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‘Funeral arrest’ new modus of police, military?
Government forces may have invented another practice against families of victims of deadly police operations: funeral arrest.
Families and human rights workers have been kept inside a funeral parlor in Antipolo City since Wednesday night, March 10, by the Philippine National Police (PNP).
As many as 23 are being detained by the police inside the premises of the Antipolo Funeral Homes.
The families went to the funeral parlor last Tuesday to claim the remains of some of the victims in last Sunday’s bloody police operations across four Southern Tagalog provinces.
“The appalling inhumanity of the State does not end with their gruesome, extrajudicial killings: they continue to deny the remains of their victims from death to funeral while putting their families to the torturous experience and misery of having to beg on their knees for the remains of their own loved ones.”
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
MANILA – Victimized twice over.
This is how Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan described the plight of families of four individuals who were killed in what is now known as Bloody Sunday.
It took four days before police and military finally released of the remains of urban poor activists Melvin Dasigao and Mark Lee Corros Bacasno, and the Dumagat farmers Puroy Dela Cruz, and Randy Dela Cruz.
Karapatan urges release of bodies of 4 slain in Bloody Sunday ops gmanetwork.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from gmanetwork.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Published March 9, 2021, 3:55 PM
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has started its probe on the March 7 deaths of nine persons with alleged links to communist rebels in Southern Tagalog provinces to determine if their cases should be investigated by the inter-agency task force on extra-judicial killings.
Department of Justice (DoJ) (MANILA BULLETIN)
During the “Laging Handa” briefing on Tuesday, March 9, DOJ Undersecretary Adrian Ferdinand S. Sugay said the probe to determine if the killings should fall under the task force on Administrative Order No. 35 (AO 35) has been ordered by Justice Secretary Menardo I. Guevarra.
The AO 35 Inter-Agency Committee, which is chaired by the DOJ and created in 2012 by then President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, is tasked to investigate extra-legal killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other grave violations of the right to life, liberty and security of persons.
Painting the presence of freedom
By ILANG-ILANG QUIJANO
– John Berger, writer and cultural critic
The absence of basic rights and freedoms. The void left by a person killed or unjustly imprisoned for their beliefs. Land that is taken away, intrepid voices that are stifled, entire cultures that are destroyed.
Such were the absences that several freshly painted murals along the University of the Philippines-Diliman’s Freedom Wall along Katipunan Avenue attempt to make present. They are the products of a live mural painting session organized by the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP), SINAGBAYAN (Sining na Naglilingkod sa Bayan), and Sama-Samang Artista Para sa Kilusang Agraryo (SAKA) last February 14, in celebration of National Arts Month.