In Compostela Valley, meanwhile, Cabillas said, political prisoners could not even embrace their visiting loved ones. “A barbed wire is placed between the detainees and visitors. Fathers could not even carry their children,” he said.

At the National Bilibid Prisons (NBP), Cabillas said sick detainees are not provided with medicines.

All these, Cabillas said, are meant “to weaken the spirit of political detainees.”

Aquino urged to act

“Political prisoners and people’s organizations nationwide have carried out a series of actions starting this year to call for a general, unconditional and omnibus amnesty but Aquino remains deaf,” Enriquez said. “More than one year is too long a wait for those who were wronged and for those who seek justice.”

“We cannot fathom how the president understood the plight of his father, a former political prisoner during the Marcos dictatorship, when his administration is committing the same crimes of fascist predecessor governments. In enforcing the counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan, it has unleashed the blueprint for the various human rights violations on the ground, with the strong support of the US government, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the PNP, and agencies such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD),” Ipong said.

“A general, unconditional and omnibus amnesty for them is but a just step toward rectifying the injustices and rights violations against them,” she concluded.

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