NDF slams ‘road to Calvary’

LUCENA CITY, Philippines— A leader of the communist-led National Democratic Front on Thursday accused the Aquino administration of continued violation of human rights and called its much-avowed slogan “tuwid na daan” (straight path) the Filipino people’s “road to Calvary.”

“Extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, demolitions of homes, military operations and forced evacuations, soaring prices and low wages – these are the marks of the Aquino regime’s ‘tuwid na daan’,” Utrecht-based Luis Jalandoni, the NDF’s chairperson, said in a statement, a copy of which was received by the Inquirer.

He added: “The ‘tuwid na daan’ is in fact the people’s road to Calvary.”

Jalandoni said numerous victims of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law “cry out for justice.”

Citing the records of the militant human rights group Karapatan, Jalandoni accused government forces of committing 99 extrajudicial killings; 11 enforced disappearances; 216 illegal arrest and detentions; 67 tortures; 60 frustrated extrajudicial killings and rape of 3 minors from July 2010 to June 2012.

He also noted the killing of Willem Geertman, a Dutchman working for a nongovernmental disaster management organization who was shot and killed by a lone gunman in his office in a subdivision in Angeles City on July 3, 2012.

He also claimed that the Aquino administration had caused the forced evacuation of 29,465 residents from the countryside to flee from the anti-insurgency war being waged by state security forces against the communist armed rebels, New Peoples Army.

Jalandoni said the figures showed the massive violations by the Aquino administration of the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian laws.

He added that the incidents also violated the government and the NDF’s Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.

“The cry for justice of the many thousands of victims fall on the deaf ears of Benigno Aquino III who only listens to his true bosses – the US government, foreign multinationals, and local big landlords and compradors,” Jalandoni said.

He warned that the revolutionary forces and the NPA rebels would continue to fight the government to obtain “justice for the exploited and oppressed people.”

Commission on Human Rights chairperson Loretta Anne Rosales admitted that not a single human rights violator has been sent to jail two years into the Aquino administration.

Her admission confirmed reports by the New York-based human rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch, that said that the Aquino government “has not successfully prosecuted a single case of extrajudicial killing or enforced disappearance, including those committed during his presidency.”

Rosales reported that from July 2010 to June 2012, the CHR has resolved 37 or 39 percent out of 96 complaints filed against the military, 108 or 41 percent out of 261 complaints against the police, and 33 or 36 percent out of 91 complaints against the armed groups.

Aside from filing cases against perpetrators, Rosales said the CHR was also closely coordinating military and police to protect the rights of every Filipino.