April 25, 2017
The documentation of this publication “THE DISHONOURABLE HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD OF BENIGNO S. AQUINO III” is the work of many human rights defenders in the Philippine countryside who defy all odds to monitor and write the truth about the human rights situation in the country. During the presidency of Benigno Simeon Aquino III, a number of human rights defenders had lost their lives, killed in the line of reporting the reality behind the dishonesty and deception of BS Aquino’s human rights record.
BS Aquino governed with a military that adhered to US- designed counter insurgency programmes that were implemented from one regime to another. BS Aquino’s Oplan Bayanihan was the direct descendant of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya and which would be continued as Oplan Kapayapaan of Rodrigo Roa Duterte, the current President of the Philippines. These counter-insurgency programmes have victimized thousands of Filipinos, including struggling communities of indigenous people, marginalized peasants and urban slum dwellers, and they are even tagged as “enemies of the State”.
This book describes that cruelty and impunity of BS Aquino’s state forces, and no matter his and their deceit and misleading narrative, the truth of the killings, enforced disappearances and other human rights violations cannot be hidden from the Filipino people and the world.
KARAPATAN is committed to continue being vigilant in the defense and protection of human rights in the Philippines.