Category: Human Rights

More on Bato visa ban and ARIA

Published by Ellen on December 15, 2019

Senate President Vicente Sotto and Sen. Ronald Bato de la Rosa watch the Pacquiao-Thurman fight in a movie house in Makati in July 2019. Permission granted by Inquirer.net for the use of this photo by Neil Arwin Mercado.

Remember this photo of Senate President Tito Sotto and Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa watching the Las Vegas fight between Senate colleague Manny Pacquiao and American boxer Keith Thurman fight at a theater in Rockwell last July?

We wondered then why de la Rosa, who was investigated by the Ombudsman for accepting an all-expenses paid trip to watch the Pacquiao-Jesse Vargas fight in Las Vegas in November 2016 when he was police chief, opted to stay in Manila when President Duterte cleared him of any wrongdoing. (In fairness to the former police chief, he also skipped the Pacquiao -Jeff Horn fight in Brisbane, Australia in July 2017.)

A source told us that De la Rosa actually wanted to watch the Pacquiao-Thurman fight but his United States visa was cancelled in connection with The Asia Reassurance Initiative Act (ARIA).

Leni’s questions – a statement on the government’s drug war

Published by Ellen on November 29, 2019

Vice President Leni Robredo: comforting the afflicted, afflicting the comfortable, especially those with a lot of rot to hide.

Ngayon ang tanong ko: Ano bang kinatatakutan ninyo?
Ano ba ang kinatatakutan ninyong malaman ko?
Ano ba ang kinatatakutan ninyong malaman ng taumbayan?

Now my question: what are you afraid of?
What are you afraid of me to know?
What are you afraid of knowing the people?

With those questions, Vice President Leni Robredo painted to the public the real problem in the Duterte government’s battle against illegal drugs which has not shown signs of decreasing despite the loss of more than 20,000 lives (government will admit to only about 6,000).

Robredo asked the question after he was fired by Duterte as co-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs late evening of Sunday for reasons that Malacañang has muddled in its nine-page statement.
In one paragraph, the statement said, it was “in response to the suggestion of Liberal Party President, Senator Francis Pangilinan, to just fire the Vice President from her post” and to the “taunt and dare of VP Robredo for the President to just tell her that he wants her out.”

That’s childish.

Go’s statements betray reservations about Robredo’s drug czar role

Published by Ellen on November 11, 2019

If Vice President Leni Robredo succeeds in dismantling the illegal drugs network and reducing the menace without the killings that have characterized President Duterte’s failed drug war, it would be a slap on Duterte’s much vaunted iron hand strategy.

Vice President Leni Robredo holds press conference with ICAD co-chair PDEA chief Aaron Aquino

Sen. Bong Go’s statements betray this concern even as he expressed “full support”for her as c-chair of the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) together with the head of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

In his press release after his visit to Leyte to witness the groundbreaking ceremony of housing projects for typhoon Yolanda victims in Tanauan and to give aid to fire victims in Tacloban Nov 8, Go took exception to Robredo’s statement about no killing of innocent lives in the drug war.

Gordon’s friendly warning as Duterte continues to promote culture of killing

Published by Ellen on October 22, 2019

President Rodrigo Duterte awards a medal on then Ozamiz City police chief Jovie Espenido during the 116th anniversary of the police service at Camp Crame, Aug. 9, 2017. Photo from the Philippine Star.

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, in his attempt to explain President Duterte’s alarming order to newly promoted Police Lt. Col. Jovie Espenido to go to Bacolod City in Negros Oriental and “feel free to kill everybody” said it was an exaggeration to emphasize a point.
He also said the President might have just suggested a “shortcut.”

“Shortcut” is most disturbing and that is not assuaged by his assurance that the Philippine National Police still follow the law.
In a speech at the 45th Philippine Business conference and expo at the Manila Hotel Oct. 17, Duterte again talked about his favorite topic- illegal drugs- and repeated his quarrel with human rights groups, who condemn the extra judicial killings.

What Duterte’s henchmen have come up with against Trillanes

Published by Ellen on October 21, 2019

Then senator Antonio Trillanes IV, flanked by Se. Franklin Drilon and Sen. Risa Hontiveros, when Pres. Duterte tried to nullify the amnesty granted him by President Benigno Aquino III.

If all that President Duterte’s henchmen can come up with against former senator Antonio Trillanes IV is Guillermina Barrido, that means they have scraped the bottom of the barrel and found nothing.

The preliminary hearing resumes Oct. 22 and it is interesting to see what fiction and invention Duterte and his minions have again produced.

Duterte’s con artists tried fake bank accounts and it was Duterte that they conned. Trillanes was able to debunk them by getting a certification from the banks mentioned in the documents.

Duterte tried dragging in Trillanes sick mother in the Napoles helmet scam but records in the Sandiganbayan of the case never mentioned her name.

Trillanes has joined the academe after his stint in the Senate. It’s a quieter life compared to the years after he and a group your military officers decided to make a stand against corruption in the government of Gloria M. Arroyo in what is known as the Oakwood mutiny on July 27, 2003.

Truth catches up with Duterte’s controversial drug war on drugs

Published by Ellen on October 7, 2019

Senate hearing on Good Conduct Time Allowance law. Extreme right iin police officers’s uniform is PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde. Extreme left is Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, former chief of the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group.

It is poetic justice that President Duterte’s brutal drug war, on which he built his presidency, is unraveling not because of the efforts of those who oppose it but because of the greed and impunity of the people that he trusted to carry it out.

The hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chaired by Sen. Richard Gordon started with the investigation of the anomalous implementation of the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law which almost set free heinous crime convict Antonio Sanchez, former Calauan mayor who raped and killed a UP Los Baños student and her male friend in June 1993. The initial hearings exposed the incompetence of Bureau of Corrections officials led by former Marines officer Nicanor Faeldon, who is eternally trusted by Duterte.

One of the resource persons called by Gordon was Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong, former chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, to share the findings of the investigation his office conducted in 2014 when Sen. Leila de Lima, who is currently in prison on unproven illegal drugs charges , was justice secretary under the administration of Benigno Aquino III. The probe showed that It was discovered that some inmates continued to run their illegal drug operation from inside the prison.

U.S. legislators use visa sanction as a tool to promote human rights

Published by Ellen on September 30, 2019

Sen. Bong Go should go ahead and tell President Duterte to ban American legislators who they think are “meddling” in the way they are running the country.

Speaking during the 118th Balangiga Day Commemoration in Balangiga, Eastern Samar September 28, Go said “I will suggest to President Duterte to ban American legislators from entering our country for interfering in our internal affairs. These senators think they know better than us in governing ourselves.”

Go’s tirade against the American legislators was a reaction to the amendment Senators Richard Durbin and Patrick Leahy proposed, and was approved, in the Fiscal Year 2020 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Bill which is to prohibit entry to the U.S. Philippine government officials involved in the imprisonment of Sen. Leila de Lima which they see as “politically motivated.”

U.S. senators Patrick Leahy and Richard Durbin

The budget amendment followed the fiing of a resolution in the U.S House of Representatives condemning the Philippine government of for its continued detention of De Lima and called for her immediate release.

Trillanes writes to Sabio

Published by Ellen on September 8, 2019

Atty. Jude Sabio files a complaint against Pres. Duterte at the ICC in The Hague.

At the second preliminary investigation last Friday by the Department of Justice of the charge of sedition last Friday by the Department of Justice of the charge of sedition filed by the Philippine National Police against Vice President Leni Robredo and 38 others including former Sen. Antonio Trillanes III, Assistant Solicitor General Angelita Miranda tried to submit additional evidence but was rejected by the panel for the simple reason that when they filed the case in July, the evidence should have been complete.

What Miranda wanted to submit was a news clipping of an opinion piece by lawyer Jude Sabio in the Mindanao Goldstar Daily on Sept. 2, 2019 criticizing Trillanes and a column in the Manila Times by Rigoberto Tiglao about Sabio’s article.

Banaag blames ‘copy and paste’ re PCOO’s drug 2017 drug figures

Published by Ellen on July 21, 2019

If the objective of the #Real Numbers press conference last Thursday organized by the Presidential Communications Operations Office was to clarify about the conflicting numbers related to President Duterte’s drug war, it left us more confused.

Communication Assistant Secretary Marie Banaag. 2018 file photo.

Communications Assistant Secretary Marie Rafael-Banaag repeated her earlier press statements that Homicide cases under investigation (HCUIs) are “not at all” related to the war on drugs or anti-illegal drug operations.

It’s difficult to believe her assertion because in the Duterte government’s 2017 Accomplishment Report, under the section “Fighting Illegal Drugs,” it listed 3,967 “drug personalities who died in anti-drug operations” from July 1, 2016 to November 30, 2017 and 16,355 “homicides under investigation” from July 1, 2016 – September 30, 2017.

ICC’s Bensouda: ICC probe on PH situation continues

Published by Ellen on March 20, 2019

“My office ‘s independent and impartial preliminary examination into the situation in the Philippines continues.”
That statement by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda issued Monday should put a stop to the misleading statements of Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo about the ICC process.

Last Monday, Panelo said in his press briefing, “… ICC cannot proceed with any proceeding that it has started specifically because it said that they conducted a preliminary examination and not a preliminary investigation. And under the Rome Statute clearly says that any preliminary investigation or any proceeding relative there to it commenced prior to the withdrawal of state party, can’t continue and will continue. Therefore, if it does continue, it violates its own provision because there has been no preliminary investigation.”