Int’l Human Rights Day countdown: Tuwid na daan, wakasan
“Whoever hails to continue BS Aquino’s gruesome trail, the ‘tuwid na daan’ (righteous path), is as monstrous as Aquino and his soldiers," Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general said today, nine days before the commemoration of the International Human Rights Day. “The path is awashed with the blood of 304 victims of extrajudicial killing, 28 of them children.” Of the 28 children killed, 12 are indigenous people.
Int’l Human Rights Day countdown: Tuwid na daan, wakasan
“Whoever hails to continue BS Aquino’s gruesome trail, the ‘tuwid na daan’ (righteous path), is as monstrous as Aquino and his soldiers," Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general said today, nine days before the commemoration of the International Human Rights Day. “The path is awashed with the blood of 304 victims of extrajudicial killing, 28 of them children.” Of the 28 children killed, 12 are indigenous people.
“There is nothing more harrowing than seeing a child suffer and die," Palabay said. "To witness a seven- year-old girl shot by a drunken soldier and took her last breath before reaching the hospital is unbearable," Palabay referred to Sunshine Jabinez. In 2011, Jabinez, who lived in Pantukan, Compostela Valley, was sleeping when a bullet struck her buttock and went through her spine. She could only say "Ma, Pa, sakit" (Ma, Dad, I’m hurt). Sunshine was already soaked in her own blood when her parents saw her. The bullet came from the gun of PfC. Baltazar Ramos of the 71st Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army (IB-PA), who fired his weapon while on a drinking spree with other soldiers. The bullet went through the Jabinez’s house, straight to Sunshine’s body. She was already dead when she arrived at the hospital. To this writing, PfC. Ramos has not been prosecuted and jailed.
On February 25, 2012, two boys were killed in Labo, Camarines Norte—Michael, 10, and Richard, 7. The boys were with their sister Leonisa and father Benjamin when their home was sprayed with bullets. At the time, Micheal was doing his homework and Richard was playing. After the volley of fire, a soldier of the 4th IB-PA entered the house and saw the dead bodies, including the children’s father and another person believed to be a member of the New People’s Army.
Eight-year-old Roque Antivo was on his way home from the farm in Mabini, Compostela Valley. Roque, his brother and a cousin were walking ahead of his father when they were shot by soldiers. John Earl, Roque’s older brother, shouted "Mga bata lang mi!" (We are just children!) but the gunfire continued. When their father shouted, fully armed soldiers led by Lt. Llorca of the 71st IB-PA and 10th Infantry Division stood up from their hiding place and claimed they were after the NPA. Roque was already hit in his left armpit and the bullet exited in his right chest damaging his lung. He died shortly after he was brought home, in the arms of his brother.
John Earl’s testimony was presented to the International People’s Tribunal in Washington, DC in July 2015. BS Aquino was found guilty of the systematic violation of human rights, that includes the killing of Roque Antivo.
"You’ll know how heartless a government is when even children have become targets of its counterinsurgency program—their schools are used for military encampment, destroyed or burned; or their teachers, fathers, mothers, brothers harassed or killed,” Palabay said.
"We believe that because of the mercenary orientation of the armed forces, everyone, regardless of age, who come their way are enemies," Palabay said. She mentioned there are more cases of frustrated killings among children, “aside from the trauma of witnessing their parents and relatives and teachers killed in front of them.”
"The next generation of Filipinos will remember BS Aquino and his army as child killers and one who destroyed their future. BS Aquino will soon face his crimes,” Palabay concluded. ###