Karapatan deplores the release of what it calls a military hit list, as yet another case of harassment against human rights defenders in Northern Mindanao. 

At around 10:30 A.M. today, January 22, 2019, in the middle of the Hustisya-Northern Mindanao assembly and launching at the Philtown Hotel in Cagayan de Oro City, a suspected military agent approached the security guard of the said hotel and handed him two brown envelopes. Each envelope contained 13 copies of flyers listing organizations of youth and teachers, and tagging names of church workers, lawyers, rights advocates and that of a journalist, as “terrorist members of the New People’s Army and Communist Party of the Philippines.”

“Retiring or retired uniformed officers have a guaranteed career ahead of them under the Duterte regime. As a reward for the incessant human rights violations directed and funded by the government, these butchers are appointed to key civilian positions. Duterte not only coddles the masterminds of the most atrocious crimes, but ensures they are positioned in strategic roles to perpetrate more abuses. Along with our expression of outrage on the 3rd martial law extension in Mindanao, we likewise condemn the blatant positioning of militarists who usurp and cripple civilian functions to give way to nationwide military rule,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay in light of the appointment of another ex-military as undersecretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

“This trial is a revival of the martial law years. It’s sickening.” 

It has been nearly ten years since the late Senator Joker Arroyo uttered these words when he took the witness stand on February 27, 2009 at the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 32 in defense of Vicente Ladlad, one of the respondents in the government-manufactured case involving the purported discovery of a mass grave at Inopacan, Leyte of supposed victims of execution by the CPP-NPA. 

Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Jose Andanar revealed in a news release on February 18 that the agency’s officials were sent to Europe to be part of the government’s official delegation as part of the National Task Force (NTF) to End Communist Armed Conflict and to clarify the issue on involuntary disappearances.

In a recent news release of the Department of Foreign Affairs on February 15, the Philippine government, through government officials led by those in the Presidential Human Rights Committee has moved to delist at least 625 cases of enforced disappearances, mostly attributed to State forces from 1975 to 2012, reported to the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UN WGEID). The news release cited the country’s “strong legal framework and institutional mechanisms to address enforced disappearances.”