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“No double standards please,” says Karapatan, a national alliance of human rights groups, as it presses  for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, including the 43 health workers known as the Morong 43.

“We express our support in granting amnesty for all rebel soldiers, but we are dismayed by the inaction of the President on the plight of almost 400 political prisoners who, like the mutineers, fought the corrupt and repressive Arroyo regime,” said Jigs Clamor, Karapatan acting secretary general.

THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE for human rights in the Philippines, Karapatan, assailed the latest Supreme Court (SC) ruling affirming the constitutionality of the Human Security Act of 2007 (Republic Act 9372) as "paving way for more human rights violations."

Karapatan is one of the SC petitioners against the law.

Karapatan acting secretary-general Jigs Clamor said that human rights violations in the Philippines has continued under the Aquino administration as attested by 16 reported victims of extra-judicial killings, two victims of enforced disappearances, and continued detention of political prisoners like the Morong 43 health workers illegally searched, arrested, tortured and detained by the military.

"If violations were rampant even before the SC ruling, then it would definitely worsen with a strengthened legal framework by which state authorities could suppress civil and political liberties.  This is paving way for more violation of human rights," Clamor said.

"We have been opposing the passage of the law since 2001. It could be recalled that U.S. Director for National Intelligence John Negroponte even came to the Philippines in December 2005 to push for the prompt enactment of the law patterned after the anti-terror US Patriot Act. Now, the U.S, had finally found its way under Aquino," Clamor added.

"Based on witnesses and the statements of the arresting police, we have known all along that Bayles was killed by members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, though retracted by the police and being denied by the military" said Fred Caña, Karapatan - Negros Secretary General said.  "And here is Gazmin's admission at the budget deliberations on Thursday, straight from the horse's mouth!"

Same policy of State Terrorism and Impunity; Persistent Worsening Human Rights Situation

The Filipino People must assert and defend their rights to livelihood, freedom and justice!

Political Killings, abductions, trumped-up charges, illegal arrests, torture, detention and militarization continue with impunity and are getting worse.

We in KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of People's Rights), together with HUSTISYA!, DESAPARECIDOS, Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP), and SELDA, are crying out for justice with the mass of the Filipino people as we hold President Benigno Simeon Aquino III accountable for the continuing human rights violations under his watch. 

We condemn the intensifying wave of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances committed by the state security forces. The first 100 days in office of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III have already claimed the lives of at least 16 victims; the number is about to equal if not surpass the 18 killed in the last six months of the past regime (January-June 2010).  Already 2 victims are missing in Surigao del Sur. The manner of the slaying has become even more horrendous -- with houses forcibly entered, victims dragged, tortured and killed right in front of their families and loved ones.

Karapatan strongly condemns the killing of another peasant leader in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental early morning today by the elements of 11th infantry battalion of the Philippine Army.  In the initial report from Karapatan Negros, Rene “Toto” Quirante, local chairman of the KAUGMA-ON, a local chapter of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas was shot dead at around two in the morning today in Sitio Amomoyong, Barangay Trinidad, Guihulngan, Negros Oriental. Quirante was one of the six peasant leaders of KAUGMA-ON who have been charged with common crimes in 2008.