On 15 March 2008 at around 7:30pm, Pastor Mel Abesamis, a human rights worker was abducted in the town of San Jose, Mindoro Occidental. No report as to the details of the abduction yet. The pastor had been missing for two days.Read the rest of the story on Karapatan.org.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) on Friday condemned the killing of a farmer and their local leader in Masbate who was supposed to join the commemoration of the Mendiola Massacre in Burias Island.Read the rest of the article on the Masbate Wow Philippines website.
KMP chairman Rafael “Ka Paeng” Mariano said police killed Teldo Rebamonte, 45-years-old of the Masbate People’s Organization.
“We have witnesses to prove that it is the 5th Regional Mobile Group of the Philippine National Police who were the ones who abducted him on January 12 then killed Ka Teldo last January 16. His body was found bruised and shows signs of torture at the hinterlands of Barangay Nabasagan, Concepcion in Claveria, Burias Island,” said Mariano.
The Court of Appeals has directly linked retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan to the abduction of civilians suspected of being insurgents, saying that he at least knew about the arrest and detention by his men of the Manalo brothers.Read the rest on Inquirer.net
The court’s second division said this showed Palparan’s "command policy" of encouraging the arrest of civilians without due process and sufficient basis.
A radio broadcaster who had denounced alleged corruption in the building of the “People’s Park” in this city and government malfeasance will not be spending Christmas Tuesday with his four children.Read the rest on Inquirer.net.
An assassin riding tandem on a motorcycle with an accomplice gunned down Ferdie Lintuan at 9:30 a.m. Monday as the 51-year-old journalist was driving his Volkswagen, police said.
Read the rest on Inquirer.netCLAD in black shirts with their faces covered by black veils, female relatives of the victims of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances held roses as they marched Monday in Manila to mark Human Rights Day.
"The families of the victims continue to mourn because they remain deprived of justice," said Renato Reyes, spokesperson of the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan).
The women in black led some 1,500 activists in calling on the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to stop the extrajudicial killings.
Democracy, according to the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, is "a question of human dignity, [a]nd human dignity is political freedom, the right to freely express opinion and the right to be allowed to criticise and form opinions."
But exercising political freedom in the Philippines, which purports itself to be a democracy, can lead to death. Since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency of the country in 2001, more than 800 Filipinos murdered in politically-motivated, extra-judicial, targeted killings. Since the 4th quarter of July 2005, one person has been killed every two days. The victims of these brazen acts of violence were all unarmed citizens: lawyers, judges, journalists, medical practitioners, members of cause-oriented groups, priests, church-workers, human rights advocates, laborers and farmers.
It is widely believed—and the United Nations support this belief—that state security forces are complicit in these crimes.
