In commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared, families of victims of human rights violations under Arroyo under the banner of Hustisya (Victims of Arroyo Regime United for Justice) marched to Mendiola today.
“We call for the immediate surfacing of the 206 victims of enforced disappearances under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, at the same time that we call for justice for the 1,206 victims of extrajudicial killings,” said Evangeline Hernandez, spokesperson of Hustisya.
In commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared, families of victims of human rights violations under Arroyo under the banner of Hustisya (Victims of Arroyo Regime United for Justice) marched to Mendiola today.
“We call for the immediate surfacing of the 206 victims of enforced disappearances under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, at the same time that we call for justice for the 1,206 victims of extrajudicial killings,” said Evangeline Hernandez, spokesperson of Hustisya.
According to the group, Pres. Benigno Simeon Aquino III should immediately hold the perpetrators accountable for extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. Hernandez said that Aquino should immediately answer whether when or how its administration plans to confront the issue of human rights, which he promised before he became president.
“Families of the victims still suffer, because nobody has been brought to justice, but the continued search for their missing relatives makes their suffering double,” Hernandez explained.
Hernandez is mother to Benjaline, a human rights worker who was massacred along with three others in 2002 while in a fact finding mission in Arakan Valley, North Cotabato.
Junk OBL, Aquino told
Hustisya also condemned the most recent killing days before the International Day of the Disappeared.
Casiano Abing, 56 years old, was killed in his home in Balangiga, Eastern Samar on August 27 by a lone gunman. He served as sheriff of the Balangiga Regional Trial Court (RTC), and was a member of partylist Bayan Muna.
“We strongly condemn yet another victim of extrajudicial killing under P-Noy. We ask P-Noy, until when will he be silent on cases of extrajudicial killings, while this bloody policy continues under his term,” asked Hernandez.
The group is worried that extrajudicial killings will continue in many parts of the country because of the Aquino administration’s extension of Oplan Bantay Laya, the former Arroyo regime’s counter insurgency program.
“OBL should be junked immediately. While the military says that the extended OBL will focus on Mindanao, the first victims of extrajudicial killings came from Luzon and Visayas. Until OBL is junked, we fear that the killings will continue. It is like the nightmares of killings under Arroyo will repeat all over again,” Hernandez said. ###