By KIMBERLIE NGABIT-QUITASOL
www.nordis.net

BAGUIO CITY — It was in the middle of the report of Cordillera Human Rights Alliance (CHRA) Secretary General Jude Baggo on what he called the worsening state of human rights in the country when the rains suddenly poured as if the heavens mourned over the continuing rights violations perpetrated by state security forces against the people.

Baggo was among the speakers in what the militant organizations here called the peoples state of the nation address (people’s SONA) presentation in the morning of July 22, hours before President Benigno Simeon Aquio III delivered his 4th SONA in congress.

Baggo reiterated that after three years of the Aquino administration the human rights situation in the country has gone from bad to worse as he reported of more human rights violations under the present administration’s Oplan Bayanihan.

“There has not been any substantial change in the deplorable state of human rights in the country under the Aquino government. More than passing new human rights laws is the need for the political will to implement these existing laws. And we did not see that under the Aquino administration,” Baggo stressed.

Baggo underscored that to date perpetrators of human rights violations, most of whom are members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), has not been brought to justice. “We have many very good laws on human rights but these are useless if the government does not master the will to implement these laws. Like we have been saying in the past, human rights violations continue because perpetrators are not brought to justice thus the reign of impunity,” he reiterated.

Earlier reports showed that six years after the extrajudicial killing of Kalinga elder and Cordillera Peoples Alliance Elder’s Desk Rafael “Markus” Bangit and the ambush of then Bayan Muna Kalinga Chair Dr. Chandu Claver’s family that killed his wife Alyce justice remains elusive.

Baggo reiterated that the Aquino administration’s Oplan Bayanihan has long been unmasked to be AFP’s counter insurgency campaign blueprint waged against the people. He stressed that the continuing reign of impunity and escalating cases of harassment, vilification, trumped up charges, extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances only proves that the Aquino government failed to keep his promise to curb human rights violations.

Escalating rights violations

What is alarming according to Baggo is the arrest and imprisonment of development workers charged for allegedly being involved in ambushes of government troops by New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas. He added the escalating cases of vilification and harassment of development workers, human rights defenders and the communities they serve by state security forces.

“What do they (development workers) do? They provide much needed social services to interior communities in Northern Luzon that are often not reached by government projects. What do they get from the government in return? Harassment and vilification perpetrated by state security forces instead,” he reiterated.

Among the development workers arrested and jailed due to trumped up charges are Virgilio Corpuz and Rene Abiva. Corpuz in a member of the Regional Development Council-Katinulong ti Umili (RDC-Kaduami) servicing the Cagayan Valley’s poorest of the poor. Abiva is an employee of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) under its Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps).

The most recent case of harassment involving soldiers of the 87th IB of the Philippine Army stationed in Kalinga against two new staff members of the Center for Development Programs in the Cordillera (CDPC) last June. CDPC reported that two of their staff doing research work in Limos and Baay, Pinukpok, Kalinga were traumatized after elements of the 87th IB interrogated them.

Baggo is a victim himself. In 2012, CHRA came across a copy of a target list of the 86th IB based in Tinoc, Ifugao naming development workers, human rights defenders, government employees and Ifugao community folk and labeling them as supporters of the NPA. Baggo was listed number 22 and labeled as “utak ng NPA”.

CHRA earlier reports showed that the local Ifugao folk included in the said list were constantly harassed by the soldiers. Among the victims include Modesto Hanggoy and his family, whose house is listed in the document as a storage of guns and Pio Dangew, the former Barangay Captain of Gumhang, Tinoc, Ifugao and the present Chairman of the Gumhang Farmers Association for Development (GFDA) whose residence is listed as the sleeping quarters of the NPA and being constantly visited, interrogated and harassed by soldiers.

Gabino Lindawan, an administrative aide of the Ifugao Provincial Agriculture and Environment and Resources Office (PAENRO), whose house is also listed as storage of guns of NPAs was mauled under heavy rains and was threatened to be buried. The soldiers even destroyed crops in the nursery of Lindawan’s office while they were searching for guns allegedly hidden there.

Baggo further highlighted the state security forces bombings that terrorized indigenous communities of Malibcong, Abra last June where two minors were gathering bisukul (edible snails) about 10 meters away from one of the bombs dropped. Aside from the trauma it caused the two minors and the local folk, the bombings destroyed community rice fields, the community’s sources of livelihood.

In Aquino’s SONA, there was no mention about the state of human rights in the country.

Despite the continuing harassment and threats to their security and life, development workers, human rights defenders and members of militant organizations renewed their commitment to continue with their work and campaign for genuine social transformation.

And just as the participants to the people’s SONA toppled the despicable misrepresentation of the Aquino government made in Congress as part of the culmination of their activity, the rains stopped and the sun shone brightly, as if the heavens smiled at the resolve of these groups to keep on working for social change. # nordis.net