LEADERS of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) have urged Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Oscar Moreno and Misamis Oriental Governor Yevgeny Emano to launch an impartial probe into the dubious "hit list" containing personalities from the church, lawyers and media tagged with the New People's Army (NPA).
The IFI wants local government chief executives to make the culprits account for their actions "even if they are state agents, paramilitary forces, and intelligence elements or their paid minions."
"We appeal to President [Rodrigo] Duterte to look into this abuse of state apparatus which has emboldened these attacks on advocates and activists," IFI Bishop Felixberto Calang said.
The IFI said the villainization of church people, lawyers, members of the press and human rights defenders equates to maintaining a "hit list."
"This list is virtually up for grabs to President Duterte's announced liquidation squads or enterprising police and military men who plan to want to gain reward money by claiming that anyone in the list is an NPA combatant," the IFI said.
IFI said Northern Mindanao has become the new “Wild, Wild West” and that there is no rule of law.
"When the police and military can just plant evidence against innocent people they claim as enemies of the state, that is lawlessness ironically resorted to by supposed law enforcers," IFI said.
"We fear for our lives and liberty, knowing that we are in this list being circulated after a national accompaniment mission that provided support to Lumad and peasant leaders wrongfully charged and detained by the state. The list is part of a series of smear efforts including graffiti vandals on our church walls slandering our church," it added.
Calang said the objective of the "hit list" is to prevent the church from exposing the truth about the violations of Martial Law in Mindanao and obstruct them from carrying out its mission of accompanying the poor in their struggle for justice.
"They are suppressing the fundamental right of individuals to legal defense by vilifying lawyers involved in human rights litigation," Calang said.
"The smear campaign is to be analyzed in the context of the series of events which started with red-tagging vandalisms on the IFI church walls," he added.
Meanwhile, the Union of Peoples Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) said the "hit list" is a perverse action when lawyers who provide free legal assistance to those who found themselves in the cross hairs of the draconian rule of Duterte's martial law becomes targets of annihilation.
"This leads us to recognize that justice and peace in Mindanao under martial law is indeed an oxymoron," the group said.
"While we at UPLM decry the defamatory nature and life threatening
consequences of this hit list over our companeras and soon to be companero, Attys. Beverly Musni, Czarina Musni, Beverly Anne Musni and law student/Comelec 10 employee LA Corrales. We are angered at this deceitful action versus the persons and organizations on the hit list. There has been a set pattern that after a person is vilified/red-tagged the next chapter will be death or gallows," it added.
The group said the hit list may just be a list but it can also be an imprimatur as proven in the by recent events.
"Under the current scheme of things, is it now a crime to serve the under-served, the deprived and the oppressed?" the group asked.
The group of rights lawyers in the island also said that under the administration of Duterte, lawyers have been murdered in cold blood.
"Ozamis City's Judge Edmundo Pintac is the fourth judge and 14th lawyer killed. The murderous martial law in Mindanao is a specter that haunts the rest of the country. In Visayas, lawyer Ben Ramos was killed in November 6, 2018. On that day, three bullets ended his enduring pro-bono service to the Kabisayaan. The celebrated Sagay massacre case being his last case is still pleading for justice with his demise," the group said.