Mindanao Interfaith for Human Rights

Advocacy (MIHRA) launched

Cotabato City

September 9, 2006

Religious groups, lawyers, Moro groups, civil society and human rights workers launched on Sept. 9 the Mindanao Interfaith for Human Rights Advocacy (MIHRA) .

MIHRA's aim is to educate the communities on their basic rights and to reduce the number of human rights violations under the Arroyo regime.

MIHRA will also serve as quick response team if there are human rights violations in Cotabato City.

Atty Anwar Malang of the Union of People’s LawyerS in Mindanao (UPLM) was elected as the Spokesperson of MIHRA said, that the alliance

The alarming Human Rights situation under Macapagal-Arroyo regime

 unites human rights advocates in Cotabato City

By: Sittie Rajabia Sundang

Cotabato City- Human Rights advocates in Cotabato City launched the Mindanao Interfaith for Human Rights Advocacy (MIHRA) on September 9, 2006 here.

MIHRA is composed of religious groups, lawyers, Moro groups, civil society and human rights workers aim to educate the communities on their basic rights and to lessen the long list of human rights violations under the Arroyo regime.

The alarming number of human rights violations in the country made the advocates decide to form an alliance that would help address the current situation.

According to Sr. Helen Labis, OND, one of the MIHRA convenors, although the newly formed alliance cannot totally eradicate the human rights violations in the country but at least through this effort they could help lessen the number of human rights violations.

Atty Anwar Malang of the Union of People’s Lawyer in Mindanao (UPLM), Spokesperson of MIHRA said, that the alliance will also serve as quick response team if there are human rights violations in Cotabato City.

In the month of August 2006, there were four Bangsamoro Men victims of abduction in Central Mindanao. Ustadz Kusain Abedin, 36 illegally arrested allegedly because he is a bomb making expert on August 3, 2006 at the weena bus terminal by the elements of Task Force Tugis, Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG-ARMM) and the Military Intelligence Group (MIG). He was later freed after 27 hour of detention in Task Force Tugis due to lack of evidence.

On August 27, 2006, three Moro men from Matanog, Maguindanao were arrested without a warrant while on board on the Superferry 16 bound for Manila. Radzak Macarimbang,42 a former Barangay Captain in Brgy.Sapad, Matanog and a businessman, Wahab Ramalan, 32 who supposed to fetch his neice from abroad and Sammy Gampong, 26 who planned to go to Manila and look for a job. The three were arrested by the 603^rd brigade, CIDG-ARMM and the MIG allegedly because they are bombers.

Kawagib, Moro Human Rights organization based in Cotabato City, also convenor of MIHRA documented 132 cases of illegal arrests and 442, 000 persons who have left their homes and ancestral land because of the military operations in North Cotabato, Maguindanao Lanao del Sur and Sulu from 2001 up to present.

On June 28, 2006, in latest war in Maguindanao between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and members of the Civilian Volunteers Organization (CVO) Kawagib roughly estimated more than 30,000 evacuees while 200 houses in Tapikan, Mamasapano, Maguindanao were burned.

After President Arroyo gave her support to her number one ally US President George W. Bush on his “war on terror” GMA declared several anti-people policies. She declared Basilan and Sulu under the “state of lawlessness” to run after the Abu Sayyaf Group including the supporters and the alleged families of the ASG. There were 73 Moro men illegally arrested and tagged as terrorists.

Arroyo also place Davao City under the “state of lawless violence” after the Davao Airport bombing on March 4, 2003 and the Sasa Wharf bombing and immidiately blamed the MILF as responsible of the said bombings. They have illegally arrested Moro men in Davao City, Davao del Norte, North Cotabato and Central Mindanao and coerced them to admit that they were behind the bombings.

The anti-terror policy of GMA legalized the declaration of all-out war, indiscriminate bombings and firings in Mindanao and tagging the Bangsamoro people as “terrorists”.

Today, September 11, 2006 the 5^th year anniversary of the World Trade Center attack Kawagib is expecting more illegal arrests against the Bangsamoro people.

The group calls for justice to all victims of human rights violations and stop the terrorist tagging of the Bangsamoro people.###

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Prof. Sison's watch on George Bush' fallacies

"The US has fallaciously magnified Al Qaida and the phenomenon of private religio-sectarian terrorism as far bigger enemies than the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc during the Cold War."

"Making a false analogy between the Cold War and the so-called war on terror, George W. Bush has proclaimed a permanent global war of terror to justify US wars of aggression and state terrorism that can last long or last even longer than the Cold War. Unwittingly, the Bush administration has also expanded the spawning ground for religio-sectarian terrorism in Iraq and elsewhere, much to the satisfaction of Al Qaida."

- Jose Ma. Sison, US Terrorism is far bigger and worse than Al Qaida Terrorism in 9/11

Posted by Rene Diskarte at 2:55 AM

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Red Herring and/or Tu Quoque fallacy committed by Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro

Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, chief of the AFP Public Information Office:

“The CPP-NPA has been accusing the military and the police of committing human-rights violations when in fact the party itself has been the one engaged in rampant human-rights abuses.”

He also lashed out at the CPP-NPA, which has been blaming the government, specifically the military, for the rash of killings of leftist militants. Over a hundred leftists have already died since January 2001.

- Manila Times, September 1, 2006

I cannot decide yet what fallacy this is: red herring or Tu quoque although I am inclined to take it as tu quoque, or "you too" or "two wrongs make a right". The example of the author of fallacies gives this example of tu quoque: "They accuse us of making unjustified assertions. But they asserted a lot of things, too!" "It is a fallacy because it makes no attempt to deal with the subject under discussion."

Human rights violations by NPA? That assertion being true or not does not eliminate the accountability of the government for the recent spate of political killings. Isang red herring iyan.

Eh, baka mga kriminal naman talaga yong mga pinarusahan ng kamatayan ng mga komunista. Ang dapat gawin ng AFP at ng gobyerno ni Arroyo ay itigil na itong patuloy na pagpaslang sa mga civilians. Habulin nila ang mga NPA at hindi ang mga aktibista.


Full story:
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2006/sept/01/yehey/top_stories/20060901top6.html

Posted by Rene Diskarte at 7:44 PM

Another tu quoque by Mike Defensor

Sen. Pimentel claims that Presidential Chief of Staff Mike Defensor intervened to lift the suspension order issued by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Sentosa, a recruitment agency, for allegedly shortchanging the nurses. The nurses say they are now in dire straits after the jobs, pay and benefits promised them by Sentosa did not come through.

Instead of responding to the claim of intervention, Defensor pointed out that Sen. Pimentel had asked for his help on a land case in 2001 when he was the presidential adviser on housing.

Defensor commits the fallacy of tu quoque (You Too). It is quite plain to see that Defensor's claim against Pimentel is irrelevant to the truth of the claim of the senator.

The longest running tu quoque is still this one:

"Eh, ano kung nandaya si GMA -- lahat naman ay nandaya."

Posted by Rene Diskarte at 9:05 AM