Jennifer Laude hate crime: Murder most foul, pathetic mendicancy like no other

Press Statement
15 October 2014



We cannot perhaps add anything more to the universal condemnation and loud calls for justice for the grisly murder of Jennifer Laude. There is no legal nor moral justification for an apparent hate crime.

Yet the BS Aquino government is failing us again. It is not standing up for its own people despite the horrible beastly murder. It is simply pathetic to grovel for custody of a suspect just to routinely bring him to justice.

You bellow grandiosely that you have legal jurisdiction over a suspect yet you peep with a whimper over a simple exercise of custody?

And the US is flouting all laws of decency and humanity for its own military interests. Shielding US Marine Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton is unmitigated callousness.

What if it were an American transgender and a Filipino soldier? The latter would be instantly renditioned by the US and thrown overboard from the docks.

The nexus with scandalously one-sided "agreements" that institutionalize and legalize what are essentially master-slave arrangements like the so-called Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) and the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) on the one hand, and transgressions against our sovereignty, our laws, our environment, our dignity as a people and as human beings is patent as it is overt, on the other hand.

From Subic to Tubbataha, from Smith to Pemberton: it is one straight path to subservience and docility sanctified by legal gobbledygook and discombobulated by legal hermeneutics.

We told you so. These and other outrageous things are bound to happen. And will happen again.

But we will tell you again and again and again and again. Until lowly life forms camouflaged in elegant uniforms are brought to us for reckoning. Until you respect us as a people. Until you treat us as human beings. #

Reference:

Edre U. Olalia
NUPL Secretary General
+639175113373

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National Secretariat
National Union of Peoples' Lawyers (NUPL)
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Telefax no.920-6660
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Unequal US-PH military agreements license to violate people’s rights

Press Statement
October 14, 2014

Reference: Cristina “Tinay” Palabay, Secretary General, +63917-3162831
Angge Santos, Media Liaison, +63918-9790580



http://www.karapatan.org/Unequal+US-PH+military+agreements+VFA-EDCA+license+to+violate+people%E2%80%99s+rights+Jennifer+Laude

“The killing of transgender woman Jennifer Laude by a US serviceman is the most recent vivid violation of people’s rights, a consequence of lopsided military agreements between the US and the Philippine governments. The US-RP Military Bases Agreement to the Visiting Forces Agreement and the US-GPH Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement have become licenses for numerous gross transgressions, especially on the rights of Filipino women and children,” said Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general.

An online US-based news site, www.marinecorpstimes.com cited an internal US Navy memorandum identified the perpetrator as a US Marine deployed to the Philippines as part of the Balikatan joint military training exercise. The suspect, whose identity is kept from the public, and three other Marines are in the custody of US Navy officials since Sunday.

The Balikatan joint military exercise is a component of the Visiting Forces Agreement which in effect ensures the permanent, albeit rotational, presence of the US troops in the country. “The newly signed EDCA ensures the increased and permanent presence of US military troops, anywhere and everywhere in the Philippines, at the expense of the Filipino people, both monetarily and in relation to our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” she said.

Palabay warned that the “issue of jurisdiction and custody over the case may go the way of all previous cases where criminal accountability of US soldiers in Philippine territory were exonerated under the pretext of the MBA and the VFA.”

She stated that in 1987, a US serviceman stationed in the US base on Olongapo and accused in the rape of 12-year old Rosario Baluyot was “whisked out of the country to avoid prosecution.” The child later died from sepsis because parts of a vibrator that was inserted in her vagina remained stuck for seven months.

The rape of “Nicole” by US Marine Daniel Smith in 2005 was the first case where a member of the US military was tried, convicted and sentenced for a crime on Philippine territory. However, the local court ruling on the landmark case was overturned when Smith was secretly transferred from the Makati City Jail to the US Embassy’s custody in 2006.

“In both cases, the issue of US government custody on the perpetrators from the US military was invoked,” Palabay added.

“We call on the Filipino people to assert the country’s sovereignty and jurisdiction over the case, including custody and investigation of the perpetrator, and his prosecution. We demand justice and accountability. We call for the immediate junking of the VFA and the EDCA, which are threats to the Filipino people’s liberty and security,” she concluded. ###

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Alliance for the Advancement of People's Rights
2nd Flr. Erythrina Bldg., #1 Maaralin corner Matatag Sts., Central District
Diliman, Quezon City, PHILIPPINES 1101
Telefax: (+63 2) 4354146
Web: http://www.karapatan.org

A CALL FOR PRAYER IN PIKIT, A CALL FOR PRAYER FOR PEACE

Show the World that we, as people--whether Christian, Muslim or Lumad, long for Peace

Press Statement

A CALL FOR PRAYER IN PIKIT, A CALL FOR PRAYER FOR PEACE

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”     Jesus (Matt. 5:43-44)

Last Wednesday, during the Midweek Prayer service, an M203 grenade was fired inside the UCCP-Pikit in Pikit, North Cotabato, resulting in the death of two of our worshiping members and caused injuries to several others. Two men riding in tandem aboard a motorcycle were seen speeding away from the church immediately after the bombing.

As this time, there is no evidence as to who were responsible and what their motives were. There are theories and speculations but no concrete proof as of yet.

In times like this, when emotions and passion tend to run high, we call for sobriety. Let us avoid speculations and a rush to judgment that are unwarranted and which may just lead to further escalation of tension and of violence.

In times like this when are are in the dark and do not know for certain who the perpetrators are, our best recourse is prayer. Prayer has always been the best refuge for believers, whether Christians, Muslims or of other faiths. Our God does not slumber or sleep and hears the cries of the oppressed.

One thing that unites us, whether Christians, Muslims or Lumads, is our high respect for houses of worship. Time and again those who work against peace and who would turn the conflict into a religious war have violated holy places by violence. This is totally unacceptable and should not be tolerated nor countenanced by any group or religion. As in the past, we have called on our churches as sanctuaries of peace and have protested the putting up of detachments and camps in places of worship.

We are heartened in this hour of our grief, that as we condemn the attack on our church in the strongest term possible, that Muslim leaders in the area have joined us in condemning this despicable act.

Our Muslim brothers and sisters in the area are fully aware of the inter-faith and ecumenical posture of our Church and how our Church people and institutions, like the Southern Christian College, had been in the forefront of promoting peace in Mindanao.

This may be an opportune time to show to the world that we, as a people - whether Christians, Muslims or Lumads - long for peace by calling for an inter-faith, tri-people prayer rally for unity, justice and peace.

I ask our leaders in Mindanao, from Bishops to Conference Ministers and local church leaders to consider doing so. I call on our ecumenical and inter-faith partners to consider doing so.

I urge all our local churches throughout the Philippines to designate a time in their worship services this Sunday to remember those who died and those who are in need of healing and to pray for peace as well as for justice for the victims and comfort for their families.

We continue to implore on the authorities to speed up their investigations and to leave no stones unturned to bring the perpetrators to account for their crime. We call on witnesses to this dastardly act to surface and to cooperate with investigators.

Let us pray for God’s comfort upon those whose loved ones have perished. To the families of Felomena Nacario-Ferolin and Gina Cabiluna, we lift you up in prayer that God’s consoling presence dwell with you in these difficult times. For those who were injured, that God would heal your wounds, both physical and emotional. For those who have done this cowardly act, while you may escape human justice, you can never escape God’s judgment.

Let us pray for our beloved country that peace and justice may soon inhabit the land, where there is an end to senseless violence and injustice, and where instruments of violence may be converted into tools for the well-being of its people.

(Sgd.) Bishop REUEL NORMAN O. MARIGZA

UCCP General Secretary

Interviews may be arranged through Media Liaison Rebecca Lawson, 0919-828-9514