Human rights activists dance Cha-cha to protest Charter change
Photo courtesy of Karapatan
Cha-cha against Cha-cha.
Members of human-rights groups Karapatan and Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (Selda) danced to the tune of Cha-cha to protest the push for Charter change (Cha-cha) in Congress.
The dance protest was staged at the grandstand of the Sunken Garden in University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman on Saturday morning, February 3.
Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said they danced to “the tune of resistance” against proposals in Congress to revise the 1987 Constitution, which she said would pose as “dangers to the people’s hard-won rights.”
“If the Duterte regime is inching the country closer to a full-fledged dictatorship to the tune of Cha-cha, the people will unhesitatingly dance to the tune of resistance,” Palabay said in a statement.
“These self-serving schemes will be the Duterte government’s instrument to install a dictatorship, appropriate favors to his cohorts, and sell the country’s sovereignty to imperialist powers by removing economic protections, all at the expense of the people’s welfare,” she said.
Photo courtesy of Karapatan
Palabay recalled that the previous efforts to revise the Constitution failed “because of resounding protests from the people.”
Proponents of Cha-cha, the Karapatan leader said, primarily targeted the removal of provisions in the current Constitution that aim to protect the country’s economy.
“Now, a more treacherous version has seeped into the heads of power-hungry and greedy politicians, and it has found a perfect mascot in the form of a wanna-be tyrant,” Palabay said.
“To frustrate such ambitious and self-serving efforts, we urge organizations and individuals to undertake different forms of actions to protest this anti-people charter change,” she said. /jpv
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