Category: BAYAN USA

Roxas’ Hometown Rallies to Demand Justice Now

MEDIA ADVISORY
Contact: Kuusela Hilo
Justice for Melissa Roxas Campaign
Email: info@justiceformelissa.org
Website: www.justiceformelissa.org

Los Angeles Community Stands with Melissa to Condemn Philippine Government’s On-Going Cover-up of Enforced Disappearances and Torture

What: Emergency Rally
Where: Philippine Consulate, 3600 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90010
When: Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM

*Photo Opportunity

Los Angeles, CA – On Wednesday, grassroots organizations and church leaders will rally in front of the Philippine Consulate with  Melissa Roxas, the first American to have survived abduction and torture in the Philippines during the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration. Supporters of the Justice for Melissa Roxas campaign are outraged at the Commission on Human Rights’ Resolution that protects the torturers and abandons the facts that Roxas courageously shared under oath with the CHR and the world in 2009 so that the perpetrators could be brought to justice.

Now almost two years since Roxas was abducted and tortured, there is still no justice for Roxas and all the other victims of human rights violations committed by Arroyo and her military.  BAYAN USA, National Alliance for Filipino Concerns, Rosewood United Methodist Church Advocacy Group, Rosewood United Methodist Women, Filipino Ministry of the Diocese of San Bernardino, AnakBayan LA, SiGAw!, Habi Arts, the Filipino Migrant Center and the Filipino American Health Workers Association will be joining the emergency rally.

CHR Resolution Protects Torturers, Torments Victims

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Rhonda Ramiro
BAYAN-USA Secretary General
secgen@bayanusa.org

“This is a cover-up,” stated BAYAN-USA Chair Bernadette Ellorin in response to the release of a Resolution by the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR) on the case of the abduction and torture of Filipino American Melissa Roxas on May 19, 2009.  The result of an investigation begun on the 25th of May 2009, the CHR’s report cites copious evidence gathered through public inquiries, expert witnesses, inspections of the abduction site and military facilities where Roxas was possibly held, and sworn statements by Roxas herself, yet concludes that “In light of the lack of evidence against the persons who inflicted the physical and psychological maltreatment on the complainant, it is not possible for the Commission to reach any findings on torture” in Roxas’ case.

“With this single report, the CHR has virtually erased any progress made in its 1-1/2 year investigation into this case by the previous CHR chair.  It appears that now the CHR is more concerned with covering up the crimes of the Philippine military than with uncovering the truth about human rights violations in the country,” said Ellorin.

The first American citizen to be abducted and tortured under the administration of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Roxas is a well-known Filipino American human rights advocate and was BAYAN-USA’s first Regional Coordinator in Los Angeles, CA and a founding member of the Los Angeles-based cultural organization Habi Arts.  In her sworn affidavit and testimony provided in several court appearances and CHR Public Inquiries in 2009, Roxas described in detail the ordeal she experienced at the hands of the Philippine military: being abducted by approximately 15 armed men, handcuffed and blindfolded for six days, held in a jail cell, subjected to torture via asphyxiation using a doubled-up plastic bag, repeated beatings to the face and body, and having her head banged repeatedly against the wall by her interrogators, who tried to force her to admit that she was a member of the New People’s Army and advised her abandon communism and to “return to the fold.” Roxas said that one interrogator stated those who tortured her were from the Special Operations Group (SOG), and she heard one of her interrogators addressed as “Sir.” She also heard gunfire from what she believed to be a firing range as well as the sounds of aircraft, pointing to the high probability that she was held in a military camp.

By its own admission, the CHR report states that Roxas provided exceptionally consistent and detailed descriptions of the torture she underwent, the place she was held, and the physical appearance of five people involved in her abduction and detention, indicating that Roxas’ testimony is extremely credible. However, the CHR report still concludes that it has “insufficient evidence to pinpoint individual members of the AFP as the possible or probably perpetrators.”

Moreover, the CHR report dares to shift the blame from the Philippine military to the New People’s Army (NPA).  “The CHR has received information that indicate the possibility that members of the NPA committed the kidnapping, and other human rights violations on Roxas,” states the resolution on page 20.  In response, Ellorin said, “By making such blanket accusations without providing a speck of evidence, the CHR under President Aquino is showing that it is no different from the Philippine Presidential Human Rights Commission (PHRC) under Arroyo, which tried to dismiss Melissa’s traumatic ordeal by saying that it was fabricated.  Falling for information like this is laughable, especially considering that Melissa’s captors tried to force her to admit she was an NPA member.  Even worse, the CHR resolution opportunistically supports the Aquino government’s counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan, which is attempting to demonize the NPA while duping the public into believing that the AFP is a peace-making force.”

International human rights advocates such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings have repeatedly criticized the Philippine government’s cover-up of state-sponsored torture. “This CHR resolution perpetuates the culture of impunity that reigns in the Philippines. There is still no justice for the innocent women and journalists slaughtered in the Maguindanao Massacre in 2009, not one perpetrator has been apprehended in the cases of thousands of cases of extra-judicial killings, nor the abduction and torture of people like Melissa Roxas and the Morong 43 health workers,” said Ellorin.

“The CHR resolution will just add fuel to the fire of the Justice for Melissa campaign,” continued Ellorin.  “While the CHR under Aquino lacks the political will to uphold human rights, BAYAN-USA and Melissa’s supporters will persist in pursuing justice for Melissa through all vehicles available to us in the U.S.”

The timing of the release of the CHR Resolution comes as the U.S. Congress enters the final weeks of a contentious budget battle, expected by both Democrats and Republicans to result in hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to essential public services.  BAYAN-USA calls on the U.S. Congress and Obama administration to stop pouring millions of American taxpayer dollars into the Philippine military, which tortures and kills innocent people under the tacit protection of the so-called Commission on Human Rights.

BAYAN-USA is an alliance of 14 progressive Filipino American organizations in the U.S. representing organizations of students, scholars, women, workers, and youth. As an international chapter of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN-Philippines), BAYAN-USA serves as an information bureau for the national democratic movement of the Philippines and as a campaign center for anti-imperialist Filipinos in the U.S.

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Related Press Statements:

Book/Author Event: Migrants for Export by Robyn Rodriguez

Migrants for ExportProfessor/Author Robyn Rodriguez comes to Los Angeles to discuss her newly published book, Migrants for Export. Migrant workers from the Philippines are ubiquitous to global capitalism, with nearly 10 percent of the population employed in almost two hundred countries. Rodriguez investigates how and why the Philippine government transformed itself into what she calls a labor brokerage state, which actively prepares, mobilizes, and regulates its citizens for migrant work abroad. Drawing from ethnographic research of the Philippine government’s migration bureaucracy, interviews, and archival work, Rodriguez presents a new analysis of neoliberal globalization and its consequences for nation-state formation.

Thursday, October 7, 2010, 6:30 PM
F Square Printing (also known as Fernando’s Hideaway)
519 S. Spring Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Local community organizations are hosting a discussion on the Philippines’s Labor Export Policy and the Global Forum on Migration and Development. Professor Robyn Rodriguez, author of Migrants for Export, will be participating in this event.

Coordinating groups and individuals include Sisters of GABRIELA, Awaken! (SiGAw!), Habi Arts, UCLA Asian American Studies professor Lucy Burns, AnakBayan Los Angeles, and Bayan-USA.

Friday, October 8, 2010, 12:00 PM
Robyn Rodriguez, Sociology, Rutgers University
279 Haines Hall
University of California Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA

“Migrants for Export: How the Philippine State Brokers Workers to the World.”

(Sponsored by the UCLA Migration Study Group*, Dept. of Asian American Studies, the Center for South East Asian Studies, and the Asian American Studies Center).

Speaker Bio

Robyn Magalit Rodriguez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. She researches and teaches in the following areas: globalization and development; political sociology; international migration; race, ethnicity and nationalism; gender; ethnographic methods. She is a faculty affiliate of the Department of Women and Gender Studies and has been part of faculty-student initiatives to increase the visibility Asian American scholarship at Rutgers. She is currently working on a second book project tentatively titled, “In Lady Liberty’s Shadow: Race, Immigration and Belonging in New Jersey after 9/11.”

*Thanks to support from: the International Institute; the Division of Social Sciences; the Latin American Institute; and the Irene Flecknoe Ross Lecture Series in the Department of Sociology. The Irene Flecknoe Ross Lecture Series is made possible by a gift from Ray Ross in memory of his wife.

Questions about these events should be directed to:

Professor Lucy Burns
Assistant Professor
Department of Asian American Studies
University of California Los Angeles
Rolfe Hall 1334
lmburns@ucla.edu

Dukot US Tour in Southern California

Please support the screening of the movie, “Dukot (Desaparecidos).”  A question and answer period with abduction and torture survivor, Melissa Roxas; will follow immediately after the film.  More information and show times can be found below and at http://dukot.com, by emailing info@dukot.com, or by calling 213-538-2852.

Dukot

Friday, September 17, 2010, 7:00 PM
Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA)
3200 West Temple Street
Historic Filipinotown
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Saturday, September 18, 2010, 6:00 PM
Centro Cultural de la Raza
2004 Park Blvd
San Diego, CA 92101

Friday, September 24, 2010, 7:00 PM
Glendale Central Public Library
222 E. Harvard Street
Glendale, CA 91205

Saturday, September 25, 2010, 12:30 PM
The Art Theatre of Long Beach
2025 East 4th Street
Long Beach, CA 90804

Sounds of a New Hope Live Remix Concert

Live Video Remix of “Sounds of a New Hope,” a documentary film (directed by Eric Tandoc) on hip-hop and the Philippine struggle for freedom. The film will be re-mixed and re-edited LIVE on two turntables (using video DJ technology) with new, never-before-seen scenes.

The evening will feature a FREE outdoor screening and concert in beautiful Downtown LA, with live music performances that are integrated into the film.

Sounds of a New Hope Live Remix Concert

Friday, August 27th, 2010, 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM

Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) Plaza
244 S. San Pedro Street
Downtown Los Angeles, CA 90012

snh_live_remix

Photo by Jay Davis

Performing live:
Kiwi
Power Struggle
Gingee
Krystle Tugadi
Shining Sons
Vicoy Bagongsigaw
k.see
Menchie Caliboso

Food trucks provided by:
Buttermilk

Sponsored by:
Japanese American Cultural and Community Center
Visual Communications
Fil-Am Arts
Pilipino Artist Network
Beatrock Music
Bayan USA
Anakbayan-Los Angeles
Filipino Migrant Center
Asian American Drug Abuse Program, Inc.
Carson Student Movement
Filipino Student Forum

http://soundsofanewhope.blogspot.com

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