Rights group cites farmers leaders, activists in Tarlac, La Union, Iloilo experience threats, harassment, intimidation by security forces
Art Dumlao — November 22, 2024
Rights group cites farmers leaders, activists in Tarlac, La Union, Iloilo experience threats, harassment, intimidation by security forces
BAGUIO CITY (November 22, 2024) -- Human rights group Karapatan reported on Friday alleged threats, harassment and intimidation against farmers leaders and activists in Tarlac, La Union and Iloilo.
Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general claimed that on November 17, 2024, a day after the commemoration of the Hacienda Luisita Massacre, six soldiers accompanied by military agent Florida “Pong” Sibayan went to the house of local youth activist RV Bautista after intelligence operatives reportedly monitored his presence at the massacre commemoration.
Bautista, a member of Samahan ng mga Kabataang Demokratiko ng Asyenda Luisita (SAKDAL), chose to stay away from his house when he heard of the visit to avoid confronting Sibayan, a former union leader in the hacienda who now joins soldiers in red-tagging residents active in the struggle for genuine agrarian reform, Palabay detailed.
Also on that day, two soldiers from the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Battalion based in Camp Servillano Aquino, the headquarters of the Northern Luzon Command of the AFP in Tarlac City, allegedly went to the house of a local peasant leader in Barangay Asturias, Tarlac City, one of the 11 villages within Hacienda Luisita. The soldiers reportedly interrogated him on the personalities and organizations that came to attend the commemoration, Palabay continued.
Further north in La Union, also on November 17, 10 alleged soldiers, in full battle gear, from the Philippine Army’s 50th Infantry Battalion arrived at the barangay hall in San Manuel Norte, Agoo, La Union aboard a KM540 truck.
Three soldiers of the 5th Civil Military Operations Battalion allegedly went to the house of George Cacayuran, chair of Timek La Union, a local fisherfolk group, to “have a talk” with him. The soldiers reportedly left after the Ilocos Human Rights Alliance (IHRA), Karapatan’s local organization, issued an alert on the incident.
Palabay said they believe that the harassment incident was related to the action by Timek La Union and various communities in Agoo raising their legitimate demands as small fisherfolk on the occasion of the November 21 World Fisheries Day.
In Iloilo, policemen from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) 6 and the Barotac Viejo municipal police reportedly attempted to seize fisherfolk Victorino Vergara from his house on November 20, 2024.
According to Karapatan, Vergara, who is in his 70s, is a member of the Asosasyon sang Magagmay nga Mangingisda sa Santiago-Pamalakaya and a long-time supporter of Bayan Muna. The arresting team tried to take the elderly Vergara on the pretext of helping him “clear his name” and would have succeeded had not barangay officials intervened to stop the CIDG, saying there was no valid reason for his arrest. Vergara remains under threat after this incident, added Palabay.
Palabay stressed, “the Marcos Jr. government must put a stop to such incidents, which are affronts to the fundamental rights to organize, freedom of association and freedom of assembly, and have no place in a society that claims to be democratic.”
In a related development, five UN mandate holders have raised their “deep concern” via a letter sent to the Philippine government over the criminalization of 27 development workers of the Community Empowerment Resource Network Inc. (CERNET), a Cebu-based development NGO servicing the whole of the Visayas, who face trumped up terrorism and terrorist financing cases.
The letter was first sent to the Philippine government on August 29, 2024 by Mary Lawlor, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Gina Romero, UNSR on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association; Ben Saul, UNSR on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; Reem Alsalem, UNSR on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; and Laura Nyirinkindi, chair/rapporteur of the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls. Such letter was made public on November 15, 2024.
The UN human rights experts asked the Philippine government “to explain the factual and legal basis for the charges brought against 27 human rights defenders with past or present connections to CERNET; the specific measures taken to ensure that human rights defenders, humanitarian workers and other members of civil society in the Philippines can carry out their legitimate work in a safe and enabling environment, without fear of harassment and intimidation from authorities; and the steps taken to investigate the dissemination by the police of false information on Estrella Catarata, one of CERNET’s founders and currently the executive director of Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya (SIBAT) Inc. Catarata had been falsely identified in a government press conference and a Facebook post by the police as the leader of a terrorist group and the “Top 1 Most Wanted Person in the Central Visayas.”
The UN experts further decried the criminalization and red-tagging of the 27 former and present CERNET officers and staff, most of whom are women, calling such acts a “deliberate misapplication of counter-terrorism legislation...for the purpose of discrediting legitimate human rights and humanitarian activities.”
They cited a previous resolution by the UN Human Rights Council that “national security and counter-terrorism legislation and other measures, such as laws regulating civil society organizations, have been misused to target human rights defenders or have hindered their work and endangered their safety in a manner contrary to international law.”
The UN experts also took exception to the, what they believed, “(are) overly broad definition of “terrorism” in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, the expansion of the powers of the executive branch, the absence of judicial oversight and the “apparent lack of due process” in cases where individuals have been charged for allegedly violating the anti-terror law.”
The UN experts said they gave the Philippine government 60 days to respond, after which they would post the communications on their website in addition to any response received, but the Philippine government, they claimed, has failed to substantially respond.
