MANILA – Human rights group Karapatan has condemned the government’s harassment against dozens of Filipinos who stage a rally in front of President Aquino’s house in Quezon City.
Police filed charges against several protesters after clashing with them on November 29. It said the protesters vandalized Aquino’s house after the marchers sprayed paint on the gate.
“It is a logical reaction from a regime that looks at governance as a game of masquerade instead of looking into and addressing the roots of people’s dissent,” Cristina Palabay, Karapatan’s Secretary-General.
She also accused the government of human rights violations under the so-called Oplan Bayanihan, the military’s anti-insurgency campaign. “Aquino’s Oplan Bayanihan is instrumental in the bombing of communities, illegal arrests, detention, and killings of activists masqueraded as – peace and development, and respect for human rights – and the police brutality used against legitimate protest actions and during demolition of urban poor shanties masqueraded as – maintenance of peace and order – and pork barrel system and the Development Acceleration Program or DAP masqueraded as economic stimuli,” Palabay said.
She added: “Aquino’s statements on extrajudicial killings and a host of human rights violations in the Philippines is a recording — a canned, predictable response, if not a mantra he has to recite to convince himself that his regime is different from all the other regimes in the past, which committed transgressions on people’s rights and lives.”
There was no immediate response from the government, but the military has previously tagged Karapatan as a front of the Communist Party of the Philippines and itrs armed wing the New People’s Army. (Mindanao Examiner)
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