Human rights and leftist groups opened their offices to inspection Wednesday, saying this would give the police little opportunity to plant evidence against them.
The Commission on Human Rights inspected the Quezon City offices of Karapatan, Bayan the National Union of People’s Laywers and Kodao Productions upon their request, days after police raided offices of their colleagues in Manila and Bacolod.
Karapatan Deputy Secretary-General Roneo Clamor said the group asked for the inspection “to deprive the police any opportunity to plant evidence should a search warrant be suddenly served.”
“We likewise want to put an end to these baseless and absurd accusations that our offices–with known addresses–are being used as safe houses,” he said.
In the House, Minority leader Rep. Bienvenido Abante Jr. slammed the attacks against the left-leaning Makabayan bloc.
“The Minority bloc is united in condemning the attacks on the members of the Makabayan bloc, and demand that these be stopped immediately. Such attacks have no place in a democracy,” Abante, representative of Manila’s Sixth District, said at a news conference Wednesday.
“I speak for the whole Minority in saying that the Makabayan bloc is a productive and dynamic part of the House Minority and together we properly perform our role as a credible fiscalizer of the administration,” he said
Abante noted reports that the simultaneous raids and mass arrests of members of Bayan Muna, Kilusang Mayo Uno and Gabriela Negros Center, and the Negros Federation of Sugar Workers involved planted guns and explosives and trumped up charges.
The arrests were made a day before the All Saints’ Day holiday, preventing the accused from posting bail for the alleged crimes.
The other night, Reynaldo Malaborbor, a Makabayan coordinator in Southern Tagalog, was shot dead around 9 p.m. by an unidentified gunman in front of his house at Cabuyao, Laguna.
Around 1 a.m. Wednesday, police raided a Bayan office in Tondo, Manila and arrested three activists in the office.
The same QC RTC Judge issued the search warrants for the raids in Bacolod City and Manila.
International organization Oxfam, meanwhile, said it is a humanitarian organization that operates globally, in response to a Defense department allegation that the group was linked to “communist terrorist groups.”
In a statement, Oxfam said they learned that the DND tagged its Philippine arm as a supposed front of local “communist terrorist groups” while its International and UK arm was branded as “foreign funding agencies wittingly or unwittingly providing funds” to “CTG front organizations.”
“These allegations affect not only us, but also put the communities and partners we work at risk,” Oxfam said.
It added: “In a country where poverty remains, and poor communities are continually struck by disasters, we strongly believe that organizations like ours should be encouraged, rather than hindered, from undertaking our programs.”
Oxfam said it has been legally registered and has been working in the Philippines for more than 30 years. It added that it works in “accordance with humanitarian principles, international law and the laws of donor governments and have stringent systems in place to ensure… aid gets to the people who need it most.” With PNA
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