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“We may have diverged on the means but we have one goal, to bring about social justice so Filipinos can feel the benefits of democracy.”

MARYA SALAMAT
Bulatlat.com

MANILA – Embattled Supreme Court Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno radiated optimism when she joined hundreds of members of various groups in an Araw ng Kagitingan celebration in Quezon City on April 9. In a rare extended public speech of mixed formal English and Tagalog, she talked about the attacks on her as Chief Justice and the attacks on the Judiciary and revealed some of her plans for fighting back. She honored those who have been resisting tyranny even before her – the ordinary people and the victims of violence and attacks of Duterte’s policies. She expressed allegiance and unity with these groups and vowed commitment to the ongoing resistance.

For her, she said, this starts a new chapter in the struggle – a chapter where she’s with these broad groups of people she recognized as already in the fight. “Isang yugto na magkakasama na tayo at hindi magkakahiwalay.”

“If you think those in higher position in government are separated from you, not anymore. We will go down and be with you, ” Sereno said in Filipino. She also expressed her enjoyment of being in a “unity for a good cause.”

“My situation is not unlike that of the ordinary oppressed people, I just have a dozen cameras on me,” she said in Filipino. She asked that her voice be also the voice of those who have been killed unjustly, whether in the urban poor communities or in the mountains and countryside.

Organized by the Movement Against Tyranny (MAT), Let’s Organize for Democracy and Integrity (LODI), and Coalition against Darkness and Dictatorship, the gathering conferred awards of “Pagkilala ng Kagitingan” to Sereno, to indigenous leader Joanna Cariño and to others active at resisting President Duterte’s “tyrannical rule.”

Although the Araw ng Kagitingan is mainly for honoring the sacrifices of those who died in the defense of the Republic, MAT “thought it appropriate to honor those still living and courageously fighting for democracy and human rights amid the state of tyranny and repression that grips our nation today.”

Also honored with Pagkilala sa Kagitingan were the Rise Up for Life and for the Rights group of families of victims of extra-judicial killings; and journalists who kept on their work despite threats and harassments from government authorities and Duterte supporters.

‘Give your whole heart to achieve change’

Sereno admitted her ordeal drew thoughts of just giving up. “If I will think of only my feelings, I will likely just give up,” Sereno told a broad gathering of anti-tyranny groups. Recalling though some initiatives to bring reforms into the judiciary, the dissenting opinions she had faced, and the other individuals and groups cited with a similar “Pagkilala ng Kagitingan,” she then talked of resolve.

Referring to the struggle of the survivors of the drug war, of IP leader Joanna and of the journalists and photographers, she asked: “Ano dapat gawin para di sila nag-iisa?” (What must we do so that they would not be alone?) To face those hindering reforms, “What is important is giving it your whole heart.”

Sereno said changes have been underway in the judiciary but these have been “distracted.” Some of these changes include the technology-based fast-tracking of court functions through electronic courts and automated hearing.

Some of her initiatives, she said, had been ignored by the media. Among her actions as Chief Justice, Sereno disagreed with the majority of Supreme Court Justices in April 2013 when it ruled that the party-list system is not just for the marginalized. In November 2016, she was also one of the few justices who voted No to late Ferdinand Marcos’ burial in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

Asking only for a fair process

Nine months since, by Sereno’s reckoning, she has been forced into this “grueling ordeal”, she decried how her only demand for fair process has been denied. “It’s sad that “they can shred one’s dignity without giving us a chance to cross-examine.”

Until today, when she’s about to face another mode of unseating her, she hasn’t seen yet who is the complainant behind the impeachment case. There have been 15 to 17 hearings in Congress, but the House of Representatives has not yet submitted its report to the Senate. Instead, she said, Solicitor General Jose Calida filed an “unconstitutional” quo warranto petition before the Supreme Court to remove her as Chief Justice.

Calida called Sereno a “usurper,” but Sereno dismissed much of his claims and described it “the height of absurdity,” that the solicitor general was spending time poring over her record as a P6,000-earning assistant professor in UP decades ago.

She urged her fellow justices and the public to make the Solicitor General and the President explain his “unconstitutional” quo warranto petition.

In a separate venue, though, at about the same time, President Duterte reportedly responded not by calling for an investigation into the matter but by threatening more attacks to remove Chief Justice Sereno. He denied he was behind the moves to unseat Sereno as Chief Justice, but added that because of her talking back, he will “now” be her enemy.

For a humble path, the Constitution and the people

The ongoing attack of the executive on a co-equal branch, the judiciary, is among the trend of tyranny and dictatorial rule that galvanized the Araw ng Kagitingan unity of various groups. MAT asserts that the attempt to unseat Chief Justice Sereno is especially critical in lending a veneer of legality to Duterte’s plan to impose a dictatorship either through Charter change, martial law, or a rightist “revolutionary government.”

It has also been predicted to cause a Constitutional crisis. Based on Chief Justice Sereno’s much applauded response, the evolving crisis has made it clear that as far as she is concerned, the Supreme Court should take the path of humility, serve the people and be guided by the Constitution instead of the dictates of a few.

To the Movement Against Tyranny, LODI, Sandiwa alliance for indigenous peoples, Coalition against Darkness and Dictatorship, she said: “we may have diverged on the means but we have one goal, to bring about social justice so Filipinos can feel the benefits of democracy.”

In these perilous times,she urged the various groups gathered to maintain this unity and strengthen it.

“The judiciary belongs to the people,” Sereno said. Among others, she said it should be designed for the needs of the poor. It should feature judges whose master is the people and who can tell the president, ‘NO.’

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By RAYMUND VILLANUEVA

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By NOY PALAY

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By RONALYN OLEA
Bulatlat.com

MANILA — State security forces repeatedly blocked members of a fact-finding mission investigating human rights violations in Mindanao.

Since their arrival at the airports in Davao City, Lagindinangan and Butuan City yesterday, April 6, all the way to highly-militarized peasant and Lumad communities in Southern Mindanao, Northern Mindanao and the Caraga region, members of the three-team mission were subjected to different forms of harassment and intimidation.

Suspected soldiers took pictures of the Caraga team members and ‘welcomed’ them with a banner that read, “Just do it right” upon their arrival at the airport in Butuan City.

The Southern Mindanao team members saw streamers in Tagum City that read, “OUT NOW IFFSM; WE WANT PEACE.” Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao said the military was behind the streamers. “The AFP has no credibility in talking peace. We thus revise the slogan; instead it should read: AFP OUT NOW; WE WANT PEACE,” he said.

The Northern Mindanao mission team, meanwhile, was blocked three times by police and military forces from the airport in Lagindingan to Cagayan de Oro. From the city to the mission site in Patpat village in Malaybalay, the team was blocked eight more times.

Rafael Mariano, former Agrarian Reform secretary and head of the Northern Mindanao team, said, “We came here for a very urgent reason, we came here to verify mounting reports of rights abuse against peasant and Lumad communities perpetrated allegedly by military elements. No wonder the military people do not want us here.”
 
President Rodrigo Duterte placed the whole island under martial law on May 24, 2017 after an attack in Marawi. Citing “continued threat of terrorism and rebellion,” Duterte asked the Congress to extend martial law until December this year. Duterte’s supporters in Congress railroaded the extension.

READ: ‘There is no legal basis to extend martial law in Mindanao’ – petitioners

Seventy-one full battalions of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) are operating in Mindanao, of which 41 are focused on counterinsurgency operations. The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) said at least 65 percent of the AFP’s combat troops are concentrated in Mindanao, where large-scale foreign plantations and mining concessions are to be found.

Human rights alliance Karapatan documented 126 victims of political killings as of December 2017, of whom 110 were farmers mostly coming from Mindanao. Mariano.

In Southern Mindanao alone, 63 cases of extrajudicial killings have been recorded. 

“The unabated militarization and Martial Law itself in Mindanao must be understood as a means for government, big landlords, oligarchs and multinational corporations to further bulldoze their way into the vast lands and resources of the island,” Mariano said. “This is not the way to address the roots of the armed conflict. This is not the way to a just and lasting peace.”

The teams also reported to have been closely tailed by several vehicles from the airport to the orientation sites and to the villages where interviews with victims victims were to be held.
 
Undeterred, the teams were able to finally proceed to their respective mission areas.

“We managed to get past all the checkpoints so far after seemingly endless negotiations with the state forces but this is only the first day and the day is still long and so we must remain vigilant throughout the rest of the day and the entire duration of the three-day mission,” Mariano said.

Former congressmen Satur Ocampo and Fernando Hicap, and incumbent representatives of the Makabayan bloc, are among the delegates of the International Fact-Finding Mission to Defend Filipino Peasants’ Land and Human Rights Against Militarism and Plunder in Mindanao  organized by KMP and the Mindanao for Civil Liberties.

Also joining the mission are the Asian Peasant Coalition, Pesticide Action Network – Asia Pacific, People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty, Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, International League of Peoples Struggles (ILPS) Commission 6, Youth for Food Sovereignty (YFS), Karapatan, and Tanggol Magsasaka.

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Today I turned 79 years old.

Nothing remarkable about that, except that at my age I’m still being subjected to public political persecution by the state authorities. And this has been my situation, on and off, off and on, for the past 42 years. Yes, for more than half of my life.

Four years ago I already wrote about this. However, I’m taking up the matter again to call attention to what the Duterte government is doing: sustaining the political persecution – affecting not only myself but more than 600 other persons – with a crude but vicious twist. I refer to the Department of Justice “terror list” and the threat it imposes on the safety and security of those whose names are in it, or may be added to it.

The list is contained in a petition for proscription, filed by the Department of Justice at the Regional Trial Court Branch 19 in Manila on February 23, asking the court to declare the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army as terrorist organizations. My name is among the alleged “known officers” of the two revolutionary organizations with known addresses, through whom “respondents CPP and NPA… may be served with summons and other processes” of the court. But the summons that the court sheriff handed to me was for me to answer the allegations in the DoJ petition within 15 days.

In compliance with the summons, I have filed a motion to dismiss the DoJ petition, through my lawyers from the Public Interest Law Center. The motion challenges the court’s jurisdiction over my person, not being a respondent; denounces the inclusion of my name in the list; categorically denies my prior knowledge and participation in the alleged acts of terror attributed to the two revolutionary organizations; and questions the validity of the grounds cited in the petition for declaring the CPP and NPA as terrorists.

When my motion to dismiss was heard on March 23 as scheduled, no DoJ representative or state prosecutor appeared before the court. Thus the judge issued an order for the DoJ petitioner to reply, within 15 days, to my motion to dismiss. Let’s watch what will happen next; my lawyers and I are determined to convince the court to throw out this case.

The common denominator I find among the four administrations accountable for my political persecution is the tyrannical mindset common to three of them (the Marcos, Arroyo and Duterte regimes) and the overarching influence of the military establishment (most notably during the Cory Aquino administration). But what has abetted and exacerbated the persecution has been the very slow process of the judicial system.

Let me briefly review what I went through under these administrations.

I have been arrested and detained four times: under the Marcos dictatorship – for nine years and three months (severely tortured, held in isolation twice for a total of 14 months); under Aquino – for three years and one month; and under Arroyo – detained twice, for relatively short periods.

I have gone through the judicial process, answering the charges filed against me:

Under the Marcos dictatorship, I was tried by “special military commissions” on two political charges: 1) rebellion – the trial dragged on for eight years but the military prosecutors failed to prove their case, until Marcos was overthrown; 2) subversion – the trial failed to take off for lack of witnesses.

Under the Cory Aquino administration, my wife Bobbie Malay and I were charged with three common-crime capital offenses: murder, kidnapping with serious illegal detention, and illegal possession of firearms (two counts). After three years of bail hearings, in four different courts, we were cleared.

(At the time, human rights lawyers depicted those accusations as “criminalization of a political offense,” referring to rebellion. Today they are described as trumped-up common-crime charges to circumvent a 62-year-old jurisprudence repeatedly upheld by the Supreme Court – the Amado V. Hernandez doctrine or political offense doctrine.)

Under the Arroyo regime, I was among the “Batasan 6” (progressive partylist colleagues in the House of Representatives) who were charged with rebellion in 2006. We challenged the charge as spurious before the Supreme Court. Two separate charges of murder in Nueva Ecija courts were also filed against me and four others in 2007.

In July 2007 the SC quashed the rebellion charge, finding it to have been so palpably trumped up such that the high tribunal admonished the justice secretary and state prosecutors for allowing themselves to be used for political objectives. The Nueva Ecija courts also threw out the two murder cases.

But still the Arroyo regime persisted. Before the SC quashed the rebellion case, state prosecutors filed another charge of “multiple murder” against me and 53 others in the Hilongos, Leyte court. Again I sought relief from the SC, where the police arrested me after I filed a petition urging dismissal of the charge. During the oral arguments before the SC en banc, my lawyers argued the charge should either be dismissed or absorbed by the rebellion case, in accordance with the Hernandez doctrine. Some of the magistrates advised the solicitor general to consider taking the latter step.

The high court then granted me bail, indicating the prosecutors had a weak case, and announced that a ruling on my petition would shortly be issued. Alas, no ruling came out for the next seven years, and the SC quashing of the rebellion case rendered moot the absorption of the murder charge. When the SC, with new members, acted on my 2007 petition in 2014, it ruled that – there being no more rebellion charge pending against me – I should undergo trial in the multiple murder case. The trial began thereafter, and I have been diligently attending hearings over the last four years.

Had the multiple murder charge been absorbed by the “Batasan 6” rebellion case before the SC quashed it, the case would have been closed. And the Hernandez doctrine could have been upheld once more in my favor. The last time it was upheld was in 1999, when the SC dismissed the “rebellion complexed with murder…” charge against Juan Ponce Enrile, in connection with his alleged involvement (when he was defense secretary) in the series of coup attempts against the Cory Aquino government.

If there’s any consolation in this protracted resistance to injustice, it’s that I am just one among the many Filipinos who continue to believe in upholding the freedoms and rights we have won.

* * *

Email: satur.ocampo@gmail.com

Published in Philippine Star
April 7, 2018

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