Press statement

“The P-Noy government’s failure to arrest the fugitive Gen. Jovito Palparan more than a month after the Regional Trial Court of Bulacan issued a warrant of arrest allows Palparan and his lawyers to play with truth, justice and sadly, the emotions of the mothers of the two missing students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno,” said Jigs Clamor, deputy Secretary General of Karapatan.  

Condemning the violent dispersal at Mendiola yesterday, human rights group Karapatan called for the release of five protesters who were arrested without charges.

“The Aquino government’s attempt to quell legitimate protests is terribly juvenile and is a classic act of baring the fangs of a repressive regime upon the youth. It is ironic because the nation, including the government, is commemorating the International Human Rights Day,” Karapatan deputy secretary general Jigs Clamor said. 

"There  will be more human rights violations under new Philippine Army Chief Major General Emmanuel Bautista and Oplan Bayanihan," Cristina Guevarra, secretary general of Hustisya (Victims United for Justice) warned the public today.

While President Aquino urges Myanmar government to further its reforms in the light of the recent release of some 120 political prisoners in Myanmar, the President’s men issued statements that Malacanang is not inclined to release political prisoners who are in various jails all-over the country for fabricated charges. 

Jigs Clamor, Karapatan’s Deputy Secretary General said that, “The recent move by the military and the big mining companies to finance military-trained units of SCAA (Special Civilian Active Auxilliary) shows the AFP’s connivance with corporations that plunder the country’s mineral resources.”

Extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations continue despite the government’s claim that its new counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan adheres to human rights and that the AFP is in the communities for peace and development. 
 

Today’s commemoration of the 39th year of the declaration of martial law is again an occasion for the President to reminisce the experience of how he and his family suffered under martial law. His father, Ninoy Aquino, was jailed for expressing his views against the ills in Philippine society, for criticizing the human rights record of the former dictator and for espousing democracy.  

Karapatan chairperson Marie Hilao-Enriquez challenged P-Noy “to punish other members of the AFP and the PNP who are likewise involved with the torture of those suspected as rebels, “terrorist’’ and their so-called supporters or sympathizers.‘’ According to Hilao-Enriquez “the image of the tortured Abdul Kan Ajid, suspected member of the bandit group ASG, calls to mind the 29 other persons who suffered torture under the one year old P-Noy government.” 

“If we have seen the horrible gross, systematic rights violations during the Arroyo regime, we should brace ourselves for the continuation of these violations and the rule of IMPUNITY under the Aquino regime’s Oplan Bayanihan,” so warned Marie Hilao-Enriquez, Chairperson of the human rights alliance, KARAPATAN, commenting on the recent CHR resolution on the case of the alleged torture of Melissa Roxas, a Filipino-American, abducted and tortured for almost a week in May 2009.