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Congress Human Rights
Committee to look into NorthMin HRV
Jocelyn Suarez decided to stay in their house and refused to join the
evacuees who fled the hinterlands of Gingoog City because of the
offensives being done by the composite forces of AFP’s 29th Infantry
Battalion, 403rd Brigade and the Bungkatol Liberation Front (BULIF)
against the New People’s Army (NPA). Jocelyn has difficulty evacuating,
she just gave birth. On that day of April 9, 2009, bullets killed
Jocelyn—and her husband, and her four children.
Lt. Col. Benedict Arevalo of the 29th IB immediately blamed the massacre
to the NPA. But residents of Sitio Silangan of the village of Kamanikan
witnessed how elements of BULIF sprayed bullets into the house of the
Suarez family.
The massacre of the Suarez family topped the list of violations of human
rights and the international human law which will be included in the
committee report of Rep. Lorenzo Tanada III, chair of the Human Rights
Committee of the lower house. Representative Tanada received the copies of
factsheets and complaints handed to him by convenors of Panaw Kalinaw
(Exodus for Peace), a multisectoral alliance calling for peace in Gingoog
City countryside in their forum-launching held on July 16, 2009 at the
rooftop of Sta. Rita de Cascia Parish in the city.
Representative Tanada vowed to look into the escalating human rights
violations in Northern Mindanao that includes four cases of extra-judicial
killings which claimed the lives of nine individuals from January to April
this year alone—the highest in the entire country. Karapatan-Northern
Mindanao’s Atty. Beverly Selim-Musni, in her Mindanao human rights report
presented to over a hundred audience of church people, lawyers, local
government units and people’s organizations in the sphere, noted that in
the first quarter of this year in the region, violations of the rights to
life including torture reached 16 cases; grave physical injuries, 4; and
frustrated killing, 4.
Musni said that most of the cases recorded are an offshoot of the
militarization of the countryside in the region. “If the rebel insurgents
are the target of the military offensives, then why are the civilian rural
poor populace bore the brunt of these escalating attacks?” Musni
emphasized. In Karapatan-NMR’s record, 4,246 individuals have been
displaced since January due to militarization that included aerial
bombardment of the rural communities of Bukidnon, Misamis Oriental and the
nearby hinterland boundaries of Agusan del Norte and Agusan del Sur.
Forum participants signed a Manifesto of Unity that pointed out the
“state’s propensity to use its iron fist against its people,” and
lambasted the policy of “Oplan Bantay Laya 2, the brute strength of the
Armed Forces that is trained on its people, particularly on sectors and
leaders who stand for their rights.”
Panaw Kalinaw is an alliance of concerned individuals and organizations in
solidarity with the rural poor populace that calls for the end of
militarization, carry out justice for its victims and asserts for the
return and rehabilitation of internally displaced persons. It also seeks
to support and advocate for the rights of the people amidst the culture of
violence and impunity. The same alliance was established in Bukidnon in
April this year where armed confrontations between the AFP and rebel
insurgents have become recurrent.
Panaw Kalinaw in Gingoog City is mainly convened by the local formations
of Union of People’s Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), Rural Missionaries of the
Philippines (RMP), Kapatirang Simbahan para sa Bayan (Kasimbayan),
Karapatan and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).###
Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Sub-Region (RMP-NMR)
Postal Address:
Gonzales Res., Purok Lourdes, Tubod
9200 Iligan City, Philippines
Tel. No.: (063) 221-7807
Email: rmp_nmr@yahoo.com.ph |
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