CHR probes arrest of 7 activists
MANILA, Philippines — The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on Sunday urged the Philippine National Police to deal with questions about the arrest of seven leftist activists last week to bolster President Rodrigo Duterte’s pledge to the United Nations that he would uphold human rights.
“It would be then for the government’s benefit, particularly the PNP, to address these doubts and allegations of anomalous arrests,” Jacqueline de Guia, spokesperson for the CHR, said in a statement.
De Guia lauded the President’s pledge but said the commitments “need to be translated to actual reforms, including effectiveness of redress mechanisms in addressing similar allegations and different human rights violations.”
“For if these pledges will remain as words, then we would not only fail the human rights cause, but this would also render hollow the government’s primary assertions that it will abide by its obligation to uphold the rights of all,” she said.
The commission, De Guia said, would conduct its own investigation into the arrests of trade union organizers Dennise Velasco, Rodrigo Esparago, Romina Astudillo, Mark Ryan Cruz, Joel Demate and Jaymie Gregorio, all members of the leftist Defend Jobs Philippines, and journalist Lady Ann Salem, editor of the Manila Journal.
The seven were arrested in early morning raids on International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10 and were all charged with illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
De Guia noted that elderly leftist leaders Agaton Topacio and Eugenia Magpantay, both peace consultants to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), were killed in their house in Angono, Rizal, on Nov. 25 in a supposed shootout with the police when they were served warrants for illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
But the lawyers of the union organizers disputed the legality of the arrests and accused the police of planting evidence against them.
‘Easy to plant’
In Velasco and Salem’s cases, the raiding team asked them to lie face down on the floor or face the wall for almost an hour while their homes were searched by the police.
Edre Olalia of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers said illegal possession of firearms and explosives have become the go-to charges of police against political dissidents because search warrants could be procured by simply going through court motions.
“It is easy to plant these materiel, whose possession are monopolized by the police and military, especially if done at dawn or night and when the arrested persons are first segregated, controlled or neutralized and have no chance to prevent or witness such anomaly,” he added.
Because possession of explosives is normally a nonbailable offense, suspects thus “rot in jail and need to go through a rigorous process over time to prove that the evidence of your guilt is not strong for you to avail of bail if you are lucky,” Olalia said.
Under the law, both the subjects of a search warramt and witnesses must be presemt during its service to ensure regularity, according to the activists’ lawyer Kristina Conti.
When asked about the irregularities noted by the lawyers, Police Brig. Gen. Ildebrandi Usana, spokesperson for the PNP and former chief of the PNP Human Rights Affairs Office, declined to comment on the matter because Gen. Debold Sinas, the PNP chief, may want to respond himself during his regular media briefing on Monday. —WITH A REPORT FROM JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE INQ
