Antonieta Setias-Dizon (right) with (from left) COURAGE president Ferdinand Gaite, IBP president Rosario Setias-Reyes, Gabriela Rep. Emmi De Jesus; lawyer Jose De La Rama, Jr and COURAGE secretary general Rosario Nartates at a press conference at the IBP office on Thursday. (photo by Bernard Testa, InterAksyon.com)
(UPDATE - 1:19 p.m.) An officer of the public sector union COURAGE and her supporters vowed to hold out “for as long as it takes” as her standoff with suspected military agents she said have been tailing her entered the fourth day Friday.
Contacted by phone, Antonieta Setias-Dizon, a member of the Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees’ council of advisers and former secretary general of the union, said she was “okay” but still shaken and worried. She was a director of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration until she resigned from government to work fulltime for COURAGE.
Dizon, sister of IBP president Rosario S. Reyes, has been staying at the IBP office in Ortigas district since Tuesday, when she went there after joining more than 20 colleagues and child rights advocates file a petition for writs of amparo and habeas data before the Supreme Court in a bid to stop threats and harassment by alleged state security agents.
It was at the high court that Dizon noticed a silver Toyota Innova with the license plate AAM 3120 that she said had been tailing her since early this month. The vehicle, joined by others, tailed her all the way to the IBP.
Since then, she said, her “stalkers” have maintained a round-the-clock stakeout of the IBP building, using shifting teams of watchers and changing vehicles.
COURAGE fears a plot to arrest Dizon on “trumped up” charges, subject her to enforced disappearance or, worse, extrajudicial killing.
Ferdinand Gaite, president of the union, who, with other supporters, has joined Dizon at the IBP, said they have monitored at least 10 vehicles being used in the stakeout, adding there have been two attempts by unidentified men to enter the building.
In one instance, he said, two men who introduced themselves as police officers Chua and Pascual claimed “they were here to do a security check but we turned them away because no one had requested the police to do any check.”
The Student Christian Movement, one of the groups which has sent activists to keep vigil at the IBP, reported that "around 12 to 15 vehicles with or without the (silver) Innova were noticed in the vicinity constantly roving around. Some of them passing by the IBP gates every 20 minutes."
SCM spokesman Einstain Recedes said, “We will continue to stay vigilant. While these growing government scare tactics are getting more severe and life threatening. Tonette Dizon said that ‘we must put an end to Martial Law’, which ironically looks to be the case today. We will not let our honest, god-fearing and justice seeking Filipinos to fall victim.”
After four days, Dizon said, she was “nag-aalala, naiinis (worried, impatient)” but would remain where she was until the threat has passed.
She said the IBP has made inquiries with the Philippine National Police and Armed Forces of the Philippines but “there has been no response.”
She added that they will be filing supplemental affidavits to the petition they filed with the Supreme Court to include her present predicament in the hopes the high court will swiftly grant their request for the writs.
The IBP, on the other hand, is seeking "congressional intervention to arrest this political slide down in our democratic life from going into a free fall" as it condemned "the harassment and intimidation perpetrated by elements of the military and the police against members of the progressive sectors of our society, particularly political activists and advocates."
"This high-handed exercise of authority is a throwback to Martial Law and has no place in our democracy," the lawyers' organization said.
Gaite described the extent of the of intimidation their officers and members has undergone under the Aquino administration as “unprecedented,” noting the irony that this was happening under the son of democracy icons Benigno Aquino Jr. and his wife Corazon, although he acknowledged that more COURAGE members -- six to be exact -- were murdered during the presidency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/114366/beleaguered-courage-officer-vows-to-hold-out-as-standoff-at-ibp-enters-4th-day
This whole "crisis" seems a bit contrived. There have been times in the past when Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) front organizations have leveled false allegations against state security agencies as part of their anti-government propaganda efforts. The Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (COURAGE) is a CPP front targeting public sector workers. The group is a member of the main CPP multisectoral umbrella front organization, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-New Patriotic Alliance).
ReplyDeleteAllegations that some 10 vehicles and numerous agents are being employed in the surveillance operation targeting COURAGE officer Antonieta Setias-Dizon during her "standoff" with government intelligence agencies while she is staying at the offices of Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) seems a bit much. She is just not that important a figure in the CPP's above ground/legal movement.
This "situation" appears to have been contrived to shed a negative light on the Aquino administration and support an ongoing communist propaganda effort to undermine the credibility of, and popular support for, the Philippine government.
This "standoff" may also have been conjured up to influence Supreme Court decision making on the "petition for writs of amparo and habeas data" submitted by COURAGE to that judicial body.
By the way, the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines (SCMP) is also a CPP front active among university students and is a member of BAYAN.