Major Angelo Guzman Reveals the Clown’s Pretense of Oplan Bayanihan

Press Statement

Reference: Vince Casilihan

November 19, 2014

Karapatan-Bikol joins the delegates of Manilakbayan 2014 and the militant organizations of Southern Tagalog region in condemning the Armed Forces of the Philippines – Southern Luzon Command’s attempts at sabotaging today’s picket protest at the gates of SOLCOM headquarters. Utmost denunciation is directed at SOLCOM Spokesperson Major Angelo Guzman, for taking the lead in disrupting and disrespecting the people’s legitimate mobilization.

SOLCOM Spokesperson Maj. Angelo Guzman taunting protesters.

Delegates of Manilakbayan, together with the people of Southern Luzon, held a picket protest to have the AFP hear the people’s demands for respect for human rights and international humanitarian law. Instead, they were responded with blaring Christmas music, with Major Angelo Guzman foolishly clapping and taunting the protesters.

Such act of the SOLCOM Spokesperson reveals the true face of Oplan Bayanihan’s psywar in Southern Luzon. The AFP’s purported reform in methods concerning respect for people’s rights proves to be empty, as demonstrated by Major Guzman’s unreserved display of contempt of the masses.

Karapatan-Bikol takes particular notice of this event because SOLCOM, being the chief implementer of Oplan Bayanihan in the regions of Southern Tagalog and Bicol, exposes its obstinacy in keeping true to being mercenaries of plunderers, big landlords, and pork barrel kingpins. Today’s incident at the gates of SOLCOM headquarters only tells the public that the brutalities of Oplan Bayanihan will continue in Southern Luzon, and that the AFP has at its charge Major Angelo Guzman to spread deceit, as was his erstwhile role with the 9^th Infantry Division.  And also with his strutting, the SOLCOM Spokesperson attempts to divert the people’s minds away from the root causes of the people’s dissent.

We ask Major Guzman: What peaceful Christmas is there when your senior officers order the distress of our families through abductions, death squad assassinations, and destruction of livelihoods? What joyous Christmas will the people have when you can still afford to clown around amidst the people’s condemnation of your organization’s brutalities and deception?

On the other hand, the AFP should retain buffoons with the likes of Major Angelo Guzman, and have him proceed with his clowning. This only inflames further the indignation of a people against poverty and oppression.   

But mind you, Major Angelo Guzman, the people’s outrage is not a laughing matter. ###

Take Our Victories to the Next Day of Protest!

A Statement of Congratulations and Continuing Fight

Reference: Ptr. Dan Balucio – BAYAN-BICOL

      Vince Casilihan – Karapatan-Bikol

November 18, 2014

BAYAN-BICOL and Karapatan-Bikol salute yesterday’s triumphant convergence of KADENA Bicolandia and Manilakbayan ng Mindanao. The coming together of the poor and oppressed people across various regions announces the certainty of victory in the fight against poverty and social injustice.    

More than 15, 000 Bicolanos from all over the region dominated the streets to articulate their solidarity with more than 300 marchers from Mindanao, while advancing other legitimate demands. Bicolanos and Mindanawans exchanged banners and reciprocally pressed for each other’s calls. Such mutual espousal of struggles eliminates sectarian views and cultivates in the people’s minds a comprehensive grasp of poverty and oppression plaguing the whole country. 

The main highways of Sorsogon welcomed the Mindanao delegates in their Luzon leg, with thousands of militant Sorsoganons lining up along major protest centers in the province. Albayanos on the other hand prepared a symbolic Kainang Bayan and shared the province’ prized Pinangat and Bicol Express. In Camarines Sur, a torch parade and a solidarity cultural night capped Manilakbayan’s Bicol phase. Meanwhile, the provinces of Masbate, Camarines Norte and Catanduanes each had their significant mobilizations as testament to the solidarity of Bicolanos with our Mindanawan comrades.  

The region has witnessed yesterday a swelling mass of people rising up against poverty and social injustice, particularly against the loathsome BS Aquino regime. This is on the account of the people’s fortitude in sharply evaluating their despondent conditions, and decisively taking action to command their paths and break away from the chains of an exploitative and oppressive system.

Days of ambivalence and being cowed are over. Today we send off our comrades to continue with their long struggle to Manila. Meanwhile, we return to our communities, our schools and workplaces, and proceed with our daily struggles as well. But in the weeks leading to the next day of protest, we carry on with arousing our fellow peasants, our fellow cultural workers and students, fellow workers and employees, and call for resistance against poverty and oppression. Let us persist in heralding the triumphs of a people united, and spark the righteousness of struggle. Then certainly, on the day that we once again take to the streets, what upheaval shall our voices resound!

Do not let our guards down! Fight the state’s continuing attacks on activists!

News Release

Reference: Vince Casilihan

      Karapatan-Bikol Spokesperson

November 16, 2014

“The policy of state terrorism continues, and so do the people intensify the fight against BS Aquino’s brutality and oppression.” Such is Vince Casilihan’s summarization of the human rights situation in the region, as Karapatan-Bikol condemns the most recent attack on activists.

On November 14, Antonio “Ka Tony” Salvador, a public utility jeepney driver and a respected leader of the militant transport organization PISTON, resisted his abductors as they attempted to put him in a van. The failed abduction took place at the Central Plaza Terminal in the town of Daet in Camarines Norte province. The brazen act happened at around 10 am, in full view of bystanders, passengers, and Ka Tony’s fellow drivers. With Ka Tony bravely resisting, his abductors sped away in the gray-colored van with license plate VCZ 455.

Karapatan-Bikol’s Vince Casilihan asserts that Ka Tony’s abductors are members of the state’s death squads, as they declared that they have placed Ka Tony under surveillance for a month, and have likewise threatened to arrest Ka Tony’s fellow drivers. “What is also revolting is how these state forces speak of killing in such unaffected fashion, as if murders were regular options in their menu,” Casilihan says. He refers to the pronouncement to Ka Tony by one of the failed abductors as they try to wrest him to the van: “Bakit ayaw mo’ng sumakay, hindi ka naman namin papatayin?” (Why won’t you get in (the van)? We won’t kill you.)

“Such flagrant assault on people’s rights demonstrates that there has been no letup in Oplan Bayanihan’s white terror,” says Casilihan.  “The 9^th ID Philippine Army and the Philippine National Police’ posturing on peace, human rights and international humanitarian law are all but shattered and discredited with their bloody trail of violations,” he adds.

Moreover, Casilihan censures the BS Aquino government in its reactionary approach to the people’s demands. He says, “In the face of biting hunger and loss of livelihoods, it is extremely repulsive that instead of heeding the people’s legitimate claims, Aquino sends his attack dogs to silence those who are most determined in advancing the welfare of the victims of poverty and state abandonment.”

In ending, Casilihan calls on the people to carry on, and leaves a caveat to BS Aquino and his armed forces. “Not only has the government failed in abducting and silencing a committed people’s leader. The BS Aquino regime has also beset upon itself the outrage and intensified struggle of Ka Tony, his fellow drivers, and the militant people of Camarines Norte.  The people know fully well that only through the strengthening of their ranks and heightening of their fight will they be able to bring together all the faculties in exposing and punishing a murderous regime.” ###

Unite our Marches in Booting the US-Aquino Regime!

Kadena Bicolandia con Manilakbayan

Press Release

References:  Ptr. Dan Balucio, Bayan Bicol

                     Vince Casilihan, Karapatan Bikol

November 16, 2014

BAYAN-BICOL and KARAPATAN-BIKOL, under the banner of KADENA Bicolandia, express their firm solidarity with hundreds of militant marchers from Mindanao in their Manilakbayan ng Mindanao 2014. This archipelagic journey of the peoples of the island aims to gather support for their struggle against massive and wanton plunder of the environment, and the corresponding militarization of communities.

Aptly hoisting the call “Food and Peace in MindaNow”, the march brings to the public’s attention the massive incursions by big foreign companies in mining, energy, and agro-business. These have targeted vast lands being tilled by peasants and Lumads, thus causing hunger and the destruction of the sources of peoples’ livelihoods, as well as the communities and the environment. Likewise, the call for peace befits the political situation in the regions of Mindanao, whereby in order to quell the peoples’ protests against plunder and destruction, and to secure foreign capitalist interests, the Aquino government has positioned around 55 combat battalions of the Philippine Army. Reinforcing these army battalions in attacking civilians are troops from the PNP, vigilante groups, and paramilitary units specifically formed to assist state forces in protecting and defending big foreign plunderers.

Manilakbayan ng Mindanao 2014 brings to the country’s seat of government in Manila at least 300 mass leaders, human rights victims and defenders who are Lumads, peasants, workers, women and children, church people, and other sectors. They will be nobly spanning major provinces of The Visayas, Bicol, and Southern Tagalog, and coordinate with solidarity activities on the road. BAYAN-BICOL and KARAPATAN-BIKOL, along with various other cause-oriented organizations in the region, welcome the marching delegates on Monday, November 17 in synchronization with KADENA Bikolandia, the region’s chain of protests against the Aquino regime’s ills. Our comrades from Mindanao, while drumming up their struggles, will also be linking up with the common fight of the poor and oppressed in the region.

With Bikol likewise suffering from the Aquino regime’s economic offensives and militarization, it is righteous to stand firm alongside the oppressed classes and sectors across the nation against our common persecutor. Millions of Filipinos yearn to break away from the destitution and cruelty being imposed by BS Aquino. As we gather nationwide dissent, a massive force of the people shall impel the ouster of a loathed regime.

It is in this same light that the heretofore monthly KADENA Bikolandia, of which BAYAN-BICOL and KARAPATAN-BIKOL are fervent campaigners, once more links the hundreds of mass action centers in the region. While KADENA Bikolandia supports and unites with the struggles of the peoples of Mindanao, Bicolanos likewise shout out their condemnation of BS Aquino’s criminal liability against the peasantry. Along with many other reproaches, we highlight our demand for justice to the Hacienda Luisita Massacre victims, who have not seen any perpetrator punished after ten years.

The Aquino government’s fundamental crime against the Hacienda Luisita Massacre victims is the denial of lands to the peasantry. And such is also the transgression afflicting the peasantry nationwide. In Bicol alone, the bogus CARP and CARP-ER continue to dispossess farmers of their lands through widespread cancellations of Certificates of Land Transfer, Certificates of Land Ownership Award, and Emancipation Patents. More so, Aquino negates the just transfer of the Php72 Billion Coco Levy Funds into the hands of coconut farmers, and instead drools to haul the said funds into the presidential pork barrel.

Similarly, just as the peoples of Mindanao are opposing militarization, Bicol’s communities also suffer from the brutalities and deception of Oplan Bayanihan. With the region being one of the priority areas of this disreputable counter-insurgency campaign, continuing violations of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law are being inflicted by the 9^th Infantry Division Philippine Army in its deceitful Peace and Development Operations across the region. And also, just as Aquino allows plunder and destruction in Mindanao, his Public-Private Partnership program in Bicol has done nothing but auction the region’s public assets – from minerals to energy to public utilities and services – to big foreign capitalists as well as big compradors that belong to the presidential clique.

With the nation being plunged deeper into the mire of poverty and injustice, it is therefore ever-righteous to carry on with our fight in expelling BS Aquino for his grave crimes against the Filipino people. We must defy fear and indifference and join the surge of the poor and oppressed in taking to the streets and fighting for justice and genuine progress.

Let hundreds of marchers unite with thousands and millions in triggering off tremors that will take down BS Aquino’s throne. Let our KADENA Bicolandia link with the nation’s struggle and render a despised regime its warranted ouster. ###