For Reference:  REP. LUZVIMINDA C. ILAGAN 0920-9213221
                        Lorraine Gallegos Public Information Officer (0906-2278971)

 
ARROYO, NUMBER ONE HUMAN RIGHTS OFFENDER

  "The Arroyo regime has used its military power to silence and neutralize militant and progressive groups critical of her government. It can not be expected to give justice to its own victims. "


This was the statement of Rep. Luz Ilagan and Rep. Liza Maza of Gabriela Women's Party who, together with other progressive partylist representatives from Bayan Muna and AnakPawis ,  condemned  the Arroyo government during the commemoration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,  as the number one human rights offender today.


Rep. Luz Ilagan, a Mindanaon legislator, scores the Commander-in- Chief as being the number one proponent of the counter-insurgeny strategy Oplan Bantay Laya II; while the Human Security Act galvanized the legitimacy of hunting down members of progressive and militant groups.


The report of UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston has underscored the military's role in the extrajudicial killings pursued by   Mrs. Arroyo's counter insurgency program. The spate of arrests, persecution, and extra judicial killings under the Arroyo regime is clearly based on the political stand of its victims.  Among the 885 victims of these political killings are   90 women and children while 29 women are included in the list of 198 enforced disappearances. Two of those who have disappeared are Nelly Intise and Gloria Caņaveral from Southern Mindanao.  Of the 65 women political detainees, Angie Ipong is currently detained at Pagadian City Jail.


Ilagan concludes, "The perpetrators of violence against women and children are left unpunished in a country where poverty stalks people, where civil and political rights are violated, and where democratic processes are bent to perpetuate the rule of a president who has no credibility to speak of."###