Karapatan stands solidly behind four activists who are among the latest victims of the Marcos Jr. regime’s weaponization of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020 to criminalize activism and demonize dissenters.
Makabayan secretary general Nathaniel Santiago, Anakpawis campaign director Servillano “Jun” Luna, Jr., ASCENT convenor and development worker Rosario Brenda Gonzalez and Bulacan ecumenical forum volunteer lay worker Anasusa San Gabriel have all been slapped with trumped-up cases alleging violation of the ATA.
The cases stem from their alleged participation in an armed encounter between the New People’s Army and the 84th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army in Barangay San Fernando, Laur, Nueva Ecija on October 8, 2023. The investigating prosecutor has disregarded the respondents’ counter-affidavits and recommended the filing of cases against the four activists before the Malolos RTC Branch 12, the court designated to hear ATA cases in Central Luzon. The respondents have filed a motion with the Malolos court to suspend the proceedings and defer the issuance of arrest warrants, and will formally inform the Department of Justice tomorrow about this motion.
KARAPATAN decries the growing number of manufactured ATA cases against activists as indicators of the Marcos Jr. regime’s intensifying attacks on human rights and international humanitarian law. The ATA and its demonic twin, the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012, have proven time and again to be gravely deleterious to the people’s civil and political rights. These twin terror laws must be repealed and all spurious cases invoking them dismissed.