A school for a tribal community in a remote village in Bukidnon was demolished by about 50 armed men on August 26, the Save Our Schools Network (SOS) said Saturday.
As slain human rights worker Zara Alvarez was buried in her home town in Cadiz to an emotional mass, calls are raised for an independent probe to see if State forces are complicit in her murder.
A mother of one of the victims of the gruesome Ampatuan Massacre appealed to its suspects to surrender and face the charges against them.
A United Nations rights body urged the Philippine government to conduct an independent probe on the killings of activists Randall Echanis and Zara Alvarez, who were murdered over the past two weeks.
Operatives from the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-10 (CIDG-10) has located and arrested one of the suspects to the Ampatuan Massacre in a town in Misamis Oriental on Friday.
There are signs of torture and use of multiple weapons in the murder of peasant advocate Randall Echanis, an autopsy report revealed.
Another activist was shot dead in Bacolod on Monday night, raising alarm from groups that the “killing spree” against defenders continue despite the pandemic.
Activists and rights defenders went around the city on Monday to remove posters that tagged them as “human rights violators” and “berdugo” (butchers), which they deemed is a threat to silence their advocacy with the Anti-Terror Act in effect.
A Mindanao-based peace group condemned the Quezon City police for “snatching” the body of murdered peasant leader Randall Echanis from his grieving family.
The Philippines is the second deadliest country for environmental defenders, according to the latest Global Witness report.
