Uphold and Assert the Right to Life and Free Expression!
Condemn the Continuing Extra Judicial Killings!
Resist Political Repression!
Yesterday, April 22, 2006 at around 2:30 in the afternoon. Porfirio
Maglasang, a small peasant, a leader of his kind and a father of 8, was
killed. Four armed men entered his hut in Sitio Caraan, Barangay
Tampalon, pulled him out and pumped bullets into his body. He fell on his
own yard touching the land he loved at the moment of his death.
Porfirio is the chairperson of the Pambansang Katipunan ng Makabayang
Magbubukid in Kabankalan (PKMM-Kabankalan). PKMM is an affiliate of the
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD). At the height of the Oplan
Thunderbolt, he led the evacuees, called internal refugees, in making life
in evacuation bearable and in resisting the continuing repression even
under evacuation. Prior to his death, he and the PKMM were in a
long-drawn struggle over some 2,000 hectares of cogonal land in upper
Kabankalan being farmed by almost 1,000 peasant families. The peasants
were struggling to make a living out of the land. Gene Sola, a wealthy
landlord, claims the land for him and are ejecting them. It was a life
and death struggle for the peasants.
In leading the peasants to assert their own right to life, Porfirio met
his death. He led a meaningful life, worthy of emulation for he lived in
the service of others. That life spelled and defined its own end.
The brutal slaying of Porfirio came just one week after the ambush last
April 15 in Silay of Rico Adeva, an Akbayan and Task Force Mapalad
organizer, also an advocate of land reform. Last year, several other
militant organizers and leaders were killed or simply disappeared in
Negros and elsewhere in the country - the new desaparecidos. These
disturbing developments are reminiscent of the dark years of martial law,
when people struggling for life or for a better living are downed or
simply disappeared.
But more than that, it is instructive of the sharpness of the issue of
land. In the Philippines, where majority of the people live off from the
earth, the struggle for land is a struggle for life. On the other hand, it
is a struggle for power for those who wish to control the land. And for
power to control the peasants lives and labour through control over the
land, the landlords are killing with impunity - whether through their
private armies, the mercenaries in the AFP or paramilitary units, or some
“lost command”.
The GMA government should be held responsible for the widespread
extra-judicial killings. More than 250 militants have been permanently
silenced through extra-judicial killings in only five years of GMA rule.
It is a record unmatched by any of its predecessors since EDSA 1 and a
record fast gaining to surpass the record of human rights violations set
under 15 years of Marcos military dictatorship. GMA’s policy of
political repression, exemplified in the Calibrated Pre-emptive Response
and in the declaration of State of National Emergency and its concomitant
suppression of civil liberties, provides the climate for flagrant
violations of the people’s right to life and free expression. How can the
human rights violators be intimidated when they are being rewarded with
promotions and juicy posts in the government? Palparan, the most
notorious of the violators, has been amply rewarded and protected.
The Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya, with all its chapters and
sectoral affiliates, condemns in the strongest terms the brutal slaying of
one of its leaders and of the organizers and leaders of other people’s
organization. We demand an investigation of the extra-judicial killings.
We ask the national government and the local government of Negros to put a
stop to these human rights violations.
KPD challenges the religious sector and religious movements to speak out
against the immorality of the suppression of right to life and free
expression.
KPD calls on the media to speak out now. In the SOE (State of National
Emergency), you have been given a glimpse of what lies ahead for the
freedom of the press if this trend continues.
More importantly, we call on all the freedom-loving people and
organizations to join hands in resisting the intensifying repression. The
darkness of terror is setting in the Philippines. There is no more fitting
moment than now to once again spread the call: "Go not gently into the
night; but rage, rage against the dying of the light."
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD)
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya - Negros