EDITORIAL

State repression

State repression is getting worse according to “leftist” organizations with the rash of cases of arbitrary detention, execution and arrests on trumped up charges allegedly by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The AFP has denied these charges and atrocities. But it is not doing the AFP any good if it doesn’t open its facilities to families looking for missing persons who were believed abducted or killed by the military. Since the AFP is considered the protector of the people, it should also issue statements of concern and act accordingly if missing persons are not really in their turf.

The latest case was the abduction and detention of lawyer Remegio Saladero, Jr. allegedly by elements of the Philippine National Police on Oct. 23. At 1 p.m. that day, Saladero was allegedly arbitrarily arrested in his house-cum-law office in Antipolo, Rizal on a defective warrant of arrest charging him with frustrated and multiple murder. He was arrested by members of the Antipolo police and brought to Camp Vicente Lim in Laguna.

Saladero is the chief legal counsel of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) Pro Labor Legal Assistance Center's (PLACE) board chairman, Anakpawis Partylist's legal counsel, National Federation of Labor Unions (NAFLU)-KMU chief legal counsel and a member of the National Union of People's Lawyers (NUPL), among others.

He graduated law at San Beda College and was among the top 20 when he took the bar in 1984. He was also a law professor at the Lyceum and the Dominican College. He is also a columnist at the on-line newspaper Pinoy Weekly.

Now, the KMU is saying the “political persecution” of Saladero is also a persecution of thousands of people whose cases are part of the more or less 700 cases he is trying to defend of their labor rights and human rights. This is denying justice, they said.

Saladero had been critiquing anti-labor laws and policies of the government like the New Labor Code which the KMU said “is mainly for the protection of greedy capitalists.”

The KMU said the abduction of Saladero is not an isolated case under the present regime. This is reportedly a part of a systematic operation emanating from the policy of the Inter-Agency Legal Action Group (IALAG) which is responsible for the case build-up and the filing of trumped-up charges against leaders of progressive people’s organizations whom they tag as fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

In the Cordillera, the KMU cited the case of Jose Cawiding, Bayan Muna coordinator for Benguet who the group said, had been falsely charged with eight counts of multiple murder and one count of frustrated murder. He was accused of being one among the New People’s Army that ambushed an army troop sometime on August 2003, the same time that he was attending a Bayan Muna conference in Baguio. He was detained for almost seven months (October 2007 to April 2008) at the Benguet Provincial Jail.

Recently, James Balao, a founding member of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance was also believed abducted by elements of the Intelligence Service Unit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines at Tomay. La Trinidad, Benguet on Sept. 17. Until this day, he is missing.

Now, local and international cause-oriented groups including concerned individuals are protesting the continuing harassments and cases of political killings and enforced disappearances allegedly perpetrated by lawmen.

The groups are pressing that courts should drop such cases like conspiracy to commit rebellion and frustrated and multiple charges filed against innocent individuals like Saladero and that those responsible for political persecution should be held accountable. Is anybody in government listening?