January - March 2021 Released by Karapatan Alliance Philippines RAGING CRISIS, INTENSIFIED ATTACKS, STRENGTHENED RESISTANCE Photo from Philippine Collegian ore than a year since the COVID-19 pandemic brought the entire world into a global crisis, shameless Mcriminal negligence of people’s welfare has become the norm under the so-called “new normal.” As the country struggles to survive one lockdown after another, President Rodrigo Duterte has only used the pandemic to unleash the outbreak of State terror and violence upon the Filipino people in more terrifying and brutal forms. Amid record-high unemployment rates, a growing death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the sheer absence of the necessary public health measures to combat it, the Duterte government continues to leave a bloody trail of carnage in its dirty war against dissent. Massacres in communities as well as illegal arrests and Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF- killings in police raids against activists and human rights ELCAC) have only intensified with the passage of the widely- defenders have marked the first months of President opposed Anti-Terrorism Act. Duterte’s last year in power — and a disturbingly heightened pattern of weaponization of warrants and judicial processes Even the implementation of quarantine protocols was not is now being alarmingly used to facilitate human rights immune to the contagion of militarization. More than violations across the country. The Duterte government’s a year into the pandemic, the same failed militarist and attacks and red-tagging campaign, and militarization of the punitive measures still trump science, violate civil liberties, civilian bureaucracy led by the bloodhounds of the National and sideline the people’s right to health in the name of mass 2 KARAPATAN Monitor incarcerations as well as other degrading and violent — even thousands to deeper rungs of poverty and hunger. More and fatal — punishments for so-called “pasaway” quarantine more are daring to act, speak up and take a stand against violators, which have become the scapegoat for the Duterte the Duterte government’s atrocities against the people and government’s utter disregard of people’s rights and welfare. efforts to exact justice and accountability for President Duterte’s crimes are already underway. The International As the 2022 national elections draw near, President Criminal Court (ICC) has come out with its findings from Duterte and his minions are wasting no time to orchestrate its preliminary examination on the Duterte government’s machinations to ensure the continuity of his fascist, sham and bloody drug war, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor corrupt, and murderous rule and to cement his dynasty and has now formally requested an investigation into the de facto martial law— yet despite the relentless assault, the human rights situation in the Philippines.. people’s resistance to his tyranny are forging unities across democratic forces in the country. President Duterte’s last year will prove to become even more brutal as he desperately clings to power and leaves Mutual aid initiatives like community pantries have spread behind a bloody legacy of crimes against the people — like wildfire throughout the country — a defiant display of but the coming months will also prove to be crucial in solidarity, but also a damning indictment of the Duterte consolidating all forces to ensure that his reign of terror government’s criminal neglect of the people that has driven is frustrated and ended. Art by ARPAK January – March 2021 3 From the end of one bloody led to the massacre of nine indigenous leaders and year to another the arrest of 17 others as the Philippine National Police Crime Investigation and Detection Group (PNP CIDG) Western Visayas, the PNP Regional Office 6, and the 12th Amid the growing death toll brought by the onslaught of Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army served 28 search the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 was marked with human warrants against supposed members and supporters of the rights violations from the implementation of militaristic Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and NPA in Tapaz, and punitive lockdown measures, the continuing drug Capiz and Calinog, Iloilo for illegal possession of firearms war killings, and the Duterte government’s bloody anti- and explosives. communist counterinsurgency campaign spearheaded by the NTF-ELCAC. The year 2020 ended with one brutal In a collective statement on January 15 this year, more bloodshed after another — all without let-up. than a hundred human rights and indigenous peoples’ organizations from the international community On December 17, combined elements of the Police Regional condemned the massacre as they called on the Philippine Office 4A and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)’s government to immediately conduct impartial and credible 2nd Infantry Division massacred five individuals in Sitio investigations into the raids “especially on the persistent Malalim, Brgy. San Juan, Baras, Rizal as they were supposedly issuance of search warrants, conduct of police and serving arrest warrants against New People’s Army (NPA) military operations marred by summary executions and rebels in the area. Karapatan – Southern Tagalog’s fact- evidence-planting, and ‘systematic’ conduct of these deadly finding mission identified the victims as Vilma Salabao, operations” as experienced in previous raids in Negros, Wesley Obmerga, Carlito Zonio, and brothers Jhonatan Metro Manila, and Eastern Visayas, mirroring tactics in the and Niño Alberga through morgue records. They were Duterte government’s drug war under Oplan Tokhang. caretakers and workers at a private mango farm in the barangay. The fact-finding mission team were also able to interview residents in the area, who heard cries for help when the five were supposedly engaging in a shootout with the police and military — belying claims of an armed An emerging pattern of State encounter. The victims’ remains also bore signs of torture violence and repression and mutilation; the Alberga brothers’ scrota were burnt, four teeth were removed, and their hand were pounded and beaten up. Mere months into 2021, such persistent use of search warrants to conduct police and military raids on the homes Meanwhile, in Balilihan, Bohol, peasant organizer Lorenzo and offices of progressive leaders and activists marked by Paña, former chairperson of Hugpong sa Mag-uuma Dapit summary executions and the planting of evidence was no sa Kasapdan (HUMANDA KA), a district formation of longer just “systematic:” it has emerged as a clear pattern Hugpong sa Mag-uumang Bol-anon – Kilusang Magbubukid — an insidious modus operandi — to give legal cover to ng Pilipinas (KMP), was gunned down by still-unidentified the Duterte government’s crackdown on dissent under the assailants on December 30, as he was on his motorcycle guise of counterinsurgency. to bring lunch to his son. Paña and his family have been repeatedly red-tagged and harassed by the police and the Through the NTF-ELCAC’s whole-of-nation approach, military even if he was no longer a full-time organizer of virtually all government resources, machinery, platforms HUMANDA-KA. are now being used for its red-tagging campaign to demonize activists and progressive organizations as 2020 culminated with the tragic and gruesome raids on “legal fronts” of “communist terrorist groups” — violating Tumandok communities in Panay on the same day, which the constitutional right to due process and presumption of 4 KARAPATAN Monitor Tarpaulin by UP community displayed at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City entrance. Photo by PDI innocence. Such malicious accusations have become even The accord, which was signed on June 30, 1989, succeeded more dangerous with the passage of the Anti-Terrorism the 1981 accord between former League of Filipino Students Act, and the new law has emboldened the NTF-ELCAC chairperson Sonia Soto and then-Minister of National and State security institutions to mobilize all forms of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile, which was intended to protect media, including social media, and their proxies, assets students from the police and military presence in schools or supporters to propagate disinformation and deliberate intended to suppress dissent and protest actions at the falsehoods by red-tagging activists, human rights defenders, height of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. The arrest government critics, and their organizations even in official of Philippine Collegian staffer Donato Continente on June government proceedings, such as the oral arguments on the 19, 1989, at the Vinzons Hall in the UP Diliman campus led petitions against the Anti-Terrorism Act before the Supreme to the signing of the UP-DND Accord two weeks later. Court. The termination of the 1989 UP-DND Accord comes not only With the ban on mass actions and gatherings due to amid the government’s intensified red-tagging campaign lockdown restrictions, the campuses of the University but also amid attacks directed against the university itself, of the Philippines (UP) system served as safe spaces to as the UP community slammed the termination of the conduct protests by virtue of a three-decade-old accord accord as an assault on academic freedom. between UP and the Department of National Defense which prohibited the police and the military from entering UP In the days following the agreement’s abrogation, attacks campuses without prior notice. However, on January 15, and the red-tagging of UP’s students, professors, and DND Secretary Delfin Lorenzana unilaterally terminated alumni only became more rabid — with the Armed Forces the 1989 UP-DND Accord due to the CPP-NPA alleged of the Philippines Information Exchange Facebook page “clandestine recruitment” of students through “communist publishing on January 22 a fake list of killed or captured fronts” in the university. Lorenzana, in his letter to UP UP students who have allegedly become NPA rebels. President Danilo Concepcion, even claimed that UP has At least eight names on the list are journalists, former become “a safe haven for enemies of the state” because of government officials, lawyers, teachers, or entertainment the 1989 UP-DND Accord.