WE, human rights, justice, and peace advocates representing different cause-oriented organizations condemn the attacks on three mass organizations’ offices in Western Visayas, and another in the Metro Manila. These attacks are part of the crackdown on democratic forces fighting for peace and justice in the Philippines. We demand that the mercenaries involved be held accountable. We also demand that justice be given to the arrested, and that they be freed without conditions.

The offices of Bayan Muna, Gabriela, National Federation of Sugar Workers in Bacolod were raided in the afternoon of Oct. 31, 2019. 62 people were arrested. In Manila, Gabriela Metro Manila chair Cora Agovida, urban poor group Kadamay-Metro Manila member Michael Tan Bartolome, and their two young children were arrested.

The Philippine government’s forces came like thieves in the night, striking in the dark. They claimed that these offices are training grounds of the New People’s Army. This is probably the reason they struck at night, because this flimsy, ludicrous excuse is criminal activity. The regime is hell-bent on bulldozing the political landscape in the Philippines. Duterte is keen on threatening and killing progressives, especially since we are not fanatics of his administration. It’s a different story with this allies, as he gives in to all their whims, and merely follows the orders of big capitalists and foreign masters. Clearly, he is not a President of the ordinary Filipino. (By Hong Kong Campaign for the Advancement of Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines)