By Felipe Realidades* – Toronto
Southern Tagalog workers protest political persecution
The Canadian media has reported on the massive increase of Filipino migrant workers into Canada. The human rights situation in that country reveals the underlying reasons why so many are looking to leave.
On February 5, Atty. Remigio Saladero Jr., the chief counsel of Kilusang Mayo Uno [KMU (May First Movement)] — the progressive alliance of trade unions in the Philippines — and member of Pro Labor Assistance Center (PLACE), Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) was released from prison. He was joined by five leaders from popular organizations in the Southern Tagalog region east and south of Manila. All six had been detained for three months.
These arrests and detentions seem to be tests by the Philippine state of new tactics against the legal popular movement. For the last eight years, the Philippine state has mainly relied on killing then disappearing leaders of legal popular organizations. They were, to put it bluntly, trying to destroy the legal popular movement by cutting of its head! But as the killings and disappearances have brought international condemnation and increased local sympathy for the legal popular movement in their wake, they have now had to try new tactics for decapitating said movement. Prolonged litigation to paralyze popular leaders is just this new tactic.
The Southern Tagalog region seems to have been chosen as the test ground and the test targets the leaders of progressive unions, labour organizations and institutes, and progressive party list groups. It was the area most hit by the political killings and disappearances targeting unarmed popular leaders. This region has been fertile ground for the organizing and mobilizing efforts of the popular movement.
The first one arrested was Atty. Remigio Saladero Jr. On Oct. 23, elements of Philippine National Police of Rizal province mobile group and the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) picked him up in his residence-cum-office at Antipolo City, just east of Manila. Nestor San Jose, PISTON-Rizal coordinator, was next on Oct. 24; Crispin Zapanta, Bayan Muna-Southern Tagalog officer, Oct. 27; Rogelio Galit, Katipunan ng mga Magbubukid sa Kabite (Kamagsasaka-Ka) spokesperson and bedridden due to diabetes, Nov. 4; Arnaldo Seminiano, Ilaw-Buklod ng Manggagawa-KMU (IBM-KMU) organizer, Nov. 6; and Emmanuel Dionida, Labor Education Advocacy Development Response Services (LEADER) executive director, Nov. 13.
As it turned out, the legal basis for these arrests and detention had a highly irregular history.
A complaint was originally filed at the office of the Batangas Provincial Prosecutor’s Office on Aug. 12, 2008 by a certain Marlo Timbreza on behalf of Globe Telecom Inc. regarding the bombing and burning of a Globe cell site in Lemery, Batangas last August 2.
This complaint named Atty. Remigio Saladero Jr. and 18 other prominent activist-leaders such as Bayani Cambronero, 8th party list nominee and Southern Tagalog regional coordinator of Bayan Muna; Rolando Mingo, Vice President of the nationwide transport group PISTON, and president of the Southern Tagalog Region Transport Sector Organization; Agaton Bautista, Anakpawis
On September 5, 2008, the original complaint was amended to include 8 of the 9 grassroots activists who had been abducted and tortured by elements of the Calabarzon Philippine National Police’s Regional Special Operations Group last August 31, 2008 in Tartaria, Cavite. One of these eight is 63-year old Renato Alvarez, Chairperson of the Kamagsasaka-Ka, who had experienced torture at the hands of his abductors.
The complaint alleges that the 27 respondents listed committed arson, the destruction of private property other than arson and conspiracy to commit rebellion.
The warrants of arrest against Atty. Saladero, Jr. and the other five activist-leaders were issued later though by Judge Tomas Leynes of the Calapan City Regional Trial Court in accordance with a second and different criminal case filed against Atty. Saladero and 71 others. This separate case of multiple murder and frustrated multiple murder had been filed originally against a certain Rustum Simbulan and later amended to add 71 others, including most of the Southern Tagalog 27. The file cited a New People’s Army ambush in Puerto Galera, Mindoro Oriental in March 3, 2006. More than 30 of the 71 additional names are active leaders, and members of legal popular organizations in Southern Tagalog. Some of these respondents are victims of human rights violations themselves: Arman Albarillo lost both his parents after they were murdered by military forces, and Orly Marcellana, whose wife Eden Marcellana (Karapatan Southern Tagalog Secretary General) was killed in Mindoro by soldiers under Gen. Jovito Palparan. Orly Marcellana has been a consistent complainant in the impeachment cases filed against President Gloria Arroyo.
General Jovito Palparan – accused of human rights abuses
On Oct. 27, 2008, provincial prosecutor Josephine Caranzo-Olivar admitted in court that no preliminary investigation had been conducted when the names of the 71 were added to the amended file. In other words, no inquiry had been held to determine if there was even probable cause against the 71 additional individuals.
The highly irregular character of this affair calls attention to certain troubling facts: First, these arrest and detentions have served to tie up activist-leaders in legal battles thereby diverting them from their work as activist-leaders. Second, the cases against the Southern Tagalog 72 are wholesale and sweeping in nature. Almost all high-profile regional and provincial leaders were charged. Were such moves to succeed, it would decimate the struggle for labor rights and demolish the progressive labor movement. Third, the prosecutor resorted to legal shortcuts in implicating the 72. There was no preliminary investigation and the Calapan RTC hastily issued arrest warrants. Fourth, the complaints and arrest warrants are consistent with the communist-labeling/demonizing being resorted to by the US-Arroyo regime and the state security forces. Legal activists have been accused of being members of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines. But instead of simply filing rebellion cases, activists are often charged with common crimes such as murder and arson, if not murdered or disappeared outright.
The ordeal of the six co-defendants has not ended despite their release. The six were released due to technicalities: Not only were all served with defective warrants of arrests containing misspelled names and/or false addresses, the Mindoro Oriental Regional Trial Court granted the “motion to quash the information” filed by the defendants, and ruled that multiple crimes (multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder) filed under only one case was not permissible. In other words, despite all the irregularities, the cases against the 72 Southern Tagalog activists have yet to be dismissed.
Meanwhile, Gen. Jovito Palparan, who has infamously earned the title of “The Butcher” and who has had a hand in the atrocities suffered by some of the Southern Tagalog 72, has had his name bandied about by none other than President Arroyo for a senior position either in the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) or the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB). Thus, Palparan, a man with no legal or moral scruples against using false information, vilification, kidnapping and summary execution against civilians is now in the process of enjoying rehabilitation by the Arroyo regime as potentially effective against the illegal drugs trade after the scandal implicating the Department of Justice and even Justice Secretary Gonzales in releasing rich drug pushers. ?
*Felipe Realidades is a Filipino freelance commentator focusing on Philippine current affairs.
Party list groups are organizations that are supposed to represent the marginalized sectors of Philippine society. A small number of seats in Congress are reserved for party list groups who do well in the elections. The popular movement has organized various party list groups and have done well. The ruling class have also organized fake party list groups that are adjuncts of their electoral parties. Certain party list groups are also linked with the military.
PISTON [Pagkakaisa ng mga Samahan ng Tsuper at Opereytor Nationwide (United Organizations of Drivers and Operators Nationwide)] is the progressive national alliance of Jeepney drivers. Jeepneys, based on extended America-type jeeps, are used as a popular form of transit in the Philippines.
Bayan Muna is the largest and most successful progressive party list group. It means “People First”. Bayan Muna activist have become frequent targets of military linked death squads.
IBM-KMU is the alliance of unions in San Miguel Corporation (SMC) subsidiaries. SMC is a Philippine conglomerate owned by Eduardo Cojuanco, one of the organizers of Marcos’ martial law and cousin of Cory Aquino. It is linked with Nestle and is most famous for its ice cream and beer products.
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan [New Patriotic Alliance] or BAYAN (the People) for short the progressive multi-sectoral alliance of legal progressive alliances. KMU is a member of BAYAN.
Kadamay is a national alliance of urban poor associations, workers, neighborhood associations, workers and semi-workers groups, women’s groups, and youth groups based in urban poor communities.
Mindoro is an island in the Southern Tagalog region. It became infamous for the large numbers of civilians killed by military-linked death squads.
Jovito Palparan, a.k.a, “Butcher of Mindoro” commanded the military in Mindoro at the height of the political killings against civilians. He was reassigned to other parts of the Philippines to spread his brand of terror. Palparan currently sits in Congress of a party list group tied to the military.
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