DOJ slammed for 'complicity' in oppression of lumad

From InterAksyon (Nov 5): DOJ slammed for 'complicity' in oppression of lumad



Some 500 lumad and human rights activists staged a protest at the Department of Justice Thursday, accusing it of complicity in the oppression of Mindanao’s indigenous people.

The protesters, most of them participants in the Manilakbayan 2015, said the DOJ had been filing harassment suits against lumad defenders and other activists while ignoring the atrocities committed against indigenous people by state security forces and military-backed militias.

The protesters described newly-appointed Justice Secretary Alfredo Caguioa as no different from his predecessor, Leila de Lima, who resigned to run for senator in next year’s elections, saying both have been protecting perpetrators of extrajudicial killings and the government’s counterinsurgency program, Oplen Bayanihan.

"Just like the Commission on Human Rights, the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the rest of the Aquino agencies, DOJ has been a party to the commission of human rights violations by implementing OPB, particularly in filing false charges against activists and in deodorizing the crimes of the regime,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said.

"The pattern of non-prosecution of murderers and torturers in the military and paramilitary groups, and the filing of trumped up charges against known leaders of lumad and of progressive organizations are the key roles of the DOJ in Oplan Bayanihan. It has used the legal system to promote the climate of impunity in the Philippines and to violate the rights of human rights defenders and political activists," she added.

Karapatan said among the cases that remain “frozen” at the DOJ are the murder of Italian missionary Fausto Tentorio, the massacre of the Capion family, and the September 1 murders of school executive Emerito Samarca, Lumad leaders Datu Juvello Sinzo and Dionel Campos.

The latter killings triggered the evacuation of thousands of lumad from their communities in Surigao del Sur.

“None of those who pulled the trigger and the masterminds among the state security forces were actually  arrested or even faced trial. The DOJ's deliberate inaction on these cases has furthered the climate of impunity, encouraging further rights violations in Mindanao and all-over the country," Palabay said.

She also noted that the DOJ, as part of the government’s Cabinet Cluster on Security, “has taken on the role of protecting State forces rather than dispensing justice to the victims of the State.”

In the few cases it has acted due to widespread clamor, top military officers have been freed of accountability and the cases filed against ordinary soldiers have almost always been lower in degree than the actual crimes committed. 

In contrast, Palabay said, rights activists have been slapped with trumped-up criminal charges, such as 22 churchpeople, human rights workers and victims of rights violations who assisted victims of rights violations and conducted a face-finding mission in Sarangani province; and 15 supporters of lumad refugees in Davao City, including Bayan Muna Representative Carlos Isagani Zarate. 

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/119774/doj-slammed-for-complicity-in-oppression-of-lumad