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A daughter's last conversation with her dying father and the abominable situation inside the Angeles city jail that led to another death of a political prisoner. Joseph Canlas was the ninth under the Duterte administration and the fourth since the COVID-19 pandemic.
"This function is within the High Court’s judicial duties to protect the right to life and health of those in government custody. They include the political prisoners like Joseph Canlas who had various comorbidities like diabetes and hypertension but was never tested for COVID-19 until he was brought to the jail’s quarantine section.”
Gen. Debold Sinas’s term was characterized by raids using what human rights groups labeled as “defective, copy-paste warrants.” These operations resulted in killings and arrests of farmers, indigenous peoples, and human rights defenders.
“A remorseless human rights violator like him doesn’t deserve a peaceful retirement. We will continue to fight impunity by working to make sure that active or retired generals who abuse their power like Sinas are put behind bars."
The mañanita general's notion of despedida proved to be a series of raids and arrests in Southern Tagalog and Bicol, according to human rights groups.
Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay lamented that the justice department's task force is not doing enough to resolve the extrajudicial killings in Calabarzon.
“The militarist and punitive framework of policing the pandemic in the form of policies resulting in mass arrests and detention of alleged violators runs counter to the purpose of quarantine protocols which is to protect and uphold people’s health."
“We implore the Canadian government to take action on these concerns with urgency, as our country further descends into an authoritarian state."
Justice Edgardo Delos Santos questioned the “undue delegation of power” provided to the council, saying that the law is silent on how it will arrive at the conclusion in designating persons or groups as terrorists.
A day before the World Press Freedom Day, a former NUJP officer was shot dead in Capiz and a campus journalist's house was raided in Bicol.
A pastor and a youth leader were arrested in early morning raids in Camarines Sur and Albay.
According to their lawyer, there was no preliminary investigation conducted. The accused also did not receive a copy of the subpoena, affidavits of the complainants and other pertinent documents about the case.
In its second manifestation, the group stressed that the SC should revisit the CA ruling as their leaders and members continue to experience judicial harassment, threats, and red-tagging by military and police authorities, including those perpetrated by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) spokesperson and Southern Luzon Command chief Antonio Parlade Jr.
In a statement, Karapatan said that a thorough review of the application of search warrants used by the police to conduct simultaneous raids on December 10 last year “is a matter of justice."
"Leaders like Joseph and Pol have no desire but to see the people of the Philippines live fair and just lives. Their arrest and imprisonments only further show the correctness of their work and the Duterte government's failure to prioritize the true needs of the people during a global pandemic."
Human rights lawyer Neri Colmenares assailed Solicitor General Jose Calida for red tagging him and other progressive legislators during the online oral arguments on the Anti-Terror Law, April 27.
"State forces will always be there to call us into submission, to prevent us from performing our sworn duties as lawyers. But I come to realize that there is no other way to stop the rights violations but to fight. Fight the system that breeds them."
This translates to an average of seven lawyers killed every year.
"Indeed, it is tragic that so many have been victimized; but the perpetrators and the people behind them are sorely mistaken if they think that violence can defeat people’s advocacies. In the long run, impunity simply cannot prevail over demands for justice and accountability."
“No prisoner can be safe from the rising threats of the highly contagious disease inside the world’s most overcrowded and ill-equipped prison facilities with the most haphazard policies."
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