Drones To Kill Filipino Civilians Too

News Release

December 16, 2013

Reference: Vince Casilihan

Cellphone number: 09481390488

“It is despicable for a government to scurry on beefing up its fangs in the face of grinding poverty, injustice, and discontent.” This is what Vince Casilihan of Karapatan-Bikol has to say in reaction to the Aquino government’s plan on purchasing unmanned aerial vehicles or drones to be used in intelligence and combat operations.

The Aquino government has provided P684 million to the Department of National Defense for the acquisition of six drones for the Philippines Marine Corps. The human rights group Karapatan-Bikol believes that no later will the other branches of the Armed Forces of the Philippines follow suit in employing drones in it’s counterinsurgency campaign. To this, Casilihan criticizes Aquino’s “crooked” concept of addressing armed conflict. He said, “Here is a warfreak of a government buying more weapons, instead of allocating public funds to education, health, agricultural subsidies, and other social services – whose dearth are among the legitimate grounds for waging armed opposition.”

KADENA BICOLANDIA Links People’s Dissent to Oppose Aquino’s String of Predicaments

News Release

December  10, 2013

Reference: Vince Casilihan

“Oppressed people when united lose nothing but their chains.”  This is how Vince Casilihan of Karapatan-Bikol rephrases the motivation of a great thinker, as the human rights organization spearheads today’s commemoration of International Human Rights Day with an expanse of mass actions along the major roads of Bicol region.

Dubbed as KADENA BICOLANDIA, Casilihan describes the extensive network of protest actions as a demonstration of Bicolanos’ dissent against the Pork Barrel Scam, graft and corruption, and various torments imposed by the Aquino regime on Bicolanos. “Adversity after adversity, Noynoy Aquino is at the forefront of inflicting a chain of problems on the people,” points Casilihan. “While we are hunched with sweat and blood at toiling to create the nation’s wealth, Aquino and his hacendero-comprador ilk run amok at stealing public funds and sanctioning the further violation of our rights and legitimate demands,” Casilihan added.

The Karapatan-Bikol spokesperson enumerates the string of hardships Bicolanos face to the worsening of their daily survival: “We have thieves for lawmakers, and The Lord of Thieves for a president; our people live in the dark, literally, as we have greed-driven capitalists taking over ALECO, CASURECO 3, and soon, SORECO and the rest; we are left with toxic wastes while large foreign mining corporations are monsters plundering our minerals; we have rabid dogs donning AFP uniforms and running around on a killing binge targetting protesters.”  The list goes on, Casilihan furthers, as he likewise draws attention to age-old landlessness of peasants, escalating prices of goods and services, and the declining value of stagnant wages, among others.

To this, Casilihan reaffirms the aptness of KADENA BICOLANDIA as the people’s opposition to the Aquino regime’s ills. “We face Aquino’s string of predicaments with Bicolanos’ protests linked across the region,” he sums up. To be likewise participated in by various progressive organizations, KADENA BICOLANDIA will be started off from Quirino Highway in the town of Sta. Elena, Camarines Norte, all the way to Matnog and Bulan towns in Sorsogon. One hundred ten (110) mass action centers will be put up in key places along Quirino and Maharlika Highways, as well as along the roads of Catanduanes, and all over the three major islands of Masbate. Protest concerts in the major urban areas will conclude today’s activity.

In conclusion, Casilihan echoes the people’s determination: “Not only with arms united, but fervor after fervor, we will conjoin with the last man on the link to demonstrate our relentless struggle to break the chain of ills being forced upon us by Aquino and the system that he represents.”

 

Thrash Bureaucrat Capitalism – the Foundation of Corruption, Deceit of “Righteous Path” Rhetoric, and Militarization!

Karapatan-Bikol’s Statement on the 65^th-year commemoration of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights 

December 10, 2013

Reference: Vince Casilihan 
Cellphone number: 09481390488

The people must denounce and fight the US-Aquino regime in its all-out sponsorship of the rotten political system which spawns corruption, deceives the people with the lies of “Matuwid na Daan”, and institutionalizes militarization as the state’s foremost fangs of oppression and primary defense of the ruling system’s evils.

The ever-decaying ruling system gravely damages the people. Bureaucrat Capitalism, essentially the ruling class’ mode of running government as a money-making enterprise, breeds the extensive and deeply-rooted corruption. While the people labor in creating the nation’s wealth, they are being robbed of their yield by landlords and big capitalists elected into public office. They are denied services and rights while politicians wallow in stolen money.

With the Pork Barrel King Noynoy Aquino at the forefront of corruption, his regime babbles on the deceitful “Matuwid na Daan” rhetoric in order to conceal their theft. Subsidized by public funds, Aquino the Lord of Thieves employs his Public Relations experts with the exclusive task of distorting the truth and depicting him as the “Nemesis of Corruption” in the face of glaring evidences of his theft and crookedness in government.

Worst, Aquino’s regime intensifies militarization as its fundamental buttress in perpetuating power. Generals of the Armed Forces of the Philippines likewise bloat with the people’s money in exchange for their compliance in the armed suppression of the people’s resistance. AFP’s attacks on the lives and livelihoods of the people in the name of Oplan Bayanihan has the ultimate goal of quelling the people’s militant fight and keeping Aquino and his class in power.

But regardless of intensified Oplan Bayanihan, the people do not cower. Instead, they seethe with anger at the AFP’s violation of their rights. In particular, Bicolano masses are enraged at the 9^th Infantry Division Philippine Army’s brutal counter-insurgency campaign in the region. Those condemning Aquino’s evils, those resolute in advancing the rights and welfare of the oppressed and exploited, are the ones being attacked and targetted for murder by the mercenaries of the regime. Under Aquino’s three years in power, Karapatan-Bicol has documented 1, 255 cases of human rights violations in the region. These  violations have attacked 13, 906 individuals, 38 of whom are victims of extrajudicial killings.

It is just to loathe 9^th ID’s aggression on the Bicolano people. But beyond battling human rights violations being committed by the AFP, the people ultimately direct their rage against the rotten ruling system. They remain firm in fighting in order to gradually defeat a rotten system that steals public funds, poisons the people’s minds, and assaults just struggles.###


Read in Filipino

Burukrata Kapitalismo: Ugat ng Kurapsyon, Panlilinlang ng Matuwid na Daan, at Militarisasyon, Ibagsak!

Pahayag ng Karapatan-Bikol sa Paggunita sa ika-65 taon ng Pandaigdigang Deklarasyon ng Karapatang Pantao

Disyembre 10, 2013

Reference: Vince Casilihan 
Cellphone number: 09481390488

                                              

Dapat kasuklaman at labanan ng mamamayan ang rehimeng US-Aquino dahil sa sukdulang pagtataguyod nito ng bulok na sistemang nagpapasimuno ng korapsyon, lumilinlang sa mamamayan sa kasinungalingan ng “Matuwid na Daan”, at nagpapatibay sa militarisasyon bilang pangunahing pangil sa pagtatanggol sa kabuktutan ng naghaharing sistema. 

Labis na pumipinsala sa mamamayan ang tumitinding kabulukan ng kasalukuyang sistema.  Ang Burukrata Kapitalismo, na sa esensya ay pagpapatakbo ng gubyerno bilang isang negosyo ng mga naghaharing uri, ang siyang pinag-uugatan ng malaganap at malalim na korapsyon. Habang ang mamamayan ay lugmok sa pagpapakahirap upang lumikha ng yaman ng bansa, pinagnanakawan lamang sila ng mga panginoong maylupa’t malalaking negosyanteng naluklok sa gubyerno. Pinagkakaitan ng serbisyo at karapatan ang mamamayan samantalang naglulunoy sa pinagnakawang pera ang mga pulitiko.