Año, NTF-ELCAC, Duterte should be made accountable for rights violations vs Lumad

For someone who has made it his mission to distort the letter and spirit of the law and weaponize it to persecute human rights defenders, it is the height of absurdity for National Security Adviser Eduardo Año to claim that the unjust conviction of former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, ACT Partylist Rep. France Castro and eleven others for alleged “child abuse” shows that “no one is above the law.”

Eduardo Año and his ilk have been behind the wave of unjust arrests and detention of hundreds of activists and human rights defenders through the use of spurious warrants, planted evidence, perjured testimonies of so-called witnesses, and the filing of trumped-up cases. To hear him and the Legal Cooperation Cluster of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (LCC NTF-ELCAC) hail the very same laws and judicial processes they have long been making a mockery of is cringe-worthy.

As the instigator and implementor of policies that are hostile to the very existence of the Lumad schools and the Lumad children’s right to an education, Año has no right to stand in judgment against human rights defenders who have consistently advocated for the rights and welfare of the Lumad people. Año and his kind are deathly afraid of the kind of culture-affirming education the Lumad children have been receiving in their schools because such education has been providing them with the skills, capacity and confidence to secure other rights. It is because of the Lumad schools’ liberating and empowering function that Año, his former master Rodrigo Duterte and his new master Ferdinand Marcos Jr. have sought to eliminate them.

Año, Duterte, Marcos Jr. and their kind are the child abusers and violators of human rights who have long been manipulating and weaponizing the laws against human rights defenders and young activists, including Lumad children, to deflect public attention and scrutiny from themselves and evade accountability. It is they who must be brought to justice.