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Indignant

In a span of 11 hours, motorcycle-riding men believed by human rights groups to be from the military gunned down two human rights activists in the Cordillera and the Ilocos regions. We salute the two fallen human rights advocates and as we condole with their respective families, we transform their grief into indignation.

About 10 o’clock pm on November 28, unidentified killers in a highway in San Esteban, Ilocos Sur., shot Jose “Pepe” Manegdeg to death. Pepe was the coordinator of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines for Cordillera and Ilocos.

Almost 11 hours after Pepe was summarily executed, two unidentified motorcycle-riding men shot Albert Terredaño at 8:45 A.M. on November 29 in Bangued, Abra on his way to the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), where he worked and served as president of the DAR Employees Association in Abra. He is also a Courage organizer, and provincial volunteer staff of the Baguio-based Cordillera Indigenous Peoples’ Law Center or Dinteg. He succumbed in a Bangued hospital at 3:45 P.M. that day.

This year’s political killings registered the most number since 2001 – the period when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed leadership. Since January this year, 122 killed political activists make the GMA administration worse than that of the deposed Marcos dictatorship.

These killed activists committed no crime. Instead, they just exercised their political rights to bring about social change. Pepe and Albert had taken the people’s cause under the bounds of advocacy. They utilized political enlightenment on the society’s ills through organizing and education in the church and government employees sector. They have brought the middle forces nearer the basic masses by making them understand the plight of small people.

They both lived a full life serving the oppressed and exploited masses of workers, peasants and other sectors. They applied Christian teachings, which include this bible verse: “No man has greater love than to offer your life for your people.”

What is worrisome is the violation of the right to life. While the right to life is among the inherent rights contained under the constitution’s bill of right which should be protected by the state at all times, it is systematically violated by GMA’s administration.

The killings of Pepe and Albert and other political activists are proof of this administration’s failure to protect and value the rights of the people – including their right to life. It is slowly unveiled as an undeclared state policy.

Remember the power point from the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ “Knowing the Enemy”, which equates open protests with the armed struggle by the New People’s Army guerillas. That is a license for their rampage. The protector of the people is now its oppressor – much more to kind and dedicated peoples’ servants like Pepe and Albert.

What should be done when the state that is supposed to protect its peoples’ rights instead systematically perpetuate injustice and oppression?

We have a right to a humane and just society. We have a right to adopt measures to remove those in power when the state turns out to be a tyrant and our oppressor.

An indignant people shall seek justice. #

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