Open letter to Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
President of the Republic of the Philippines
Malacañang Palace, Manila, Philippines
May 2006
Your Excellency,
As organizations concerned with the protection of human rights and the welfare of people in the Philippines, we want to express our deep concern about the recent outrageous killings of advocates for land reform in Negros and Davao del Norte and the continuous killings of other advocates for social justice.
One of the more recent killings was that of Enrico Cabanit, Secretary-General of the UNORKA (National Coordination of Autonomous Local Organizations in the Countryside), known for his advocacy to place all big landholdings of the family of Don Antonio Floirendo under agrarian reform. The assassination of Mr. Cabanit is not an isolated case. On March 27, Vincente Denila of the Camansi Farm Workers Cooperative, was gunned down by masked assassins in Negros Oriental; on April 22, Porfirio Maglasang, a peasant leader of the peasant group PKMM was gunned down in Kabankalan, Negros Occidental. And on 15 April, Rico Adeva of Task Force Mapalad (TMF) and his wife Nenita were on their way to the town proper of Talisay in Negros Occidental when Rico Adeva was subsequently shot and killed.
Even more recently, peasant leader Mario Domingo of TFM was killed on the morning of May 17 by assailants later identified as known thugs of former landowner Farley Gustilo. Annaliza Abanador-Gandia of the Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD), 35 years old and a mother to 2 children, was shot in cold blood on May 18 at her workplace at Balanga City in Bataan.
These assassinations are all directly linked to the peasants’ struggles for land undertaken in the context of CARP and clearly suggest a pattern of a systematic effort to kill peasant leaders for the purpose of sowing terror among peasants in order to frustrate the advance of meaningful land reform.
It is shocking to learn that these killings seem to be part of a trend of systematic assassinating of leaders who stand up for the poor and deprived and who work for a just and democratic society. International organizations like Amnesty International and the Asian Human Rights Commission are regularly expressing their concern about continuous human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions and torture. Few perpetrators have been identified, let alone arrested.
The assassinations of Eric Cabanit, Porfirio Maglasang, Rico Adeva, Vincente Denila, Mario Domingo, Annaliza Abanador-Gandia and so many others demonstrate the failure of your government to protect its citizens from violent and deadly attacks and other grave human rights violations. Other nations and its citizens cannot take claims of your government about ratification of international human rights treaties and protocols seriously, unless your government starts immediately implementing the Human Rights Treaties it is party to, and takes concrete steps to fulfil its resulting Human Rights obligation under international law to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of its citizens.
We therefore urge you to immediately take action to insure:
Sincerely Yours,
Meindert Kok - Chairperson, Evert de Boer - Coordinator
Philippine Solidarity Group Netherlands (FGN)
Brigittenstraat 15, Utrecht, the Netherlands
Philipp Bück – Director
Philippinenbureau in Asia House
Bullmannaue 11, 45327 Essen, Germany
Sari Peltonen - Chairperson
Finnish-Philippine Society
P.O.Box 1278, 00101 Helsinki, Finland
Noli Buhay
Svensk - Filippinska Föreningen - SFF
Skogås, Stockholm, Sweden
Carlo Butalid - Director
Philippine European Solidarity Centre (PESC-KSP)
Brigittenstraat 15, Utrecht, the Netherlands
Nonoi Hacbang - Chairperson
Commission for Filipino Migrant Workers (CFMW)
International Office, De Wittenstraat 25, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Jose Valencia, President
KASAPI-HELLAS Organization of Filipino Migrants in Greece
Mithymnis 18, Kypseli, Athens, Greece.
Mercedita Canillas
DIWATA, Filipino women's organization in Greece
Mithymnis 18, Kypseli, Athens, Greece.
Malu M. Padilla, Coordinator
Bayanihan, Centre for Philippine Women in the Netherlands
Brigittenstraat 15, Utrecht, the Netherlands
Roger Daenekindt, Board Member
BOND Belgium (South-North Exchange of Peoples Organizations)
Neermeerskaai 130, Gent, Belgium
Fe Heinen - Office manager
Philippine Information and Documentation Center (FIDOC)
Nolensweg 8, Dordrecht, the Netherlands
Pietje Vervest, Asia Program Coordinator
Transnational Institute (TNI)
De Wittenstraat 25, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Tuur Elzinga, Coordinator
XminusY Movement
De Wittenstraat 43-45, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Last Updated ( Monday, 29 May 2006 )
