Death by Democracy

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The Philippine Inquirer reports: "Environment Secretary Ramon Paje recently expressed concern over the number of forest workers, whether volunteers or employed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), threatened, harassed and killed in the line of duty... The latest fatality was Rolando Sinday, a forest ranger in Surigao del Sur who was gunned down by masked motorcycle-riding men while on his way home last month." Read the rest of the article.

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ABS CBN reports: "It was the military who shot and killed renowned plant taxonomist and ethnobiologist Leonard Co and his 2 companions, an independent fact-finding mission claimed on Wednesday. The mission, which is composed of members of the academe and cause-oriented group, presented its findings after conducting an investigation in the jungles of Kananga, Leyte, where Leonard and his team were slain on November 15. Mission head Giovanni Tapang of the scientists' group Agham said bullet trajectories at the site suggests that the gunshots all came from one direction. Evidence also suggests that Co and his group were the main targets of the gunmen, he added."

Update (2011-04-25): A website campaigning for justice for Leonard Co has been up and running for some time now. Please visit www.justiceforleonardco.org and learn more about what has been happening on this front.

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Samahan ng Magbubukid ng Batangas member Rene Rodriguez was shot by 2 masked men riding a motorcycle. Rodriguez was found dead at Brgy. Caybunga, Balayan, Batangas with 3 gunshot wounds on his head and chest. He is a peasant activist who fought for land reform and against land grabbing in Batangas. BAYAN-ST believes the killing is politically motivated and is still part of the counter-insurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya, now adopted by the Aquino administration. Batangas is one of the provinces in the region with massive deployment of military troops both in rural and urban areas.

Read the rest on the Southern Tagalog Exposure site.

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The Southern Tagalog Exposure site writes: Carlo “Caloy” Rodriguez, president of the Nagkakaisang Lakas ng Manggawa ng Calamba Water District, was gunned down by motorcycle riding men while he was on his way home from work at about 5:30pm today. He suffered 4 gunshot wounds – one to his neck, two to his back and one to his arm. Caloy, 41 years old, worked as a meter reader for the Calamba Water District. He was a long time union leader and a member of the militant public sector oragnization COURAGE (Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees).

From a forwarded email:

A group of cultural workers and artists set to give arts workshop to political detainees in Camp Bagong Diwa cry foul over the treament they received from jail officers. Last October 2, 2010, eight memebrs of the artist organization ARTISTS' ARREST went to said detention facility to conduct visual arts and poetry writing workshops for political detainees like the Morong 43 as part of the program "Sining Mula Sa Karsel" (Art from Prison).

Upon request of jail officers, the group, accompanied by representatives of human rights group DEFEND-ST (Committee to Defend Victims of Political Persecution in Southern Tagalog), immediately submitted themselves for inspection and presented the letter of request for said activity approved by the NCR regional director of the Bureau of Jail Management of Penology which has authority over Camp Bagong Diwa. They were, however, immediately disappointed when a jail officer who did not identify himself told them the activity can’t push through. Asked for the reason, the jail officer simply told them that the activity was not properly coordinated to them.

Dianne Mariano of DEFEND-ST argued that that they have done all the procedural requirements and that the jail officer's reason was unacceptable. “They can’t just tell us that they don’t know abut this activity and send us home because we have diligently fulfilled all requirements and we have official permission,” Mariano said in Filipino. At this point, the jail officers had also started taking pictures of individual members of the group and interrogated them. The jail officers repeatedly asked them about their personal circumstances. The jail officer also took their IDs and had it scanned.

After 5 hours of negotiation, the group was finally let to proceed. However, only the visual arts workshop was allowed to be conducted within a period of one hour and not 5 hours as originally approved in the request. Furthermore, only male members of the Morong 43 were allowed to join the workshop. During the session, a person who identified himself as Jorge Joseph continuously took pictures of the group.

For the poetry workshop, the jail officers instructed the group to simply give the materials to female members of Morong 43. But upon inspection of the materials, the deputy warden ordered its confiscation, saying the handouts are “subversive.” The deputy warden in particular identified a poem by University of the Philippine professor and literary artist Gelacio Guillermo entitled Kokak. Written in Kapampangan, the poem contains the names of a progressive party list representative and that of Gloria Arroyo.

The group later found out that the jail officer who harassed them was Deputy Jail Warden Mutya.

The group will return to Camp Bagong Diwa on October 7,2010 to conduct the workshop with the female members of Morong 43. Teta Tulay of ARTISTS' ARREST expressed her concern over the possible indication and ramification of this incident. “If they can harass innocent civilians when they visit, I can only imagine how much more harassment they can inflict on the detainees,” Tulay said.

According to Tulay, Sining mula sa Karsel aims to provide alternative venues of expression to people like members of the Morong 43 whose basic civil liberties had been hijacked by the state. They said that through activities like this, the detainees are able to assert and partially reclaim their civil and political rights.