Media Releases

On March 15, 2019, Karapatan and Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) filed complaints with the Joint Monitoring Committeee of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines with regard to the red-tagging and terrorist-labelling of said organizations. The filing was also done a day prior to the 21st year of the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). CARHRIHL was an agreement entered into between the government of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) on March 16, 1998 in the Hague, Netherlands.

On March 2, 2019, a 400-delegation was organized to conduct a humanitarian mission in several villages in Guihulngan City. Various human rights and people’s organizations and Guihulngan residents joined the said mission. Soldiers from the 94th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army tried to disallow the entry of the humanitarian mission participants to the communities but they eventually relented after negotiations.

On March 12, 2019, Karapatan, Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) and Kabataan Partylist filed complaints at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) with regard to the red-tagging and terrorist-labelling of said organizations.

Today, we are one with the Filipino people in commemorating the 33rd anniversary of the EDSA People Power. Karapatan remembers all the martyrs and victims of the brutal Marcos regime, and hails the unity of the Filipino people in toppling the Marcos dictatorship. This momentous event in our history should never be credited to one family, or to specific persons, but rather to the millions who marched and courageously fought tyranny and dictatorship. The EDSA People Power I reminds us that power emanates from the people and abusive governments will be held to account for their crimes.

“The Duterte goverment’s black propaganda junket in Europe and at the United Nations was a desperate move to deodorize its notorious human rights record and to evade accountability for its crimes and tyrannical acts. It has repeatedly rejected calls for independent investigations by human rights experts and has barely responded substantially to communications sent by UN offices regarding cases of rights violations. Through a national task force composed of militarists and mercenary hacks, it is promoting a most unbelievable lie - that government is correct and everyone else is wrong. What is however apparent is its ellaborative effort to hide the injustices apparent in the country,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay.

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.”