July 19, 2023
Dear friends and colleagues,
Greetings of peace!
On January 9, 2023, Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court Branch Presiding Judge Aimee Marie B. Alcera acquitted ten human rights defenders — Karapatan National Council members Elisa Tita Lubi, Cristina Palabay, Roneo Clamor, Gabriela Krista Dalena, Dr. Edita Burgos, Jose Mari Callueng and Fr. Wilfredo Ruazol as well as Joan May Salvador and Gertrudes Libang of GABRIELA and Sr. Elenita Belardo of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) — of perjury charges filed in 2019 by then National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. Esperon had filed the case as a retaliatory measure after he was impleaded in the respondents’ prayer for a writ of amparo due to growing threats and attacks against human rights defenders.
On March 2, 2023, prosecutors from the Quezon City Office of the Prosecutor, with General Esperon and current NSA General Eduardo Ano verifying the document, filed a petition for certiorari, impleading Judge Aimee Marie Alcera as public respondent and the ten human rights defenders as private respondents. They alleged that Judge Alcera committed “grave abuse of discretion” in acquitting the defenders. Esperon’s petition is now pending before Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 84 Presiding Judge Luisito Galvez Cortez, who has asked the respondents to comment on Esperon’s motion this July and has scheduled a hearing on August 29, 2023.
Esperon’s reopening of the perjury case is but one in a series of renewed attacks against human rights defenders of Karapatan. On June 21, 2023, Atty. Ferdinand Topacio, a known supporter of former Pres. Rodrigo Duterte and the current administration, filed indirect contempt charges against former Senator Leila de Lima, Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay, Sen. Risa Hontiveros, Rep. Edcel Lagman, BAYAN chairperson Renato Reyes and 3 other lawyers of de Lima, after the respondents assailed a Muntinlupa court’s decision denying bail to Senator De Lima. The case is a direct attack on the respondents’ freedom of expression.
Palabay, along with Karapatan’s legal counsel Maria Sol Taule, continues to experience red-tagging and other forms of threats and harassment, particularly from supporters of the Duterte and Marcos Jr. administration at a TV program at the Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI), an outfit owned by the self-declared “son of God” Apollo Quiboloy who is wanted by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for sex trafficking charges. In 2022, Palabay together with the mothers of disappeared Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan filed administrative complaints against SMNI. Past and present officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, some facing numerous complaints at various domestic redress mechanisms, have repeatedly red-tagged Palabay and Taule.
Karapatan’s Eastern Visayas coordinator Alexander Philip “Chakoy” Abinguna remains imprisoned at the Tacloban City Jail for baseless and fabricated charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives, after the February 2020 raid in the office of Karapatan in Tacloban.
It is not only the human rights defenders themselves who are under attack, but also the judges who have demonstrated their integrity and independence by issuing judgments that impact on human rights defenders, and lawyers who have extended legal services to activists, political dissenters and human rights defenders facing cases in court.
In March 2019, Mandaluyong RTC Branch 209 Presiding Judge Monique Quisumbing Ignacio was red-tagged and publicly maligned after she quashed a spurious search warrant and dismissed trumped-up cases of illegal possession of firearms and explosives against community journalist Lady Ann Salem and union organizer Rodrigo Esparago. A giant tarpaulin red-tagging Judge Ignacio was hung along the busy EDSA-Shaw Boulevard thoroughfare after she issued the decision.
Manila RTC Branch 19 Presiding Judge Marlo Magdoza-Malagar was red-tagged, insulted and received death threats after she dismissed a petition from the Department of Justice (DOJ) seeking to declare the CPP-NPA as terrorist organizations in a 135-page decision issued on September 21, 2022.
In March 2021, Calbayog police intelligence chief Lt. Fernando Calabria Jr. asked the local court for a list of lawyers representing alleged communists. In April 2023, the PNP in Surigao del Sur issued a memorandum directing the police to profile “legal personalities prviding litigation to communist terrorist group cases.” Specifically cited in the order was PAO lawyer Carol Anne General.
Notably, most of the human rights defenders, judges and lawyers under threat are women human rights defenders, including elderly women who have devoted most of their lives to defending and promoting human rights like Elisa Tita Lubi and Edita Burgos of Karapatan, and Sr. Elenita Bernardo of the RMP.
We call on all our allies, communities, especially women human rights defenders and all freedom-loving peoples here and abroad to support the embattled human rights defenders of Karapatan, Rural Missionaries of the Philippines and Gabriela, as well as women judges Aimee Marie Alcera, Monique Quisumbing Ignacio and Marlo Magdoza-Malagar to stand with us against renewed judicial harassment and the persecution of human rights defenders fighting injustice, disinformation and impunity and the weaponization of the law in the Philippines.
We urgently appeal for your support and solidarity by:
1. Writing letters and statements supporting the human rights defenders and women judges and lawyers, and to send the letters and statements to the following:
Mr. Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr., President of the Republic of the Philippines
Fax: +632 742-1641 / 929-3968 / +632 87368621
Email: op@president.gov.ph / pcc@malacanang.gov.ph or send a message through http://president.gov.ph/contact-us
Eduardo Año
National Security Adviser and Director General of the National Security Council
East Avenue corner V. Luna Road, Quezon City, Philippines
Email: publicaffairs@nsc.gov.ph
Mr. Jesus Crispin C. Remulla, Secretary, Department of Justice of the Philippines
Fax: +632 521-1614 / +632 85262618
Email: communications@doj.gov.ph / osecmig@gmail.com
Atty. Richard Palpal-latoc
Chairperson, Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines
Email: ocrpp@chr.gov.ph
2. Issuing statements of solidarity for the human rights defenders and women judges and lawyers to be circulated to the public and media circles, and calling on the Philippine government to recall Executive Order No. 70, creating a national task force (NTF) to end local communist armed conflict and institutionalizing the so-called whole of nation approach; and to stop all activities emanating from this order, including the smear campaigns and judicial harassment against human rights defenders.
3. Conducting trial observations during court hearings in Quezon City and Tacloban City, as well as possible hearings in Muntinlupa City.
Please send us a copy of your email to the above-named officials, to our address below:
Karapatan Alliance Philippines
National Office
2/F Erythrina Bldg., #1 Maaralin cor Matatag Sts., Brgy. Central, Diliman, Quezon City 1100 PHILIPPINES
Telefax: (+632) 435 4146
Email: publicinfo@karapatan.org
Website: www.karapatan.org