Statement of the Political Prisoners at Camp Bagong Diwa
January 15, 2015
For five days before the visit of Pope Francis I to our country, we, political prisoners at the Special Intensive Care Area 1 Jail in Camp Bagong Diwa, have been on partial hunger strike to express our urgent plea for freedom, justice and human rights. Now, on the day of arrival of Pope Francis I, up to the day of his departure, we, jailed advocates of freedom, justice, people’s interest and peace have escalated our form of struggle to total hunger strike.
Statement of the Political Prisoners at Camp Bagong Diwa
January 15, 2015
For five days before the visit of Pope Francis I to our country, we, political prisoners at the Special Intensive Care Area 1 Jail in Camp Bagong Diwa, have been on partial hunger strike to express our urgent plea for freedom, justice and human rights. Now, on the day of arrival of Pope Francis I, up to the day of his departure, we, jailed advocates of freedom, justice, people’s interest and peace have escalated our form of struggle to total hunger strike.
This, to make louder our protest against our unjust arrest and imprisonment, the trumped-up charges against us and continuing failure of justice in our cases, the criminal repression and fascist restriction on us, and other violations of our human rights.
While our actions have been and continue to be waged on the matter of principles and our rights, the response of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology jail authorities have been very reactionary and repressive.
Our doctors, lawyers, families, human rights supporters and other friends have cruelly, and illegally, not been allowed to visit us right after we started our fasting and hunger strike. This, even if they have been urgently wanting to look into our medical and other conditions, especially as some of us have already been suffering deterioration of their condition.
Worse, aside from blocking the visits to us of our doctors, lawyers, families, human rights supporters and other friends, the jail authorities have also maliciously not allowed the entry of visitors of other detainees in this jail, and pointed to our fasting and hunger strike, as the reason for their not allowing visits to detainees in this jail. This, induce division between us and other non-political inmates here.
Unfortunately, this has induced violent reaction by some leaders and members of the Sputnik prison gang, as they are now blaming us, political prisoners, for the blocking too of visits to them yesterday. Leaders of the Sputnik prison gang together with some of their members were shouting last night, at the top of their voices, that their visitors have been denied entry yesterday, and were blaming us political prisoners, and our hunger strike for their visitors not having been able to come in. Furthermore, they were threatening to kill us, political prisoners, especially the senior leaders among us. We worry a lot that those, who have been shouting their threats at the top of their voices, have actually already been involved in murders of fellow inmates in jail.
Now, supposedly because of such threats to our lives, the jail authorities have been padlocking additional gates at the corridor leading to our cells, and have further been limiting our movements. We are the ones being made to suffer much for the foul threats to our lives.
We maintain our demand that we, political prisoners, should be returned our freedom.
In the meantime that we are not returned our freedom, we ask that we be transferred to some other jail, where the jail authorities are not as repressive as here, and are not instigating the antagonism of other inmates, particularly prison gangs, against us.
Political Prisoners at the SICA1 Jail, Camp Bagong Diwa, Taguig City
Tirso Alcantara
Emeterio Antalan
Cesar Balmaceda
Leopoldo Caloza
Alan Jazmines
Jesus Abetria Jr.
Modesto Araza
Alex Arias
Eddie Cruz
Philip Enteria
Voltaire Guray
Fidel Holanda
Edward Lanzanas
Rolando Laylo
Eliseo Lopez
Alberto Macasinag
Jared Morales
Denis Ortiz
Hermogenes Reyes Jr.
Felicardo Salamat
Aristides Sarmiento
Cirilo Verdan