Arrested lumad leader out on bail but rights group demands dropping of 'trumped up charges'

From InterAksyon (Aug 23): Arrested lumad leader out on bail but rights group demands dropping of 'trumped up charges'



Arrested Manobo leader Genasque Enriquez (photo courtesy of Karapatan)

A leader of the Manobo tribe arrested Friday in Surigao City was released on bail Saturday as a human rights group maintained its demand for the dropping of what it called "trumped up charges" against him.

A message from Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay shortly after noon Saturday said Genasque Enriquez, who is also vice chairman of the Katribu party-list and secretary general of the Kahugpungan sa mga Lumadnong Organisasyon-Caraga, a regional alliance of lumad, or indigenous people, "is now released after posting bail on trumped up frustrated murder cases."

Palabay said people's organizations, church groups and civil society in the Caraga region helped raise the bail for Enriquez's release.

Enriquez was arrested Friday by police and military personnel as he emerged from a press conference in Surigao City, which was also a send-off for delegates to the People’s Congress for People’s Initiative that opened in Cebu City on Saturday.

The Cebu congress is intended to formally launch a campaign to pass a law scrapping all forms of pork barrel disbursements through a people’s initiative.

Karapatan called the arrest part of alleged government efforts to dissuade efforts to scrap the pork barrel system, seen as a major source of corruption and patronage politics.

Palabay, in an earlier statement, noted that the warrant of arrest against Enriquez was dated March 25 last year, adding this was not the first time fabricated charges have been filed against the Manobo leader as part of attempts to paint him as a member of the communist underground.

She said Enriquez had also been accused of murder and frustrated murder over earlier offensives by the New People’s Army but the charges were later dropped for lack of evidence.

Like the previous case, she said, Enriquez “has not received any notice of complaints filed against him from the Surigao del Sur Prosecutor’s Office, thus depriving him of his right to respond to the complaint … They failed to inform him of the current cases which were the bases of the alias warrant that was served to him during his arrest.”

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/93847/arrested-lumad-leader-out-on-bail-but-rights-group-demands-dropping-of-trumped-up-charges