-based workers, while the remaining 3.7 million are permanent residents or immigrants. Their remittances, amounting to $17 billion in 2007, have grown by an annual average of 16 percent since 2001 and now comprises 10 percent of the current GDP.
On the other hand, the BPO “industry” has burgeoned not only in the NCR but also in outlying regions such as Central Luzon, Central Visayas and Southern Mindanao. Centered mainly around contact centers (or “call centers”), BPO has been touted by the Arroyo government as a “recession-proof” alternative for the upper-scale job market, and most certainly a boon for MNCs abroad eager to save up on peripheral operations cost. Accounting for 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005 and employing around 163,000 workers (70 percent of whom are in call centers), the BPO industry is optimistically projected to employ some 1 million workers by 2010.
But this seeming oasis of employment opportunity is now under scrutiny from trade unionists for being extremely exploitative, anti-union, and generally hazardous to workers’ health. On the average, local call center employees receive only one-fifth of the salaries of their counterparts in subcontracting countries such as the US and UK. Majority of these local workers also suffer from a host of work-related health problems, most of which are lethal in the short- or long-run.
Workers who do find jobs in the Philippines find that they face another big hurdle after being hired: contractualization. Big businesses, whether foreign or local, have long mastered the fine art of labor flexibilization in employment, assisted no end by a President and a government that is thoroughly sold out on the scheme. Based on the 2003 admission of Donald Dee, President of Employers Confederation of the Philippines (ECOP), 7 out 10 firms in the country practice contractualization. Some of the worst “contractualizers” among companies are also among the biggest, such as Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco’s San Miguel Corporation (SMC) conglomerate (1,100 regulars out of its 26,000 total workforce); Henry Sy’s SM Shoemart (1,300 regulars out of 20,000); and Manny Pangilinan’s Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (4,100 out of 10,000). Such widespread destruction of tenurial security in labor has had a profound impact on Philippine workers’ freedom to exercise their trade union and other democratic rights. Most of all, massive contactualization has greatly reduced the variable capital for wages, with the monopoly capitalists seeking ever-increasing superprofits in the face of the current world capitalist crisis of overproduction.
Crippled unions, no unions
More than at any other period in its history, institutionalized trade unionism in the Philippines has become a sham. The Arroyo government’s all-out rush to attune the local labor market to the demands of the neoliberal agenda has run roughshod over core labor standards, seemingly leaving no option to workers but to adopt an independent and militant form of advocacy.
While local laws such as the Labor Code exist that formally guarantee the right of workers to unionize, the finer print and state actions themselves say otherwise. Laws that constrain or even prohibit the formation and actions of workers’ organizations abound, foremost of which are those that allow “qualified” contractualization like Articles 106-109 of the Labor Code, the Herrera Law and the Department of Labor and Employment’s (DOLE) D.O. 18-02; mandatory 30-day notice in the filing of strikes; the Marcos-era strike provision that allows ingress and egress of company goods and scabs; and the indiscriminate issuance of Assumption of Jurisdiction (AJ) orders by the DOLE that covers even non-strategic or non-vital industries.
Among the anti-union legislation and practices arrayed against Philippine labor, contractualization is especially destructive. Whereas there are no explicit provisions in any law against unionizing of contractuals, their concrete circumstances itself becomes the prohibition. No employer would consent to them being part of a union’s bargaining coverage, since they only have 5-month contracts at the most. For the same reason, no union composed mostly or exclusively of contractual workers in a firm would be able to obtain a CBA with management or even to uphold one in a practicable period of time. Under this situation, contractualization is turned into a benign-looking but immensely effective tool by big business to block nascent unionism or to bust existing unions.
Those that persist and succeed in forming unions immediately become targets of persecution by big capitalists and the state, who seem to find common ground in fostering a “no union, no strike” environment particularly in the country’s special economic zones. To cite a dramatic case, Gerardo Cristobal, President of the EMI-Yazaki Garments union in Imus, Cavite was fatally shot last March 10 after having survived a previous attempt last year. Also a leader of broad-based labor alliance Solidarity of Cavite Workers (SCW), Cristobal became the 80th in a list of trade unionists killed for political reasons under the Arroyo government. None of these killings have been satisfactorily prosecuted to date.
Given such hostile conditions, it comes as no surprise that the number of genuinely unionized workers in the Philippines has sharply declined. While in 1995 14.6 percent of the labor force was still unionized, 2007 data shows a much-reduced 5.6 percent or 16,861 unions with a total membership of 1,893,000 workers. But even this is not reflective of the real picture, since DOLE does not monitor the status of unions on a regular basis and includes even those in firms that have closed down over the past few years. A more accurate benchmark would be the number of existing CBAs and their workforce coverage, which now counts 1,573 agreements covering some 222,000 workers all over the country. These figures portray the true state of union-building in the country, and is a damning record of big capitalist-state collusion in the suppression of Philippine workers’ democratic rights under “globalization”.
Renewed bases for struggle and unity
There are two major reasons that make the big business ideal of “cheap and docile labor” in the Philippines a temporal victory at most. Firstly, the current global economic crisis is projected by analysts to last even longer than the previous ones; and secondly, the labor movement’s core of independent and militant labor are not known for taking such periodic crises lying down.
In the midst of the recent alarming slew of price hikes, militant and independent labor organizations quickly formed themselves into an alliance called the “Unity for P125″. It aims to build a broad mass movement among private sector workers that will leverage not only for an immediate and substantial wage increase but for the scrapping of regional wage boards (RWBs) that are being used by government to regulate wage fixing in favor of big capital.
Workers’ organizations are also in the thick of multisectoral networks and alliances that seek to bring down the prices of oil, electricity and rice. Among the concrete public measures urgently being sought are the scrapping of 12 percent value-added tax on petroleum products, repeal of the Oil Deregulation Law, lowering of systems-loss charges in power rates, and subsidized pricing in rice. More strategic calls, however, are also being floated to deal with price spikes in the long term and address their systemic roots, such as nationalization of the oil and power industry and genuine agrarian reform. Hit hard by crisis engendered locally and abroad, the Philippine labor sector gathers its strength to fight not only for its own welfare but for those of other marginalized sectors as well. EILER/Posted by Bulatlat
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Comment by Administrator — August 31, 2008 @ 9:40 pm
Published on Bulatlat (http://www.bulatlat.com)
Karapatan at 13: Defending Human Rights, Advancing People’s Rights
Why do they risk death to defend human rights? For Karapatan workers, it’s the way to live.
BY RONALYN V. OLEA
Bulatlat
Volume VIII, Number 30, August 31- September 6, 2008
“What is there in these people to work in the way they do? Perhaps, the biggest reward they could get is a hug from a victim… It really goes against human nature to go against self-preservation but these people risk their lives.”
Mrs. Edita Burgos, mother of the disappeared activist Jonas, said these words, referring to members of Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights), during the group’s 13th anniversary celebration.
Karapatan was formed in a congress on August 17 to 19, 1995, at the Bulwagang Plaridel of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) in Sta. Mesa, Manila.
On its 13th year gathering, held on August 20 at the Claro M. Recto Hall in the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Marie Hilao-Eniquez, Karapatan secretary general, recalled the context by which the group was founded.
She said that during the Aquino administration, there was disorientation among human rights workers, especially with regards how they view human rights and the situation then. “Many thought the Aquino, being the wife of a victim of human rights abuses during martial law years, would bring forth the promotion of the people’s rights.”
Benjie Oliveros, who was with the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines and the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace then, added that the Aquino government implemented some political reforms in response to the demands of the anti-dictatorship movement that ousted Marcos such as the release of political prisoners, the restoration of formal democratic rights, and the creation of the Presidential Committee on Human Rights with the late Sen. Jose W. Diokno at the helm. But it did not implement fundamental reforms. She did not even repeal the repressive decrees of the Marcos dictatorship; and human rights workers failed to see this.
Enriquez continued, “Her government proved to be a restored elite democracy. She was no less the representative of the ruling class. It was not long before she unsheathed the ‘sword of war’ against the people.”
Enriquez said that Aquino implemented a vicious counter-insurgency campaign patterned after the “low intensity conflict” strategy of the US government. A fact finding mission headed by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark in 1987 found striking similarities between the counter-insurgency strategy employed by the US in Vietnam and that of the Aquino government.
The succeeding regime of Fidel Ramos employed a soft approach to the insurgency, Enriquez said. This included an amnesty program and enticing the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) into a final peace agreement. It was also Ramos who first employed Special Operation Teams, small teams of soldiers specializing in psychological warfare.
Enriquez added, however, that the Ramos regime’s counter-insurgency programs Operation Lambat Bitag 2 and 3 in Cagayan Valley and Negros brought about many human rights violations.
She noted that Ramos’ globalization policies wreaked havoc on the lives of the people, violating the people’s socio-economic rights.
“This was the backdrop by which Karapatan was formed,” said Enriquez.
She recalled: “In 1994, we walked out of the Congress of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA).”
She said that PAHRA leaders had developed a different view on human rights.
Enriquez explained, “Human rights do not exist in a vacuum. It must be viewed in the context of social and political situation.”
She added, “We are always biased for the victims, never neutral. Human rights workers must work within the people’s movement, not above it.”
Prof. Sarah Raymundo of the Congress of Teachers for Nationalism and Democracy (CONTEND) said that Karapatan, unlike other human rights groups, has a comprehensive understanding of rights to include economic, social, civil and political rights. “Saklaw nito ang karapatang pang-ekonomiko para magkaroon ng buhay na may dignidad,” (This covers economic rights so that people could live with dignity.) said Raymundo.
Enriquez said that 11 out of 13 regional chapters of the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP) became the backbone of Karapatan. Only the chapters in the National Capital Region and Southern Mindanao remained with PAHRA.
She also recognized the contribution of Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Para sa Amnestiya (SELDA), an organization of political prisoners, and the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP) to the early years of Karapatan.
Enriquez said that even before the founding congress of Karapatan, its flag was unfurled several times during protest actions at the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), at the National Bilibid Prison (NBP), at the Department of Justice and during the arrival of the Papal Nuncio. She said Karapatan had to voice out its position on pressing issues.
She recalled that in January 1995, political prisoners staged a hunger strike to demand the immediate release of the elderly and the sick. She said that 45 prisoners were successfully released. “Karapatan carried the most progressive position on the issue of political prisoners,” she said.
In May 1995, Enriquez related, Karapatan and its member organization Migrante went into the limelight after a picket at the Singapore Embassy in support of Flor Contemplacion.
Filling a vaccum
In her solidarity statement, Mrs. Burgos said, “Karapatan came to be because there was a vacuum; there was a need to defend human rights.”
Enriquez said the founding congress was held with the full support of then PUP President Dr. Nemesio Prudente.
She said that Armando Malay, Romy Capulong, Crispin Beltan, Dan Vizmanos, among others, attended to welcome the formation of Karapatan.
In 1997, Karapatan held a national fact finding mission. Karapatan opposed Ramos’ proposed measures such as the Anti-Terror bill and the National ID system.
Karapatan also joined other groups in opposing the attempts of the Ramos government to remove the limitations on the term of the president and other public officials, and the safeguards on national patrimony through a charter change.
Karapatan described the Estrada administration as corrupt and repressive.
Enriquez recalled that due to Estrada’s all-out war in Mindanao, thousands of internal refugees were found in cramped evacuation centers.
Karapatan helped form the Moro-Christian People’s Alliance (MCPA) to assist the victims.
She also criticized Estrada’s counter insurgency program Oplan Makabayan and the ratification of the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA).
Enriquez said that in 2000, Karapatan was the first organization to call for Estrada’s ouster because of human rights abuses.
Worse than Marcos
Enriquez said that in 2001, upon Arroyo’s assumption to power, Karapatan presented to Arroyo the human rights agenda.
Karapatan urged Arroyo to stop the all-out war, resume peace negotiations, indemnify victims of human rights violations especially during martial law, release all political prisoners, and review the Oil Deregulation Law, among others.
“GMA said that all of these would be studied but nothing has been realized,” related Enriquez.
Enriquez said further, “She brought the country back to martial law years. It is as if Marcos never left.”
She said that Arroyo is even worse. “Gross and systematic violations of the people’s rights are committed without openly declaring martial rule.”
Risking lives
CONTEND’s Raymundo said that Karapatan played a very important role especially in the recent years. She said that extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances targeting legal political activists are implemented through the Oplan Bantay Laya.
Raymundo said that Karapatan considers rights not as an abstract concept but a way of life. “Naisasabuhay nila ang karapatan sa pamamagitan ng pagtataguyod nito (They uphold human rights as a way of life).”
Karapatan has three line works, which include services, documentation, administration, and media liaison.
The group continues to conduct trainings on documentation, paralegal, fact-finding missions, media work, service delivery, lobby work, international relations and solidarity work.
Burgos spoke about the courage of Karapatan workers who formed fact-finding missions and provided services to victims of rights abuses: “Imbes na magtago, sila pa ang mangunguna (Instead of hiding, they are in the forefront.)…they get abused, they get killed.”
Sen. Ma. Consuelo ‘Jamby’ Madrigal, in her solidarity statement, also commended Karapatan. “You’re the only ones who give your life to a cause.”
She added, “Karapatan members, whether here or in Geneva or elsewhere, show undiminished passion and zeal for the defense of human rights.”
Burgos recalled that it was on April 30, 2007 when she had her first direct contact with Karapatan. They then held a press conference announcing the disappearance of Jonas.
“Kaming mga biktima, hindi namin alam lahat ng aming mga karapatan. Ano ang law, rule, ordinance. (We, the victims don’t know all our rights, which law to invoke) Karapatan provides these for us,” said Burgos.
She said it has been 170 days since the day she met Karapatan. “Kung pwede lang, gusto ko katabi ko lagi sila. There is this confidence.”
She added, “Will I find my Jonas? Without Karapatan, it won’t be possible for us to continue.”
Martyrs
Burgos said, “They have the courage that not everybody has. Is it because of the blood spilled by the martyrs?”
A short video was shown as a tribute to 33 slain human rights workers, volunteers, and legal counsels.
When the lights were turned on, most of Karapatan members fought back their tears. They were reminded of their fallen colleagues.
Enriquez said, “We celebrate their lives. Our martyrs will continue to inspire us.” Bulatlat
Source URL:
http://www.bulatlat.com/2008/08/karapatan-13-defending-human-rights-advancing-people-s-rights
Comment by Administrator — August 31, 2008 @ 9:42 pm
America is in the Heart
by Carlos Bulosan
Introduction by Carey McWilliams.
“I know deep down in my heart, that I am an exile in America … I feel like a criminal running away from a crime I did not commit. And this crime is that I am Filipino in America.” —Carlos Bulosan
First published in 1946, this autobiography of the well-known Filipino poet describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to the U.S. and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West.
Bulosan does not spare the reader any of the horrors that accompanied the migrant’s life; but his quiet, stoic voice is the most convincing witness to the terrible events he witnessed.
Softcover, 327pp
Comment by Administrator — August 31, 2008 @ 9:52 pm
September 6, 2008
A year after arrest, Sison’s case in the Netherlands still in limbo
By LOUI GALICIA
ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau
It has been one year since the arrest of Jose Maria Sison in Utrecht, Netherlands on Aug. 28, 2007, yet it is still not clear where his case is headed, ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau reported.
The founding chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines was detained in Scheveningen prison on charges filed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office for the murders of erstwhile allies Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara in the Philippines but was released two weeks later on lack of incriminating evidence.
At the same time as his arrest, the National Democratic Front office and houses of the NDF members were raided which resulted in the confiscation of computers, diskettes, CDs and files but which are slowly being returned now.
In June, the Prosecution was granted permission by the District Court of The Hague to continue its investigation of Sison until December.
On the anniversary of his arrest, Sison expressed his anger because he said that up to now there is really nothing against him.
“I was dissatisfied with the ruling of the court with regard to our demand that our investigation and prosecution be ended but there’s a key point in that decision of the court, that there’s no incriminating evidence. It’s just giving way to the prosecution to continue investigating as it wishes. The prosecution has that much prerogative to continue its investigation with the police even without the presence of an investigating judge,” Sison said.
“Mahabang panahon na ang dumaan bago ako naaresto noong 2007. Ngayon napatunayan sa court na walang evidence and they [prosecution] got more than, more time to do the investigation so meron silang plus na one year by September. ‘Yong malaking abuso sa akin eh ‘yong pang-iipit na walang pinangbabatayan so may basis kami by September to complain and make a demand to end [the investigation],” Sison added.
Seized materials being returned
Sison complained that since June, he didn’t hear anymore from the Prosecution except that it is now returning the rest of the materials that were confiscated last year.
In a visit to the NDF office in Utrecht for this interview, Negotiating Panel official Fidel Agcaoili and staffer Aldo Gonzales showed to ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau five boxes containing binders of documents, diskettes and books that the Prosecution recently returned to the office.
“Sabi nga mga twelve boxes ang sinauli pero para sa lahat ‘yon. Sa akin parang three boxes, para sa akin eh kulang pa ‘yon. Marami pang kulang sa akin. Me hinihintay pa akong isang box ng mga CDs, ah no, hindi CDs, kundi diskettes at ilang pang files na hinihintay ko,” Agcaoili said.
For Sison however, this is a good sign.
“Nearly everything confiscated during the raids of Aug. 28 last year, sinasauli na. Konti na lang natitira and only a few days ago, things taken were returned and only the remaining few materials shall be returned next time so we think that the Prosecution is moving already towards the closing of the case because of the continuing lack of evidence,” Sison said.
“Of course we don’t have word now. But it’s our estimate that it [prosecution] can’t find, it seems that it hasn’t found any evidence, otherwise due notice would have been given the court and to me as suspect,” Sison added.
Filing complaint
But Sison is still readying to file a complaint if the case is not yet closed by September.
“Well when it comes in September and there will be no finding of incriminating evidence, then it will be good. The lack of incriminating evidence will be a good basis for demanding the termination of the case. Because you know, the passage of more than one year would mean that the prosecution went into the arrest operations of Aug. 28 without any basis, not withstanding the fact that it did not prepare for the case well before Aug. 28, 2007. He had one more year to investigate and it has nothing,” Sison exclaimed.
Sison said that he seems to have been born with a lot of patience since he has become immune to abuse.
“Kung titignan mo, sa dinami ng paratang sa akin at sa haba ng panahon eh pinatutunayan na wala naman akong kinalaman sa mga paratang. Hindi ba ang dami na. Yung china-charge sa kin,” Sison said.
He gave examples of why even when he was still in the Philippines, it was impossible for him to commit a crime.
“Directly, galing ako sa fascist imprisonment under Marcos, Pagkatapos paglabas ko sa detention, I entered government service by getting reinstated sa UP. Full time ako naglecture bago ako umalis at wala akong pahinga sa mga press interview at speeches. Wala akong pagkakataong gumawa ng kahit na anong krimen,” Sison said.
Sison charged that his persecution continues and believes that it will never stop.
“Hindi na titigil siguro dahil ako naman walang tigil sa pagtataguyod ng prinsipyo at pagbatikos sa pagsasamantala at pang-aapi ng mga imperyalistang Amerikano sa ating bansa at syempre sa maraming concrete issues pati na yung walang batayang pagiging presidente ni Gloria dahil nandaya sa election. At si Gloria naman, para mapatibay ang posiyon niya eh sumakay sa anti-terrorism campaign ng U.S. sa kagustuhan niyang matulungan siya ng U.S. para mapanatili siya sa kapangyarihan. Sumasabay siya sa U.S. sa aking persecution,” Sison said.
Comment by Administrator — September 9, 2008 @ 9:50 am