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<div> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="http://www.thefilipinochronicle.com/hfchronicle%20column_Commentary_06012019.html">http://www.thefilipinochronicle.com/hfchronicle%20column_Commentary_06012019.html</a></font>
<p><font size="+2"><b><span size="5" face="Trebuchet MS, Geneva,
Arial, Helvetica, SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Attacks
Mount Against Philippine Human Rights
Advocates</span></b></font></p>
<p><span size="3" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">by John Witeck & Seiji
Yamada - June 1, 2019<br>
</span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Approximately 300,000 or
one-fourth of Hawaii’s population is Filipino. Hawaii’s
substantial economic, personal, and family ties with the
Philippines means that all of us here have a great stake in
what is happening there. The government of Philippine
President Rodrigo Duterte has been threatening and attacking
a growing number of human rights advocates, labor, church
and community organizers, and indigenous people and the
poor.</span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Over the past three years, an
estimated 27,000 Filipinos, mostly from poor communities,
have been killed without trial by police, military officers,
and unknown assailants in the name of the Duterte
government’s so-called “war on drugs.” The killings continue
on a daily basis despite domestic and international
condemnation. </span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Human rights defenders who have
called for an end to the killings have been harassed and
detained, including Senator Leila de Lima, jailed for over
two years on politically-motivated and false drug charges.
News outlet Rappler and its CEO Maria Ressa have been
harassed by 11 government complaints, and Ressa, Time
Magazine’s Person of the Year, and several other journalists
and human rights lawyers have been publicly accused of
working to destabilize the government.</span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Last November human rights
attorney Ben Ramos was shot and killed; he was the
Secretary-General of the National Union of Peoples Lawyers
in Negros. At least 34 human rights and peoples’ lawyers
have been killed since 2016 when Duterte became president.
More than 60 farmers have been killed in Negros alone,
including the 14 farmers massacred in Negros Oriental in
April; over 205 killings of farmers have been reported
nationwide over the past 3 years.</span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">In early 2019, peace talks
consultant Randy Malayao was assassinated. Last May 1 Archad
Ayao, an investigator for the Philippine Commission on Human
Rights, was shot dead in Cotabato City, southern
Philippines, by an unidentified gunman. On April 22, human
rights worker and local official Bernardino Patigas was
gunned down in Escalante City, Negros Occidental. Hours
later, several of his colleagues in the Karapatan human
rights organization, including Karapatan Secretary General
Cristina Palabay, received threatening text messages from an
unknown person warning them that they are targeted to be
killed this year.</span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Besides direct physical
violence, human rights defenders have been “red-tagged” and
called “communists” by the Philippine military officials,
including Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on
the rights of Indigenous Peoples. She and others have been
accused of involvement in “terrorist activities” due to
their human rights work. Groups that the Duterte government
has “red-tagged” include Karapatan, Rural Missionaries of
the Philippines, the Ibon Foundation, the Alliance of Health
Workers, and the National Union of People’s Lawyers, which
has been giving legal assistance to political prisoners,
activists, and relatives of victims of extrajudicial
executions sanctioned by Duterte.</span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">The Duterte regime has failed
to conduct prompt, effective, and impartial investigations
into the attacks on human rights defenders, and to bring
those responsible to justice. Amnesty International (AI)
recently called on the government to do so, but there has
been little response. AI has also called on the government
to cease “red-tagging” and threatening human rights
advocates and organizations and to protect them from harm.</span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">It is time that we in Hawaii
speak up and insist that our representatives in Congress
–Senators Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono, and Representatives
Tulsi Gabbard and Ed Case -- work to halt all aid to the
Philippine military and police forces while these
atrocities, threats and jailings continue. Last year, the
U.S. government provided $184.5 million in economic aid to
the Philippine military and national police, the main
perpetrators of the atrocities.</span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">Our Congressional
representatives should also urge the US State Department to
insist that the Philippine government investigate these
killings and stop its attacks against journalists and human
rights advocates and cease its extra-judicial killings.
These are crimes against humanity and gravely threaten the
safety and security of the Filipino people.</span></p>
<p><span size="2" face="Helvetica, Geneva, Arial,
SunSans-Regular, sans-serif">__________________________________________________________________</span>
</p>
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<p><font size="2"><strong>JOHN WITECK</strong> <em>is a retired
labor unionist and human resources who currently works
part-time for the State Department of Education and is a
lecturer at the Honolulu Community College. He has been
hosted on four occasions by labor, community, and human
rights organizations in the Philippines and attended
International Solidarity events. He edited the bimonthly
periodical Philippine Labor Alert for over a decade.</em></font></p>
<p><font size="2"><strong>SEIJI YAMADA</strong> <em> is a family
physician practicing and teaching in Hawaii.</em></font></p>
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