(We yield this space to the statement of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Panay due to its timeliness. – Ed.)
BAGONG Alyansang Makabayan-Panay calls for the junking of Executive Order No. 70 (EO 70) as it turns one year old.
EO 70 directed the creation of National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) and the employment of the “whole-of-nation” approach to address the decade-long insurgency in the country. But what is rampant after its implementation is the criminalization of dissent, and instead of resolving the economic woes of the people, the government has resorted to run after progressive groups, brandish them as communist fronts, plant pieces of evidences during raids and file trumped-up charges to legitimize their set-up operations and worst, kill the activists.
According to human rights group Karapatan, from July 2016 to June 2019, there have been 266 members of the progressive groups that were killed, 404 frustrated killings, 2,443 illegal arrests and 85, 534 cases of threats, harassments and intimidations.
In Panay alone for 2019, there were five arrested farmers – three in Mulangan, Igbaras (Roberto Elamparo, Ruperto Enar and Ramon Enar in March); one in Masaroy, Calinog (Remie Diaz in April) and in Bolo, Maasin (German Allesa last month).
Progressive leaders and members, and alternative media personalities also experienced profiling, tailings, intimidations, and harassments.
These acts show how rotten from within is this regime. It can no longer tolerate dissent, can no longer implement reforms and would only want to maintain the status quo where its cohorts are the only ones benefitting from massive corruption, plunder of our natural resources, and historic abuse of human rights violations.
What the people highlight in their protests are legitimate demands that could alleviate them from hunger and poverty and could be resolved if only the government has the empathy to help its people. But since this is not the case, we are calling the people to be more daring and struggle to become stronger.
Above all, our history has taught us that once the people are resolute and persistent in their struggle to genuine change, peace based on justice and democracy, no amount of power or any dictator can defeat them and those in power will succumb to the power of the people.
