Month: April 2018

Statement of the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum (EBF) on the Arrest and Detention of Australian Missionary Sr. Patricia Fox

Photo credit: The ABS CBN

“Be alert and vigilant. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith.” (1 Peter 5:8-9)

The Church in the Philippines lives in perilous times as an increasing number of clergy, religious and church workers face unspeakable violence and whose rights are violated by President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. Church people who join the pilgrimage of poor communities and support their struggle for justice, peace and human dignity suffer state-perpetuated political persecution.

The assault against Sister Patricia Fox, who is an Australian religious missionary and the regional superior of the Our Lady of Sion Sisters in the Philippines, is the most recent blow against church workers and religious institutions. For the past 27 years, she has immersed herself in the arms of the toiling Filipino masses and worked hand-in-hand with farmers, supporting through her prayers and selfless service their struggle for land and life.

Sr. Pat, as she is known in the ecumenical community, was illegally arrested by elements of the Bureau of Immigration at her residence in Quezon City. She was detained for two days, from April 16 to 17, following allegations of her participation in political actions against the Philippine government. The soft-spoken and good-natured missionary nun was released, following the strong condemnation of faith communities, the human rights defenders, and members of civil society groups and peoples’ organizations.

The Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum strongly denounces this absurd action taken by Duterte’s administration against Sr. Pat. We express outrage at this evil-doing and demand that all politically motivated harassment against human rights defenders, peace and justice advocates, political activists, and church workers be put to stop.

We cannot comprehend why church people become targets of political persecution. When has it become a crime to accompany the poor and the oppressed in their struggle? When has it become a crime to preach the words of God and live-out the works of Christ?

Recent events manifest a systematic state-sponsored attack on church people. On December 4 last year, Catholic priest Marcelito Paez was killed after facilitating the release of a political prisoner. On May 11, 2017, Iglesia Filipina Independiente Bishop and peace advocate Carlo Morales was arrested, detained for nearly a year, and was recently released upon the granting of his bail plea.

We hold the Duterte government accountable for the many cases, documented or otherwise, on the persecution of church people. This situation only reveals the hands of a despotic government that seeks to suppress the Church’s role as a moral compass of the society.

We vehemently condemn the mounting cases of political and religious persecution under Duterte’s tyrannical and dictatorial rule. We demand that this administration stop the increasing and increasingly hostile attempts at silencing church people who accompany those that experience far more greater historical and structural injustices.

The plight of Sr. Pat sends a chilling message to everyone. The persecution of church people does not only reveal the sword of a despotic government that seeks to suppress the Church’s role as a moral compass of society. It is a demonstration of this administration’s noxious attempts to criminalize legitimate dissent. This serves as a prelude to more intensified state-perpetuated violence against those who work for peace, justice and the promotion of human rights.

We, therefore, call upon all Christians and to all people of good will to boldly resist state violence and political oppression, and continue to stand up for and work in solidarity with the poor, deprived and oppressed, so that justice and peace may reign and life, in all its sanctity and dignity, can be enjoyed.

For God’s people,

                             
Bishop Deogracias Iniguez, Jr., D.D.                  The Rt. Revd. Felixberto L. Calang, IFI 

EBF Co-chairperson                                                   EBF Co-chairperson

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte addresses an event with Filipino community in Hong Kong, China April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

Andrew R.C. Marshall

(Reuters) – Clarita Alia knew what was coming.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte addresses an event with Filipino community in Hong Kong, China April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Bobby Yip

I met her with Reuters colleague Manny Mogato in May 2016 in a slum in Davao City, just after its long-time mayor, Rodrigo Duterte – also known as “The Punisher” – was elected president of the Philippines. Four of Alia’s sons were killed in Davao in a brutal anti-drug campaign that Duterte had vowed to take nationwide.

“Blood will flow like a river,” Alia predicted.

She was right.

Within months of Duterte taking office in June 2016, police or unidentified gunmen had killed thousands of drug suspects. And so, joined by another colleague, Clare Baldwin, we began our in-depth reporting of “Duterte’s War” that would win Reuters the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.

Read the investigation here:

At first, we focused on telling the tragic stories of drug-war victims and challenging false claims by the Duterte administration. In 2017, we set ourselves a bigger and riskier goal: to expose the killing machine behind those deaths – the Philippine police – and name the killers themselves.

We did this by melding data journalism, multimedia and shoe-leather reporting. Clare and I accessed and analyzed a trove of official crime reports, security camera footage and crime scene photos. This allowed us to identify not just new patterns in the killings, but also the top killers.

We corroborated our findings with months of reporting in slums and hostile police stations, often working as a team to watch each other’s back. Clare was greeted at one station by homicide detectives who shouted and lifted their shirts to display their guns.

Human-rights groups blamed thousands of vigilante-style killings on the police or their associates. The police publicly denied this. But two senior officers – one of them, at times, trembling with nerves – told Clare and Manny that police had carried out most of these killings. That story also cited a secret report, leaked to Manny, that detailed how police received cash for executing suspects, planted evidence at crime scenes and disabled security cameras in neighborhoods where they planned to kill.

What gave our stories their potency – and what so enraged the Duterte administration – was our use of the Philippine police’s own data, mainly in the form of crime reports, to undermine and disprove official claims. As 2017 went on, the police made it harder to get information about their deadly operations, while the government started its own campaign to counteract what it said was “fake news” about drug-war killings.

Even so, we continued to pry data from the police by making calls, writing letters and visiting stations to inspect and record blotters and other original documents. This allowed us to identify a deadly police unit from Duterte’s hometown – the “Davao Boys.” Armed with this data, Clare and I retraced the unit’s lethal path through Metro Manila’s streets. When Clare asked one Davao Boy why he had been chosen for the unit, he smiled and replied: “Special kill skills.”

Reporting by Andrew R.C. Marshall

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Philippine police use hospitals to hide drug war killings

BLOOD ON THE STREET: The aftermath of what police said was a shoot-out with three drug suspects beneath MacArthur Bridge in central Manila in June. The three men were pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. REUTERS/Dondi Tawatao

Since late 2016, police have delivered hundreds of drug suspects to Manila hospitals. A Reuters investigation has revealed almost all were dead on arrival. Witnesses and family members say they were executed and their bodies removed from the scene in a police cover up.

By Clare Baldwin and Andrew R.C. Marshall Filed June 29, 2017, noon GMT

MANILA – The residents of Old Balara hid in their homes when gunfire erupted in their Manila district last September. They didn’t see the police operation that killed seven drug suspects that night.

But they witnessed the gory aftermath and it haunts them still.

That night, Herlina Alim said she watched police haul away the men’s bodies, leaving trails of blood. “They were dragged down the alley like pigs,” she said. Her neighbor Lenlen Magano said she saw three bodies, face down and motionless, piled at the end of the alley while police stood calmly by.

It was at least an hour, according to residents, before the victims were thrown into a truck and taken to hospital in what a police report said was a bid to save their lives. Old Balara’s chief, the elected head of the district, told Reuters he was perplexed. They were already dead, Allan Franza said, so why take them to hospital?

An analysis of crime data from two of Metro Manila’s five police districts and interviews with doctors, law enforcement officials and victims’ families point to one answer: Police were sending corpses to hospitals to destroy evidence at crime scenes and hide the fact that they were executing drug suspects.

Thousands of people have been killed since President Rodrigo Duterte took office on June 30 last year and declared war on what he called “the drug menace.” Among them were the seven victims from Old Balara who were declared dead on arrival at hospital.

A Reuters analysis of police reports covering the first eight months of the drug war reveals hundreds of cases like those in Old Balara. In Quezon City Police District and neighboring Manila Police District, 301 victims were taken to hospital after police drug operations. Only two survived. The rest were dead on arrival.

The data also shows a sharp increase in the number of drug suspects declared dead on arrival in these two districts each month. There were 10 cases at the start of the drug war in July 2016, representing 13 percent of police drug shooting deaths. By January 2017, the tally had risen to 51 cases or 85 percent. The totals grew along with international and domestic condemnation of Duterte’s campaign.

This increase was no coincidence, said a police commander in Manila, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. In late 2016, he said, police began sending victims to hospitals to avoid crime scene investigations and media attention that might show they were executing drug suspects. A Reuters investigation last year found that when police opened fire in drug operations, they killed 97 percent of people they shot.

The Manila commander said police depended on emergency room doctors being too focused on the patients to care about why they were shot. The doctors “aren’t asking any questions. They only record it: DOA,” he said.

But five doctors told Reuters they were troubled by the rising number of police-related DOAs. Four said many drug suspects brought to hospital had been shot in the head and heart, sometimes at close range – precise and unsurvivable wounds that undermined police claims that suspects were injured during chaotic exchanges of gunfire.

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Photo credit: Partido Manggagawa

Reacting to Malakanyang spokesperson Harry Roque’s statement that labor groups could expect a pro-worker Executive Order on or before Labor Day, Partido Mangggagawa Chair avers, “it remains to be seen”.

“Labor groups have gone through five drafts, and every draft was rejected by employers led by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the DOLE did nothing. Waiting for a pro-worker EO therefore that is agreeable to the employers is like waiting for a crow to change its color white”, Magtubo explained.

The 5th labor-drafted EO, Magtubo said, “contains government’s policy of direct hiring in employment relations but offers exemption to jobs or function that can be contracted out subject to consultation with the labor secretary.”

“Only the President can issue a pro-worker EO if he wants to in order to realize his campaign promise. Now is the time that the President should show his political will by signing the labor-drafted EO”, he added.

“Kaya ngang ipasara ng Pangulo ang Boracay para makahinga ang kalikasan. Samantalang ang pro-worker EO ay reinstatement lang ng direct hiring na dati nang polisiya para maibasura ang nagkalat na porma ng kontraktwalisasyon sa bansa na sumisira sa buhay ng manggagawa,” said Magtubo.

PM calls on all labor groups to close rank, stand firm on the position that labor will only accept a labor-drafted EO, and prepare for a nationwide “all labor” mass action on Labor Day.##