| |
News Release
March 21, 2006
Arroyo Answers Complaints Filed Against Her Human Rights Record By
Stepping Up Killings, Gives Palparan Medal of Honor; Fil-Ams, Allies,
Human Rights Defenders Outraged
NEW YORK-- Less than one week after 3 prominent human rights defenders
from the Philippines traveled over 30,000 miles to the United Nations
headquarters in New York to file formal complaints of record-breaking
human rights violations committed under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime
to the UN Human Rights Committee(UNHRC), blood continues to spill over the
Philippine headlines more than ever before.
This time with the back-to-back killings and attacks of Anti-Arroyo
student activist Cris Hugo of the League of Filipino Students in Legaspi
City, peasant leader Amante Abelon of the partylist Anakpawis, his wife
and their 5-year old son in Central Luzon in less than 24 hours starting
Monday. Abelon and his family were victims of strafing when unidentified
armed assailants ambushed their home.
While mother and child died immediately, Abelon remains in critical
condition at James L. Gordon Memorial Hospital in Olongapo City.
The attacks happened around the same time the Distinguished Service Star
was being awarded to Major General Jovito Palparan, who many have come to
know simply as "the Butcher" of Mindoro, Eastern Visayas and now Central
Luzon, in Fort Bonifacio.
"This is definitive proof that no so-called domestic remedy can be
reliably exhausted by the victims of human rights violations and the
Filipino people to stop the rampant human rights violations the Arroyo
administration is committing at such high frequency other than to oust her
from power. Nothing can be more accurate than to deem these killings as
good as committed with Gloria's own hands." states human rights attorney
Edre Olalia of the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) in the Philippines.
Olalia was among the three, along with Marie Hilao-Enriquez of the
National Human Rights Alliance known as Karapatan in the Philippines, and
Father Rex Reyes of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP),
who stormed into the UN headquarters last week to file the complaints
against Arroyo.
Days after, on Saturday morning March 18th, Filipinos and Anti-Arroyo
allies in New York gathered in front of the Philippine consulate along
Fifth Avenue to register condemnation and demand an answer from the Arroyo
administration to the boxes and boxes of complaints issued by over 4500
human rights victims and their families since Arroyo's ascendance to power
back in 2001.
The most outstanding cases called to attention were the extra-judicial
killings of Karapatan Southern Tagalog secretary-general Eden Marcellana
and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy, whose were tortured and killed by the
Philippine military while conducting a fact-finding mission on human
rights violations in Mindoro back in 2003. Both deaths were eventually
exposed by credible witnesses as having been ordered directly by
then-Colonel Palaparan himself.
"We are deeply saddened and outraged that these recent deaths occurred
within our ranks in BAYAN with such lightning vengeance from the Arroyo
regime only days after official compalints were filed to the UN and
Filipinos in New York held an assembly demanding Arroyo be accountable to
these complaints. This is Arroyo's messaging to the Filipino people-- our
human lives mean nothing, and those who take them, such as Palparan, are
awarded rather than brought to justice," states Dr. Robyn Rodriguez of the
NY Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (NYCHRP).
While in New York, the three visitors left no stone unturned when
maximizing their time to publicly expose the human rights situation in the
Philippines to the American public.
NYCHRP, a member organization of the Filipino alliance BAYAN, held a vigil
outside the UN building gates as Enriquez, OIalia, and Reyes made their
cases in front of the UNHRC. NYCHRP also sponsored community forums for
the guests who spoke extensively about the resurrected martial law under
Arroyo at the International Action Center, Community Service Society, and
the Center for Constitutional Rights in Manhattan.
Two important meetings were held between Olalia, Enriquez, and human
rights attorney for the Cuban 5 Leonard Weinglass, who signed a petition
calling for an end to human rights violations and publicly condemned the
Arroyo regime.
Another was a meeting between Olalia and Sophie Richardson of the Asia
Pacific Advocacy Department of Human Rights Watch.
Richardson expressed particular alarm over the political detainment of
Anakpawis Party representative Crispin Beltran and the civil rights
violations against the Batasan 5, all progressive anti-Arroyo legislators
being held inside the Batasan Congressional Complex as Philippine military
await to arrest them just outside without warrant and no prospects of due
process.
Richardson, who has spent time in the Philippines back in 2004, recalled
witnessing the Arroyo-commanded military shoot at innocent, unarmed
civilians while in a restaurant in the Abra region.
At the Philippine consulate, allies from various organizations including
Nodutdol for Korean Community Development, CAAAV:Organizing Asian
Communities, and other non-Filipinos expressed their solidarity with the
Filipino people at a time of martial law, and supported the call to oust
the number one violator of human rights from Malacanang. ###
References:
Berna Ellorin, NY Representative, BAYAN USA,
email: ny @ bayanusa.org;
Robyn Rodriguez, NY Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, email:
nychrp @ yahoo.com
New York Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (NYCHRP)
email: nychrp@yahoo.com |
|
