Bayugan broadcaster shot dead

By Cheryll D. Fiel
Davao Today
A broadcaster was shot dead in Bayugan, Agusan del Sur, according to the latest news alert by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP).
Jonathan Petalvero, 43, was in a restaurant when suspects went inside and shot him, the NUJP news alert said, citing police reports. Petalvero sustained a [...]

Peers of slain doctor worried over colleagues’ safety

Peñera’s name was not in the reported military list earlier leaked by Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo to the media. But groups like the United Integrated Health Services Foundation Incorporated (UIHSFI), where Peñera used to sit as Board member, and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), where he was a council member, were.

Dr. Jean Lindo, chair of the doctor’s group Rx for Peace, said the killing of Peñera has raised the concern of their colleagues over the safety of six other physicians identified in the military Order of Battle (OB) list. They included Dr. Ruben Robillo, Dr. Jose Lacuesta, Dr. Shalom Lorezana, Dr. Eugene Nalian, Dr. Rey Lasaka. The Philippine Medical Association (PMA) plans to call a meeting with the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to clarify what’s on the document. Read on.

Unsolved killings alarm Muslims, Christians

Unsolved killings alarm Muslims, Christians
By Concerned Information News Service/MMNS
(August 15, 1987 News Digest Volume 1, August 1987-July 1988 Posted by Davao Today)
PALEMBANG, Sultan Kudarat (CINS/MMNS) — Tension has gripped Muslims and Christians in this coastal town as a spate of unsolved killings continued until early this month. Four persons have died, 12 others were [...]

Activist doctor shot dead in Davao

Dr. Rogelio “Bong” Peñera, head of the Department of Health (DOH) epidemiological research and surveillance unit tasked to monitor and address the A (H1N1) flu cases in the region, was killed in his car while going home. He was active in political campaigns that sought government’s attention to the sordid state of the country’s health care delivery.

Piñera was also a member of the groups Alliance of Health Workers (AHW), the Rx for Peace and the Health People United for the Removal of Gloria (Purga), a group of medical practitioners and health workers calling for the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Read on.

Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston

Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston
Follow-up to country recommendations – Philippines

Humiliating saga

By Media Mindanao News Service
(August 15, 1987 News Digest Volume 1, August 1987-July 1988 Posted by Davao Today)
SURIGAO SUR (MMNS) — As thousands of workers trekked to the nearby Paper Industries Corporation of the Philippines (PICOP) to collect their pay they could not help but pause locked up inside the stockade of the 416th [...]

Assault on student activists continues

By Media Mindanao News Service
(August 15, 1987 News Digest Volume 1, August 1987-July 1988 Posted by Davao Today)
OZAMIS CITY (MMNS) — A student activist was “salvaged” while another was wounded in two separate incidents in what is feared as a “systematic campaign to silence student activism in the campus.”
“Salvaged” was one Celso Balighot, [...]

CHR to Military: Explain Continued Use of ‘Orders of Battle’

CHR to Military: Explain Continued Use of ‘Orders of Battle’

Ludenio Monzon’s Killing: A Chronicle of a Death Foretold?

Human rights advocates wanted authorities to look beyond the fact that Monzon was killed by ski-mask wearing men on motorcycle.

“They (investigating authorities) should look into the fact that Monzon was once vilified by the military,” said Erlin Balinton, a volunteer of human rights group Karapatan who documented the circumstances of Monzon’s death. “He had a case filed with the Commission on Human Rights in October last year about how the military harassed him. They should look into his activities when he was still alive, if only to establish who could possibly have the motive to take his life.”
Balinton said that Karapatan has yet to find out about what police actions were being done in Boston. Read on.

Parago blames government for the slaughter of kin

Although Evelyn was killed by NPA guerillas the previous week because of her links with the military, Leoncio Pitao, also known as Kumander Parago, blamed the government for recruiting members of his family just to track his whereabouts. Read on.

Vigilantes Top

By Media Mindanao News Service
(August 15, 1987 News Digest Volume 1, August 1987-July 1988)
DAVAO CITY (MMNS) – Nearly 50 percent of human rights violation incidents in Mindanao where committed by anti-communist vigilante groups, the church-based Task Force Detainees said.
In its partial partial statistical report for the first half of 1987, the TFD-Mindanao report [...]

CHR wants CHDF disarmed

By Media Mindanao News Service
(August 15, 1987 News Digest Volume 1, August 1987-July 1988)
DAVAO CITY (MMNS) – The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) of Region XI will recommend to Brig. Gen. Recina of RUC XI to disarm the Civilian Home Defense Force (CHDF) elements in sitio Mapula, Paquibato District, this city.
The CHR decision [...]

Order of Battle – Malicious Forgery or Conspiracy to Murder?

Order of Battle – Malicious Forgery or Conspiracy to Murder?
By Alan Davis
Philippine Human Rights Reporting Project
MANILA — Just as there is a law against sedition, so equally there must surely be some law against inciting or conspiring to murder. Read On.

Who is Danilo Santiago?

DAVAO CITY—The name Danilo Santiago first appeared in the media on June 14 last year, a day after a man by that name was killed in Tagum, Davao del Norte. When the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) conducted a public inquiry on the killing of Kumander Parago’s daughter Rebelyn Pitao in April this year, the name Danilo Santiago again cropped up.

But who was Danilo Santiago? How was his death related to the death of Rebelyn Pitao?

Commissioner Leila De Lima had asked Helvin Bitang, a Military Intelligence Bureau (MIB) personnel, if he knew the man. Read on.

Anti-mining Lumad leader killed in Davao Oriental

By CHERYLL FIEL
Davao Today
DAVAO CITY — A lumad leader was gunned down just a few meters from the town hall of Boston in Davao Oriental yesterday, bringing to 10 the total number of activist killings in the region since May last year.
Ludenio Monson, a Mandaya farmer and leader of Nagkahiusang Mag-uuma sa Boston (United Farmers [...]

Journalist group, former Davao-based editor included in AFP hit list

(Statements from NUJP-Davao Chapter, Carlos Conde, NUJP)
Military hitlist proves fascism of state security forces — NUJP-Davao
We are aghast at the discovery of an Order of Battle (OB) list by the military which includes our organization, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), among others.
If there is one thing that [...]

Peace groups concerned over military’s trivializing rights abuses, OB list

Church advocates decried the military’s blanket dismissal of the recommendations by the International Solidarity Mission (ISM) to stop the human rights abuses in the region. They also raised alarm that the military has merely set aside the Order of Battle (OB) containing names of civilians and legal organizations as exclusive to the military.
The Exodus [...]

Gabriela solon says killings in Davao Region are ’state-sponsored’

Rep. Luz Ilagan of Gabriela Women’s Party condemned the killings of Kapis Butod and Ludenio Monzon in Davao region, saying that the spate of summary executions under the Arroyo administration is ’state-sponsored.’
On April 14, 2009, Kapis Butod, 20 years old, was killed by military elements in Sitio Milansad, Brgy. Palma Gil, Talaingod, Davao del [...]

Arroyo regime condemnable, has made false charges to cover up killings of its armed minions — NDF

The Arroyo regime is condemnable for letting the Department of Interior and Local Government and the Philippine National Police fabricate the false charge of killing a journalist against Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), and Gregorio ‘Ka Roger’ Rosal, and for offering the reward of [...]

Son of datu killed by Army in Talaingod

DAVAO CITY — The Pasaka Confederation of Lumad Organizations in Southern Mindanao denounces the recent killing of an Ata-Manobo civilian in Talaingod, Davao del Norte by the military elements under the 60th Infantry Battalion and Special Forces of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). This recent atrocity against the lumad civilian is related to [...]

Palparan legitimized and honored in Congress — NDF

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Southern Mindanao scores the entry of General Jovito Palparan and his illegitimate Arroyo regime-backed partylist Bantay in the halls of the GRP Congress.
The NDF calls Gen. Jovito Palparan a walking murderer and human rights violator now scheming with the most powerful landlords and bureaucrat capitalists in the GRP’s [...]

Is the police helpless in the face of abductions?

Given the fact that reports on the abduction of her daughter reached first the police station of Talomo before it reached her, Evangeline Pitao, Rebelyn’s mother, asked if the police could have done any better? Could the police have blocked all the possible exit routes of the van and rescued Rebelyn that night?

“We cannot guard all the exits,” said police Supt. Querubin Manalang, Jr., the regional spokesperson of the Philippine National Police. “Imagine how many passageways and roads there are in Davao city compared to the number of police personnel we have. That is not the only job of the police,” he said. Read on

Anti-mining Lumad leader killed in Davao Oriental

Ludenio Monson, a Mandaya farmer and leader of Nagkahiusang Mag-uuma sa Boston (United Farmers of Boston), was shot at around 4:30 in the afternoon on Wednesday, a volunteer from the Solidarity Action Group for Indigenous Peoples (Sagip) told Davao Today in a text message.Monson was with a companion at the time of the incident.

He told colleagues last month that he (Monson) was already a “marked” man in his area. He said he got information that his name was in the military’s Order of Battle list and that he could be “taken anytime.” He was among those strongly opposed to mining. Read on.

Warrant of arrest out for masterminds of Billanes murder

In line with the legal and judicial processes of the People’s Revolutionary Government, may we inform the public that a criminal case has been filed with the People’s Court of FarSouth Mindanao region and a warrant of arrest has been issued against the masterminds and perpetrators of the gruesome murder of anti-mining mass leader and [...]

Justice remains elusive for slain NPA daughter

Justice remains elusive for slain NPA daughter;
Easter prayers of hope to mark Rebelyn’s 40th day

Marking the 40th day of her death anniversary, a special liturgy calling for justice for Rebelyn Pitao was held on Wednesday afternoon, April 15.
Exodus for Justice and Peace (EJP), an alliance of church people, academe, human rights advocates and [...]