HUMAN rights group KARAPATAN-Negros condemned the spate of state-sponsored indiscriminate arrests in Negros the latest of which is the arrest of NFSW organizer and former ANAK-Negros chairperson Greg Tuayon on April 15, 2013 by combined PNP SAF and 47th IB elements in his household in Manapla, Negros Occidental.
Jose Luis Blanco, KARAPATAN Negros,Tuayon was just one of the many activists and developmental workers in Negros implicated in various trumped-charges by the State and its military forces. Activists Zara Alvarez, Anecita Rojo, Elizar Nabas, Roberto Espinosa were earlier arrested by the AFP. Currently there are 24 political prisoners incarcerated in various detention centers in Negros.
The Aquino government is relentless in its legal assaults against individuals affiliated with organizations critical of its policies such as BAYAN, NFSW, and KMP. Negros has now become the AFP’S testing ground in its legal assaults against organizations and specific personalities. KARAPATAN attributes this to the counterinsurgency plan Oplan Bayanihan and Negros being tagged a priority for its implementation, Blanco said.
He said scores of active organizers and developmental workers were named in fabricated charges based likewise on obviously manufactured evidence and testimonies. Incidents attributed to the NPA were alleged on them. They did not even know that cases were being leveled against them as in the case of Greg Tuayon where due process is deliberately denied by the AFP in cahoots with certain judicial agencies.
The impunity in which this legal assault is executed hounds every individual working among the oppressed and the marginalized. It seriously hampers the work of developmental workers and their organizations. This also endangers the liberty and lives of activists and their families.
The group called on the Aquino government to cease the implementation of the vicious Oplan Bayanihan as this only promotes and encourages violations of human rights. Cases lodged against activists should be immediately withdrawn by the AFP. Instead of charging innocents the AFP should have surrendered its roster of human rights violators and killers, he said.