Migrante-Europe joins the growing appeal for the immediate release of political prisoners in the Philippines on humanitarian grounds as the world wrestles with the danger and harm of the COVID-19.

Migrante-Europe firmly believes that political prisoners in the Philippines have been unjustly arrested charged and detained. Many of them in advanced age and suffering from life-threatening illnesses.

Migrante-Europe supports the call of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet for governments to take urgent action to protect the health and safety of people in detention since, in many countries, “detention facilities are overcrowded, in some cases dangerously so. People are often held in unhygienic conditions and health services are inadequate or even non-existent. Physical distancing and self-isolation in such conditions are practically impossible.”

Migrante-Europe is alarmed with the data from the Philippine Bureau of Jail Management and Penology  of a 450% jail congestion rate nationwide in October last year, with 380 of 467 detention facilities in the country filled beyond capacity. Lack of clean water, sanitation and adequate medical services and facilities are also common among Philippine prisons.

The inhumane conditions in prisons imperil the life and health of detainees, hence, this urgent call to the Philippine government for the immediate decongestion of prisons and release of political prisoners, on humanitarian grounds, especially the elderly, sick with chronic, debilitating or life-threatening medical conditions, pregnant and nursing mothers, and those who are due for parole or pardon.#

Marlon Lacsamana
Secretary General
Migrante-Europe
1 April 2020

Migrante Europe condemns the violent dispersal by elements of the Quezon City Police District of hundreds of urban poor families who were staging a protest action inside the National Housing Authority in Quezon City on 22 November.

Led by the Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay), the protesters were demanding for the distribution of some 114,000 idle government housing units in the country.

Numerous protesters were badly injured as police charged with truncheons and bombarded them with water cannons. A campaign staff of Migrante International, Paul Reyes was among those injured. Despite his injuries, Paul was illegally arrested and detained in PNP Station 9, Quezon City, and is being charged with outrageous cases of malicious mischief, violation of BP 880, concealment of name and direct assault.

We fully support the call of the urban poor and informal settler families for the distribution of idle state-owned housing units in the country.

“Adequate housing is a basic human right . It is high time the government recognizes and addresses homelessness as a poverty problem.” said Fr. Herbert Fadriquela Jr, Migrante Europe Chairperson.

Homelessness in the Philippines
Estimated at over 3.1 million, the Philippines has the highest number of homeless people in the world. Roughly 1.2 million of them are children. Aside from these, over 1.5 million families across the country are classified as informal settlers.

The National Housing Authority (NHA) said the idle housing units originally meant for soldiers and policemen would be given to the poor and other beneficiaries once a law is passed allowing the redistribution of these government assets.

In a statement, however, Kadamay decried the provisions in the proposed law which designates that the redistribution will be for the use of “other government employees, public school teachers, barangay officials and the lowest of the income earners,” and not to the homeless and informal settlers.

Republic Act 7279 and ICESCR
There is a law, known as the Urban Development and Housing Act of 1992 (Republic Act No. 7279), which provides for a comprehensive urban development and housing program intending to “uplift the conditions of the underprivileged and homeless citizens in urban areas by making available to them decent housing at affordable cost, basic services, and employment opportunities.”

Furthermore, International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) Article 11 (1) recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to be continuous improvement of living conditions.

In the 25 years since RA 7279 was passed however, the housing problem is getting even worse. In March 2017, Kadamay led thousands of poor families who took over idle government housing units in Pandi, Bulacan. After several days of standoff with armed police, the Duterte government eventually relented and allowed the families to stay in the houses they occupied.

We call on the Duterte government to rein in his attack dogs and instead heed the demands of the people for the redistribution of idle public housing units to the homeless urban poor.

“We urge our compatriots abroad and friends of the Filipino people to strengthen our solidarity with the urban poor, the homeless and informal settlers in the Philippines in the pursuit of their just demands for decent housing. We need to be more vigilant and militant amidst the increasing repression of the Duterte government against the poor and oppressed,” concluded Fr. Herbert.

Home for the homeless!
Free Paul Reyes!
End state repression!

By SAVE OUR SCHOOLS-MINDANAO NETWORK

The last year of the Benigno S. Aquino presidency has meant a bloodbath for indigenous peoples and for Lumad education, two months after his State of the Nation Address where he gloated of figures that have purportedly addressed classroom shortages and increased the quality of Philippine education.

Emerito ‘Tatay Emok’ Samarca, executive director of the Alternative Learning Center for Agriculture and Development, Inc. (ALCADEV) and a convenor of the Save Our Schools Network was killed by government-backed indigenous paramilitary forces. His body was found lying in a pool of blood, with stab wounds on his neck, and his throat slit. While Dionel Campos, chairperson of MAPASU (Persevering Struggle for Future Manobo Generations), and his cousin Aurelio “Bello” Sinzo, were strafed dead before the
terrified community of Han-ayan, Lianga town, Surigao del Sur province.

The paramilitary group Magahat— armed, controlled, and commanded by the 36^th Infantry Battalion, Philippine Army— burned down the school cooperative building and threatened to massacre the entire community if they would not leave the area two days before
the killing of the Samarca, Campos, and Sinzo in the morning of September 1, 2015.

The dastardly crime which was perpetrated at dawn and later carried out in broad daylight, terrified the erstwhile peaceful Manobo school and community. As of this writing, the number of evacuees in Caraga has swelled to 3,000 individuals or more than
500 families coming from the municipalities of San Miguel and Lianga, with some 70 families still lost in nearby forests.

The Philippine military’s attack on ALCADEV using indigenous paramilitaries is by far the gravest and most vicious violation of indigenous peoples’ right to education and constitutes a wholesale violation of children’s rights.

Moreover, as schools are an integral part of communities, the attack is an open declaration of the Philippine state’s war of annihilation against people’s organizations and communities resisting foreign largescale plunder of ancestral domains.

The 36^th IB Philippine Army-Magahat rampage at the ALCADEV School shows that the Aquino government has dropped all pretenses of adhering to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international human rights instruments. It also demonstrates the irrefutable crimes of the Philippine Army against indigenous children which the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Children and the Armed Conflict has continually glossed over, understated, or consistently concealed
in its annual reports.

The Philippine government’s attacks on the ALCADEV School clearly shows its contempt towards self-determined development asserted by indigenous communities. Alternative Lumad schools are pushing for their own culturally-relevant pedagogy that liberates indigenous peoples from the yoke of institutionalized discrimination and corporate plunder of ancestral lands.

These Ethnocidal attacks on indigenous education, indigenous leaders and their staunch advocates and supporters are but the latest in a string of Aquino’s orders to tighten the noose on Lumad schools:

1. Since April of 2014 up to present, 25 Lumad schools and community schools were forced to halt operations for the entire month of June due to harassment by the AFP and sanctioned by the Department of Education (DepEd).
2. At least 84 cases of attacks on 57 community schools have displaced and disrupted the education of over 3, 000 Lumad children.
3. Three minors were brutally killed by the elements of 3^rd Company of the1^st Special Forces Battalion under the ground commander Capt. Balatbat with Col. Nasser Lidasan as Battalion Commander on August 19, 2015 in Pangatukan town, Bukidnon province. They were part of 5 Manobo tribals strafed and killed on suspicion of being NPA combatants.
4. The schooling of Lumad children under the Tribal Filipino Program of Surigao del Sur (TRIFPSS) was disrupted when residents of Brgy. Siagao, San Miguel, Surigao del Sur were displaced. The victims were killed by an armed group led by Hasmin and elements
   of the 36^th IBPA.
5. A Lumad child was among 14 farmers in White Culaman, Kitaotao, Bukidnon who were illegally detained and arrested by elements of 8^th IB ug 23rd IB headed by Nicolas Rivera and an official named Tocmo. All were accused as members of the New People’s Army in contrast to the fact that they are members of organizations Nagkahiusang Mag-uuma sa Barangay White Culaman ( NAMABAW) and Tinananon Kulamanon Lumadnong Panaghiusa sa Arakan (TIKULPA). The Army threatened to burn down the MISFI-run (Mindanao Interfaith Services Foundation Incorporated) school which offers 7^th and
   8^th grade education in Sitio Dao, Bukidnon.
6. Adding to these abuses is the ongoing mass evacuation of the Talaingod Manobo people in Davao City since April of this year due to intensified military operations and threats from the terrorist paramilitary group ALAMARA. Around 1, 000 individuals from San
   Fernando Bukidnon, Kapalong and Talaingod, Davao del Norte have sought sanctuary at UCCP Haran, Davao City. Learners from Salugpungan Ta Tanu Igkanugon Community Learning Center Inc (STTILCI) in Talaingod have been holding their classes at the refugee camp since the evacuation started. Worse, three soldiers of the 1003^rd Infantry Brigade raped a 14-year old Manobo grade 4 student of the Butay elementary school while conducting military operations in the area.
7. Last month, the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao schools in Agusan del Sur and Bukidnon have earlier reported harassments and threats from suspected state forces in the form of anonymous text messages, private message via facebook, and surveillances. In March 18, 2014, an RMP-NMR school grounds in Binikalan, San Luis, Agusan del Sur was strafed by 26^th IB troops disrupting the graduation practice of the school. In Sarangani province, administrators and faculty of the Center for Lumad Advocacy and Services (CLANS) which provides education to indigenous Blaan children have been filed with false criminal charges of serious illegal detention of evacuees and inciting to sedition.

The Aquino government should be held accountable for all these violations. It is responsible for the formation and arming of the paramilitary groups, the paving the way for the enty of largescale destructive projects in the ancestral domains, the sowing of disunity among IPs, and the killings that have claimed the lives of many.

The Save Our Schools Network demands Justice for Samarca, Campos, Sinzo and all victims of human rights abuses! End all forms of attacks on schools and communities!

Reference:
Prof. Mae Fe Templa, MSW
Convenor, Save Our Schools Network
09256682458