Professor sued for leading protest for ‘Pablo’ victims decries gov’t harassment

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – A social work professor at a Catholic-run school here has decried the filing of charges against her in connection with the January 2013 protest of Typhoon “Pablo” survivors in Montevista, Compostela Valley.

In a press conference organized by the organization Barug Katawhan on Tuesday, Prof. Mae Fe Templa, a teacher at the Assumption College of Davao, said the charges filed before the Regional Trial Court in Montevista was the government’s way of putting pressure on individuals and groups, who were critical of its lapses and failures in delivering services to the victims of Typhoon Pablo.

“These are obviously trumped up charges, part of the systematic strategy of the government to go after those who criticize its policies and failure to address the needs and clamor of the people for genuine development and change,” she said.

Templa spoke at a press conference organized in support of the passage of the Anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (Slapp) bill in Congress, which was authored by Bayan Muna representatives.

It was learned that aside from Templa, Carlos Trangia of the people’s organization Barug Katawhan, and Sheena Duazo, secretary general of Bayan Southern Mindanao, had also been charged with similar offenses – for alleged violation of the Public Assembly Act of 1985, and resistance and disobedience to a person in authority under Article 252 of the Revised Penal Code.

The cases were filed last year.

Tempa said she only discovered the filing of the cases last year when she received a subpoena for her arraignment, two days before the October 21 schedule.

“After more than a year’s lull, I personally did not anticipate a legal action against my presence in that extremely huge mobilization because the communities of disaster survivors were in their right decision to clamor for a state’s comprehensive and humane response to the super typhoon aftermath,” she said. “This is a case of trumped up charges, a criminalization of an action that supposedly sought for climate justice and better relief service delivery,” Templa added.

Trangia said the filing of the charges showed the government’s “heartlessness” and was apparently done to “mask its failure to see through the lives of the survivors of the typhoon and their families.”

“As if it was not enough that the government failed in its duties, it is now out to prosecute people who dare challenge them on behalf of the people who could not speak out their disgust and only suffer in silence,” Trangia, who heads the Pablo survivors, said.

During the January 15, 2013 protest, some 5,000 protesters blocked the highway in Montevista and demanded they be given food and sustained relief and genuine rehabilitation assistance.

Priscilla Razon, chief of the Department of Social Welfare and Development in Southern Mindanao, denied they were remiss in their duties to help the Pablo victims.

She said the DSWD had served 45,905 families in Davao del Norte alone.

A few weeks later, Pablo survivors from Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental ransacked the warehouse of the DSWD here and took relief goods.

Trangia justified the subsequent raid by saying the DSWD did not fulfill its promise, made at the height of the January protest in Montevista, to provide them 10,000 sacks of rice.

Authorities recovered much of the items the protesters hauled off following a brief standoff outside the gates of the DSWD regional office here.