Urban poor organizer nabbed in Pampanga

An urban poor activist was arrested in connection with a 2010 murder in Negros Occidental province, a human rights group said Friday.

Karapatan said Ruby Lacadman, an organizer of the urban poor group Kadamay, was arrested by members of the police and military at her residence in Barangay Cacutud, Mabalacat City, Pampanga province.

She was apprehended based on a warrant of arrest issued on October 12 last year for the murder of a certain “Ruby Palabrica y Quitason” in Cadiz City, the group said.

Lacadman was then brought to the Mabalacat police station and was set to be transferred to Cadiz City in Negros Occidental, where she would be reportedly brought to the court on Monday, Karapatan said.

Lacadman is among the activists presumably included in the Department of Justice’s proscription petition, which contained a list of more than 600 names, the group said.

According to the list, Lacadman was allegedly a former member of the finance bureau of the Communist Party of the Philippines’ Komiteng Rehiyon ng Negros (regional committee of Negros or KRN) and a member of the Regional White Area Committee (RWAC).

Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay condemned the arrest and slammed the “unfounded” allegations.

Palabay said Lacadman worked then as the barangay secretary in Cacutud, then worked in a church-based program in Angeles City.

The filing of the proscription petition “gave rise to an intensified crackdown against activists and members of progressive organizations,” Palabay also said.

“Duterte’s vindictive government, through his fake terror list, is clamping down on the critics of his anti-people policies. This is an indefensible assault and a brazen curtailment of people’s civil and political rights,” said  Palabay.

“The Duterte regime is weaponizing the agencies at his disposal – all the departments, the courts, the police and the military – to persecute all his critics, undoubtedly the mark of a tyrannical regime,” she added.

Palabay called for Lacadman’s immediate release and the junking of President Duterte’s “fake terror list.”/lb