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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.”  

Dear friends and colleagues,

Karapatan’s website www.karapatan.org has been inaccessible since January 20, 2019. We were careful not to automatically attribute this problem to a possible cyberattack against our web page. However, after much troubleshooting, our website continued to receive an abnormal load of traffic which was more than what the provider can handle. After requesting assistance from Quirum, a Sweden-based non-profit secure hosting provider for independent media and human rights organiztions, to investigate, initial findings show that the signature of the attacks was identical to those of Philippine alternative media groups Bulatlat, Altermidya, and Pinoy Weekly. We, therefore, confirm that the inaccessibility of our website is due to a targeted Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack from a source intent on silencing Karapatan’s platform for online advocacy.

“Despite the recent court decision cutting down the names of those included in the Justice Department’s proscription petition from more than 600 names to 8, then finally down to 2 individuals, rights defenders and political dissenters initially included remain vulnerable to attacks. This is not a reprieve. So long as the proscription case remains, it will be further fuel and justify the government’s obsession to crackdown on progressive groups. In light of the proposed amendments to the Human Security Act of 2007, or Anti-Terror Law, we cannot stress enough how dangerous this petition is in the hands of a fascist maniac like Duterte,” said Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay.

The arrest of journalist Maria Ressa and the absurd charges against her and online news site Rappler are all about freedom of expression in the Philippines.

It is indicative of a vindictive government which is intent on dominating all forms of media with its own twisted narratives, while simultaneously cutting off any platform for others to express alternative opinions. Evidence-based findings that prove critical to the anti-people campaigns of the regime are shut down while fake news and deliberate lies are massively peddled by state-backed keyboard warriors.