Labor groups want religious leaders to bring Duterte back to negotiations with communist rebels

Joseph Peter Calleja, Manila
January 12, 2021

Two Filipino labor groups have urged the Catholic bishops’ conference and other faith-based organizations to intervene in unofficial peace talks with communist rebels and encourage President Rodrigo Duterte back to the negotiation table.

Duterte broke off official talks in 2018 after both sides accused each other of launching attacks and the president has become increasingly hostile to the rebels since then.

However, the Federation of Free Workers and the Nagkakaisa Labor Coalition say that allowing bishops, imams and pastors to become involved in peace efforts could make ending the decades-long armed-conflict easier and avert what they said was an imminent and deadly threat.

“We call on our faith leaders to remind our national leaders, the military, the police and the rebels, that peace based on social justice and the common good cannot be achieved through the barrel of a gun,” said Sonny Matula, chairman of the two labor organizations.

Matula, who also heads the Federation of Free Workers, the biggest labor coalition in the country, said the labor sector has been the “ultimate” victim in the war between government forces and the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

“We’ve received reports that the NPA is planning to revive its urban partisan hit squads … if this happens, it is inevitable that the Defense Department would counter this threat with force. There would be a cycle of violence that would eventually lead to the loss of many lives and livelihoods, especially among the poor,” Matula told UCA News.

Matula said that in order to avert this escalation religious leaders must intervene to appeal to both parties’ faith and sense of religiosity.

“The problem we anticipate with this kind of bullet-for-bullet and tit-for-tat scenario is that nobody will be a winner and many will probably become victims of violence, involving collateral damage on both sides. We need faith leaders to intervene to appeal to the conscience of both parties,” he added.

The labor groups said President Duterte’s “militarist regime” would otherwise take advantage of the situation to militarize the country further.

“It is highly probable that killings will see more repression and the further militarization of social conflicts that a militarist regime like President Duterte’s will enjoy taking advantage of,” the labor coalition said in a statement.

KODAO Productions
January 12, 2021

The Australian nun deported by the Rodrigo Duterte government condemned the string of assassinations and massacres of indigenous peoples, farmers, and critics during the holiday season.

Sr. Patricia Fox, NDS, deported in April 2018 on allegations she attended a protest rally in Davao City, said the Duterte government rushed to commit more human rights abuses before the year 2020 ended.

Speaking as spokesperson of the Asia-Pacific Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (APCHRP), Sr. Fox said President Duterte took advantage of the Covid-19 lockdowns to orchestrate a crackdown on activists, with many being arrested on dubious charges while several others were killed.

“Two days before the year ended, the Duterte regime’s armed operatives launched simultaneous police and military operations in the islands of Panay and Bohol that resulted in the death of 10 people and the arrest of 17 others,” Sr. Fox said.

The nun cited the massacre of nine Tumandok tribespeople and the arrest of 17 others in Panay Island and the assassination of activist farmer Lorenzo “Dodoy” Paña in Bohol province last December 30.

Sr. Fox echoed reports by local human rights organizations that the simultaneous raids in Tapaz, Capiz province and Calinog, Iloilo province were cold-blooded execution of the victims.

“Family members of Eliseo Gayas, one of the men killed, narrated how they were ordered to go out of their house. When armed operatives entered, they killed Eliseo outright with four gunshots. Two other victims – Mario Aguirre and Roy Giganto – had their houses forcibly entered as operatives shot them dead inside while they were asleep, in the presence of their respective families,” Sr. Fox said.

Paña, like those massacred and arrested in Panay, was a red-tagging victim and no stranger to harassment by State forces, the nun pointed out.

“These senseless murders are a continuation of the string of human rights attacks we have witnessed this year against activists, lawyers, farmers, trade unionists, and even health workers,” Sr. Fox said.

In the same statement, the APCHRP said it strongly condemns the killing of nine Tumandok in Panay Island and the assassination of Dodoy Paña in Bohol.

“We also call for the immediate release of the 17 indigenous activists arrested in the same operation in Panay,” the APCHRP said.

The year 2020 will be forever remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic recessions it caused. However, it should also be noted as the apex of the Duterte regime’s barbarity and utter disregard for human rights, the group added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

KODAO Productions
January 11 2020

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) revealed it is being kept out of the review of the first partial report of the deaths resulting from the conduct of the Rodrigo Duterte government’s anti-illegal drug operations.

The CHR said the snub is contrary to the commitments and assurances of the government during the 44th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last year.

“This is an unfulfilled promise to Filipinos and the entire community of nations,” CHR Commissioner Karen Gomez-Dumpit said in a statement Monday.

In his speech delivered online during the UNHRC’s 44th general session last June 30, Guevarra said the Duterte government established an inter-agency panel, chaired by his office, “that is quietly conducting a judicious review of the 5,655 anti-illegal drugs operations where deaths occurred.”

The members of the interagency panel are the Department of Justice, the Presidential Communications Operations Office, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Presidential Human Rights Committee Secretariat, the Presidential Management Staff, the Dangerous Drugs Board, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the Philippine National Police, and the National Bureau of Investigation, Guevarra later revealed.

The government assured the international community that the CHR would play a role in the panel.

“As with all human rights-related mechanisms in the country, the Commission on Human Rights would be involved in its capacity as an independent monitoring body,” it said.

But Dumpit said the CHR has not been involved despite “respectfully, diligently, consistently, and repeatedly asked the Department of Justice” concerning its role in the said panel, to no avail.

Nonetheless, Dumpit said the CHR strongly urges the Government to publicize the findings “as transparency is key to ensure the credibility of the said report.”

“This will allow victims and their families to access crucial information in the process of obtaining justice. We reiterate our openness and willingness to engage with the government in this process,” Dumpit said.

What the UNHRC said

In a 26-page report last June 4, the UNHRC said the Duterte government’s heavy-handed focus on countering national security threats and illegal drugs has resulted in serious human rights violations, including killings and arbitrary detentions, as well as the vilification of dissent.

The report also noted that the anti-drug killings range from “at least 8,663” to possibly triple the number.

In examining key policy documents of the Duterte government relating to its campaign against illegal drugs, the UNHRC found a troubling lack of due process, protections, and the use of language calling for “negation” and “neutralization” of drug suspects.

“Such ill-defined and ominous language, coupled with repeated verbal encouragement by the highest level of State officials to use lethal force, may have emboldened police to treat the circular as permission to kill,” the UNHRC report stated.

In a separate statement issued last June 26, various UN special rapporteurs said the UNHRC report confirmed their findings and warnings issued over the last four years: widespread and systematic killings and arbitrary detention in the context of the war on drugs, killings and abuses targeting farmers and indigenous peoples, the silencing of independent media, critics and the opposition.

“The reports also finds, as we had, stark and persistent impunity,” the UN experts said.

The experts highlighted “the staggering cost of the relentless and systematic assault on the most basic rights of Filipinos at the hands of the Government”:

Based on the most conservative assessment, since July 2016, 8,663 people have been killed in the war on drugs and 223,780 “drug personalities” arrested, with estimates of triple that number.

At least 73 children were killed during that period in the context of a campaign against illegal drugs. Concerns have also been raised about grave violations against children committed by State and non-State actors in the context of military operations, including the recruitment and use of children in combat or support.

The lasting economic harm and increased poverty among the children and other family members of those killed is likely to lead to further human rights violations.

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