Stop threatening Ifugao rights workers — Bayan USA

By KIMBERLIE NGABIT-QUITASOL
www.nordis.net

BAGUIO CITY — Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan)-USA called a stop to the threats and harassment of human rights workers and a community leader in Ifugao.

“One of the targets on the recent vilification and harassment campaign put forth by the Aquino regime is Brandon Lee, one of our community organizers in Bayan USA originally from the Northern California region. We cannot be silent, and we demand an end to the harassment and threats to life and for the Aquino regime to stop targeting innocent civilians and unarmed organizations,” Bayan USA Chairperson Bernadette Ellorin said, in a statement.

Ellorin called on the US embassy to ensure Lee’s protection while working in the Philippines. She also demanded that an independent investigation be conducted on the surveillance, vilification and harassment against Lee and other human rights workers in the Cordillera, especially in Ifugao.

Lee is among the Ifugao Peasant Movement (IPM) members and Ifugao human rights workers being accused of being supporters and members of the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

The IPM members and staff tagged as members of NPA are: Nestor Peralta, Claudine Panayo, Billy Karty and Ben Calingayan. Active barangay officials and local members of people’s organizations are also vilified, including: Edwin Bumolyad, barangay captain of Montabiong, Lagawe; Nonoy Bangtiwen, a member of the barangay council of Tulludan, Tinoc; and Dick Tangid, a member of the barangay council of Tupaya, Lagawe and the current vice chairperson of IPM; Ricardo Mayumi; and Engr. James Tayaban, among others.

“Cases like these and that of Melissa Roxas, another US citizen and member of Bayan USA who was abducted and tortured by the AFP and eventually released in 2009, remind us that the Philippine government is still corrupt, repressive, malicious, and operates with a level of impunity acknowledged by the UN Human Rights Council,” Ellorin said.

“It will take a strong mass movement in the Philippines with international support to demand and enact change upon this corrupt and unjust system. Right now, we must make these threats known publicly, speak out to the Philippine consulates across the nation with our demands, and join the movement in the Philippines calling for B.S. Aquino to resign,” Ellorin continues.

Ellorin called on all human rights defenders and advocates and concerned people to expose cases of threats and harassment to human rights workers and help in the campaign to end political vilification against Lee and the Ifugao rights defenders.

Earlier, the biggest alliance of indigenous people’s organization in the region, the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), launched a campaign on its website, calling on peace advocates and concerned individuals to write letters to the President of the Philippines, the Ifugao Governor, the Congress Representative, and heads of the following government agencies: Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Department of National Defense, Department of Justice, Commission on Human Rights, and Committee on Human Rights of the House of Representatives.

The letters should ask the said government offices to investigate the surveillance, threats and harassment against human rights workers, to put a stop on political vilification and to withdraw the implementation of Oplan Bayanihan. The group also encouraged the public to write letters to ask for the continuation of formal peace talks between the government of the Philippines and National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), and for the full implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and various human rights treaties and instruments that the Philippine government is a party or signatory of. # nordis.net