HR advocate’s arrest slammed

From the Visayan Daily Star (Oct 10, 2020): HR advocate’s arrest slammed

The Farmers Development Center (FARDEC), a Cebu-based non-government organization, slammed the recent arrest of its member and three others in Moises Padilla, Negros Occidental, who were allegedly paraded by the military as members of the New People’s Army.

FARDEC executive director Patrick Torres, said in a statement emailed to the DAILY STAR, that the arrests in Moises Padilla were nothing but another attempt to conceal the true situation in the rural areas of the country and paint legitimate civil society organizations as terrorist fronts to deflect justified concerns on the military’s human rights record.

One of the four arrested suspects tagged by the military as NPA members was Wilmar Pongasi, a staff member of FARDEC and a resident of Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental.

The arrest of Pongasi and three others, including Jovanie Bohol of Danao City, Cebu, yielded a 45 .caliber pistol with two magazines containing 12 ammunition, and four 40mm M-203 grenade launcher ammunition, Maj. Cenon Pancito, 3rd Infantry Division spokesperson, said.

Pancito said that Bohol is a member of the Sandatahang Yunit Pampropaganda Platoon of the Central Negros 1.

Even before he worked with FARDEC, Torres said that Pongasi was already active as a human rights advocate, being the co-convenor of Kabataan Para sa Karapatan-Negros Oriental, a network of young human rights defenders in Negros Island.

After FARDEC helped document the killings of farmers and human rights defenders in Guihulngan City, Negros Oriental. and the bloody Oplan Sauron that resulted in the deaths and suspicious arrests of peasant leaders, Torres said they were named as a terrorist front in a congressional hearing along with other development and humanitarian organizations such as Oxfam and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines.

https://www.visayandailystar.com/2020/October/10/topstory8.htm