Abhoud Syed M. Lingga, executive director of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies, presents this primer about the right to self-determination. “The essence of the Bangsamoro struggle for self-determination is the realization of their right to freely determine their political status vis-?-vis the Republic of the Philippines,” he writes. Lingga’s institute is a Cotabato-based think tank on Moro politics, history and culture.
Extrajudicial executions, forced disappearances, political persecution, baseless accusations, and arbitrary arrest and detention have no place in a democracy. These are contradictory to it. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Norberto Gonzales, Raul Gonzalez, and the AFP cannot claim to be defending democracy, for they are a curse to it.
Even the parents of nominees of progressive party-list groups are not spared of the harassment directed against them. Last March 13, the father of Kabataan Party?s second nominee and National Capital Region (NCR) chairperson Enrico Almonguerra received a letter from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) summoning him and Enrico to the Civic Military Operations (CMO) headquarters in Fort Bonifacio on March 22. This is not the first time that the youth party-list group?s nominees experienced harassment from the military.
The seven bodies found in an alleged mass grave in Inopacan, Southern Leyte, which were presented in the multiple murder case against Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo, Jose Ma.Sison, Luis Jalandoni, Vicente Ladlad, Rafael Baylosis, Randal Echanis and several others, have already been buried and used in a case somewhere else.
Related story: Witness in Murder Case Vs. Satur a Desaparecido