Photo: Karapatan, Philippines
Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) denounces the vague perjury charges against Karapatan national officers and Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) and GABRIELA National Alliance of Women. The charges are clearly intended to harass and persecute Women Human Rights Defenders (WHRDs) and political activists in the Philippines.
Today as Karapatan Secretary General Cristina “Tinay” Palabay takes the witness stand, APWLD calls on:
- The Philippine Judiciary to immediately dismiss the false charges against Karapatan national Officers, RMP and Gabriela.
- The Judiciary to defend human rights and fundamental freedoms of these courageous Women Human Rights Defenders and immediately drop all charges against them.
- The Philippine Government to immediately stop any act of violence, intimidation and harassment against women human rights defenders and political activists and ensure the safety and security of those who have been targeted for their human rights work through an effective legal and policy framework.
- The Philippine Government to submit to an international independent human investigation on the human rights situation in the Philippines; and hold all state and non-state actors responsible for human rights violations accountable.
After the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) was created by virtue of President Rodrigo Duterte’s Executive Order No. 70 on December 2018, the red-tagging and de facto terrorist designation of Karapatan intensified, preceding incidents of death threats, surveillance, arrests and extrajudicial killings of its members.
Karapatan and the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) filed complaints regarding these violations at the Commission on Human Rights on March 13, 2019. While these aforementioned complaints have yet to be resolved, Karapatan participated and testified before the CHR’s public inquiry on the situation of human rights defenders in the Philippines on September 9 to 12, 2019.
In July 2019, a petition for review of the Court of Appeal 14th Division decision was filed at the Supreme Court. Two witnesses; Ryan Hubilla of Karapatan-Sorsogon and Zara Alvarez of Karapatan-Negros who were supposed to testify during the hearings for the petition were killed in June 2019 and August 2020 respectively. On September 1, 2020, after Alvarez’s killing, Karapatan filed a manifestation urging the Supreme Court to act on the petition for review. To this date, the court has yet to issue a decision on the petition for review.
The attempted murder charge against Karapatan chairperson Elisa “Tita” Lubi and Karapatan Southern Mindanao Region Jayvee Apiag and the arrest of Karapatan – Caraga paralegal Renalyn Tejero are merely the latest in series of attacks against human rights workers from Karapatan.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s public pronouncements openly inciting violence, the weaponisation of the law and the courts, and his outright demonisation of human rights groups such as Karapatan, in particular, have made them targets of such attacks — and many of their human rights workers have either been killed, behind bars, or are now facing these utterly absurd charges which are clearly meant to discredit and silence them from doing their work.
On July 2, 2019 National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, one of the respondents in the Petition, filed a Complaint-Affidavit for perjury with the Quezon City Office of the City Prosecutor (QC OCP) against Karapatan national council members, GABRIELA chairperson and secretary general and RMP national and regional coordinators. He alleged that the respondents committed perjury when they stated in their petition that the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) is “duly registered as a non-stock, non-profit corporation under Philippine laws.”
The QC OCP resolved to dismiss the complaint on November 8, 2019 against petitioners but found probable cause to charge Belardo and Cupin (the RMP coordinators) with perjury. On December 17, 2019 the reversal of the November 8, 2019 Resolution insofar as the dismissal of the complaint against the other respondents was concerned. On February 24, 2020, City Prosecutor issued a resolution granting the motion for reconsideration and finding probable cause to indict respondents. Thereafter, three (3) separate information for perjury were filed against them with the Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court (MeTC) Branch 139 and warrants of arrests were issued against them.
These charges against Karapatan national officers, RMP and Gabriela are part of ongoing systemic attacks against WHRDs in the Philippines. According to Karapatan, since the beginning of President Duterte’s term in office in 2016 until December 2020, victims of politically-related human rights violations include over 376 extrajudicial killings, 488 frustrated killings and 18 enforced disappearances and 1,100 illegally arrested and detained. 297 of the victims of politically-related extrajudicial killings were peasant activists, and 68 are indigenous peoples. Furthermore, there have been more than 450 political prisoners under his term, bringing the number of political detainees across the country to 680 and 116 were women.
These perjury charges, unlawful arrests, and all forms of persecution are a direct violation of the rights and protection of W/HRDs and the work that they do. It also goes against the Philippine Government’s international obligations, particularly including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which the Philippines is a party; and the UN General Assembly Resolution on Promotion of the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms: protecting women human rights defenders, which ‘calls upon all States to promote, translate and give full effect to the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognised Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, including by taking appropriate, robust and practical steps to protect women human rights defenders.
