Teodoro Escanilla, Radio anchorman and spokersperson of human rights group Karapatan in Sorsogon province. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
SORSOGON CITY, 10Dec2015 – Still fresh in their minds about the killing of old man Teodoro “Ka Tudoy” Escanilla by covert military operatives in first week of August this year, human rights advocates here are firmly resolved to continue the fight for human rights awareness among Sorsogon folks as they prepare Thursday’s observance of International Human Rights Day.
Escanilla was among the 15 victims of assassinations and killings by suspected state security operatives this year in
Escanilla, a media practitioner advocating human rights in his radio program, was the spokesperson of provincial human rights organization, Karapatan-Sorsogon.
Other provinces also recorded killings by state troops, which human rights observers have taken note as “a pattern of conspiracy of extra-judicial killings on dissidents tolerated or sanctioned by the state.”
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Same with brutal state military campaigns in Muslim Mindanao where the hunt for Western-branded “terrorists” has, in irony, transformed the state military into “state terrorists” when they turned Muslim communities “upside down, inside out”, after failing to find one “Abu Sayyaf bandit.”
Paralegals here said Sorsogon has suffered the worst of human rights violations committed on civilians by state security forces as compared to other Bicol Provinces.
The state has used iron-hand campaign to destroy insurgency in the province, but the military campaigns have forced physical and economic dislocation among civilians, committing human rights abuses, and forced evacuation from bombings and machine gun strafing coming from helicopter gunships.
And, lately, Masbate is also experiencing rising incidents of rights abuses as security forces are pounding hard on the two provinces in order to attain the state goal for Sorsogon and
Activists here also pointed at the 31st Infantry Battalion, the 9th ID’s frontline combat unit, as behind the spate of human rights abuses on Sorsogon and
While in some incidents, the rebel New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas had managed to score some points over state security units by ambushes and harassments, frustrated state troopers in retaliation had turned their anger on civilians, violating their human rights and killing harmless civilians, including children.
This is the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) front group propaganda attack against the Aquino administration and the Philippine military with regard to the human rights situation in Sorsogon and Masbate provinces, two provinces that are being hotly contested between the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Maoist New People's Army, the military wing of the CPP.
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