MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Sept. 18, 2012) – A Filipino human rights group on Tuesday strongly criticized a former political activist and now Commission on Human Rights head Etta Rosales for rebuking students and youth groups preparing for massive protest actions leading to September 21, in commemoration of the 40th year of the imposition of Martial Law by President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.
Rosales was quoted by television news reports as saying: “Stop comparing Martial Law of yesterday to what they are doing now because if they do that they are merely muddling the issue. Mag-aral sila, naintindihan ba nila ang sinasabi nila.”
She was referring to students and youth groups involved in the protests. Rosales said students should go the libraries instead of joining street protests.
“Rosales’ statement simply illustrates the historical amnesia, opportunism, and bankruptcy of those in the Aquino administration. They claim to remember Martial Law, yet they forget one of the quintessential lessons during those dark years – that when the people and the youth are faced with anti-youth and anti-people programs, rights abuses, and plunder of our lands and resources, we fight back,” Cristina Palabay, Karapatan’s Secretary General, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
The protesters, led by Anakbayan, National Union of Students of the Philippines, Student Christian Movement, College Editors’ Guild of the Philippines, and League of Filipino Students said they will be holding protest rallies against the rising tuition costs and the spate of human rights violations prevailing under the Aquino administration.
Palabay recalled that Marcos’ Education Act of 1982, which legitimized tuition increases, is still very much enforced under the Aquino government, as more than 260 tertiary schools have increased tuition this year by as much as 15%.
She said Karapatan also received reports that the Armed Forces of the Philippines continue with their red-tagging campaign against youth organizations in schools in their counter-insurgency symposia with the assistance of the Department of Education.
“These, along with the continuing human rights violations, the poverty that drives the young out of schools and the sheer puppetry of President Benigno Aquino, are the legacies of Marcos that you keep today,” Palabay, who was referring to Rosales, said.
“The youth will honor that lesson when they march with the people on September 21. And people like Rosales and Aquino will remain like cobwebs in the libraries of our history as a nation,” Palabay said.
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