“This PILC’s fourth grant of a demurrer to evidence in an illegal possession case against a person in the peace process, a pattern that debunks what police want us to believe. What’s true: peace consultants are not armed and dangerous!”
Like the complaints it filed against four NDFP consultants it arrested in succession in 2018, the Philippine National Police (PNP) charged Gamara and his companion, retired priest Arturo Balagat, with illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
Renante Gamara, NDFP peace consultant for the National Capital Region, was arrested by the Regional Special Operations Unit of the National Capital Region Police Office-Philippine National Police, Philippine Army and intelligence agents last night and was first brought to Camp General Pantaleon Garcia in Imus, Cavite.
These young women are among the many children of activists who have taken their parents’ place in the fight for justice and democracy.
The human rights group Karapatan currently holds an art exhibit to bolster its campaign to free political prisoners all over the country. “Portrayal” shows over 50 portraits of political prisoners — people whom the group said government tries to keep “inconspicious and invisible across history.” The Maximillian Gallery along Tomas Morato in Quezon City hosts…
By RONALYN V. OLEA
Political prisoners from all over the country commemorated the International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners, December 3, by a simultaneous reading of a poem about the longing for freedom.
By RONALYN V. OLEA
“The charges are baseless but with the slow judicial system, the military has made it a point that we languish in jail for long.”
Sidebar: Camp Bagong Diwa, one of the most restrictive jails in the country
Children of political prisoners demand freedom for their fathers (Photo by Ronalyn V. Olea / Bulatlat.com)
By RONALYN V. OLEA Bulatlat.com MANILA – Amid the impasse in the peace talks between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), another consultant of the NDFP was arrested April 3. Renante Gamara and companion Santiago Balleta were arrested by armed men in plainclothes in Las Pinas,…