DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Human rights advocates in Davao City commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10 with a program calling for the end of political repression against activists, community workers, and indigenous peoples.
The Southern Mindanao chapters of Karapatan and Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA) said the Marcos Jr. administration said the arrests and filing of trumped-up charges continue from the previous Duterte administration.
The groups highlighted the cases of the Pangadas brothers Ismael and Mawing, who are Lumad student scholars, and their teachers, the couple Jeffrey and Lerma Diagone, who were arrested in 2022 on charges of trafficking Lumad students.
“After ten (10) months behind bars, the Regional Trial Court (RTC) acquitted all false charges filed against them by state forces,” the groups said in their joint statement.
Karapatan Southern Mindanao secretary general Jay Apiag faces trumped-up charges filed in 2021, the group added.
Union organizer Paul John Dizon was intimidated in his home by agents of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
There have been 316 cases of illegal or arbitrary arrests under the Marcos Jr administration since July 2022, according to Selda. On top of that, there have been 87 cases of extrajudicial killings and 12 cases of enforced disappearances.
Karapatan Southern Mindanao added that there are 55 political prisoners in the Davao Region, five of them women, who are fighting out in courts over trumped-up charges. The group has appealed to the government to address 78 political prisoners who are elderly, while 98 are in poor health and need medical treatment.
“Terror laws are used in full swing to suppress dissent and to derail development and humanitarian work. The wrongful designation of peace consultants and negotiators, as well as community and indigenous people’s leaders, and the baseless charges against human rights defenders have exposed the weaponization of these laws to violate the people’s constitutional rights,” the statement of Karapatan National Office said.
The group said despite Marcos Jr’s “cultivated façade” such as his consideration to cooperate with the International Criminal Court to probe Duterte’s war on drugs, the same counter-insurgency measures by Duterte embodied in the NTF-ELCAC are being implemented.
The militarist whole-of-nation approach (does) not address the roots of the armed conflict in the country and has instead engendered the thousands of cases of human rights and IHL violations,” Karapatan said.
Karapatan said they will continue to support calls from families of victims of the drug war to let the ICC investigate Duterte, and hopes the resumption of peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front will be an “opportunity for the majority of disadvantaged Filipinos.” (davaotoday.com)
Marcos Jr., philippines, Red-tagging, trumped-up charges
