Human rights work in the Philippines is a dangerous job, according to the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP) in a press conference last October 18.
A total of 470 human rights defenders were killed, 68 disappeared and 543 illegally arrested in the past ten years.
Girlie T. Padilla, EMJP secretary general, described the work of human rights defenders thus: “They look into cases of human rights violations even in the remotest of towns and villages, holding fact-finding missions amid heavy military presence. They search for the missing in various military camps, hospitals, morgues and other possible detention facilities. They exhume the killed to bring them back to their families for a decent wake and burial.
“With the dearth of human rights lawyers, they do para-legal work for political prisoners. They strive to look for resources in order to provide free legal assistance, facilitate medical and psychosocial and even sanctuary support to victims. They face all sorts of harassment from uniformed armed men, get held and interrogated, arrested, disappear and, worse, killed.”
The case of Kelly Delgado, secretary general of Karapatan Southern Mindanao, a human rights group, is one of the cases of human rights violations that the EMJP has been fighting against.
Sr. Etta Banayo, missionary of the Assumption, noted that Delgado was recently accused of ordering members of the New People’s Army, a revolutionary army in the country, to kill Lt. Col Randolph Cabangbang. The accusation was made by Brigadier General Eduardo del Rosario, commanding officer of the 1003rd Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Army during a press conference last September 21.
Padilla said, “The trumped-up charges, death threats, continued surveillance done against Kelly is only proof of the psy-war operations being conducted by elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines as part of their anti-insurgency program Bantay Laya.”
She added that the same program had taken the lives of their colleagues in Karapatan, like Benjaline Hernandez (Karapatan-Southern Mindanao), Eden Marcellana (Karapatan-Southern Tagalog), Atty. Juvy Magsino and Leima Fortu (Karapatan-Southern Tagalog), among others while some have survived attempts on their lives, like Leeboy Garachico (Karapatan–Panay).
“As Church people, we are commissioned by God to defend human dignity and the sanctity of life; to defend the oppressed and the marginalized…We challenge the administration of President Benigno Aquino Jr. to abandon the counter-insurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya, which is being used as a mechanism to systematically abuse and oppress leaders, activists and critics that they brand as terrorists,” the church group says, noting that during President Aquino’s term there have been 16 victims of extrajudicial killings, 14 of whom were human rights defenders. [Lorie Ann A. Cascaro]
