21/09/2023
STATEMENT ON THE PERSECUTION OF CERNET BY STATE FORCES
The Community Empowerment Resource Network, Inc. is a network of humanitarian and development organizations in the Visayas that has committed itself to working in solidarity with people’s organizations in enhancing the economic, political, and cultural conditions in their communities.
Since its inception in 2001, CERNET has made substantial achievements in empowering people’s organizations so that they may become capable of implementing and sustaining development projects that help improve the food security of their members and communities.
In its struggle of ensuring the implementation and sustainability of programs and services, CERNET has faced many challenges in the pursuit of its mission and goals. The most notable, serious, and unfortunate of it is the continued persecution of the institution, its partner people’s organizations (POs) and their communities who must contend with environmental degradation and destruction, and displacement from their homes and livelihood due to extensive and albeit harmful ‘development’ projects by various by foreign and multinational corporations, local big businesses and landlords alike.
Years after its inception, CERNET, its members, and partner POs have experienced, at various levels and at varying degrees, harassments, intimidation, abductions, and extra-judicial killings from state security forces since 2006 up to the present. These attacks began in 2008 when false charges were filed against CERNET's Executive Director and Finance Officer in, which were then subsequently dismissed in 2009 but the attacks did not stop there.
In 2018, CERNET has been assiduously and incessantly red-tagged by state security forces affiliated with the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) during the Rodrigo Duterte administration and vilified before the international, national, and local communities and again in 2019 during a congressional hearing in a presentation by the NTF-ELCAC.
In 2020, Elena Tijamo, a staff member of CERNET's network member Central Visayas Farmer's Development Center (FARDEC), was abducted from her residence in Kampingganon, Bantayan Island by state security forces and later found dead in Metro Manila the following year.
In 2021, FARDEC’s program coordinator in Bohol Carmilo Tabada was arrested over planted fi****ms and explosives. In September 2022, CERNET's Board Secretary and KINABUHI coordinator, Ma. Ira Pamat, who was subject to harassment and vilification campaigns both in 2010 and 2015, faced false accusations of 7 counts of frustrated homicide along with two others.
And even then, the state’s persecution of CERNET continued to intensify under the present Marcos Administration, wherein in 2022, CERNET's former Finance Officer, Joe March Villarante, was subjected to harassment by identified military elements in an attempt to obtain information about CERNET and its partner POs.
In January 2023, CERNET’s staff April Dyan Gumanao, together with her partner who is also a development worker, was abducted by identified elements of the military upon deboarding a boat in the port of Cebu and was fortunately released by their abductors after a few days of harrowing interrogation.
And recently, in May 2023, a criminal complaint in violation of Republic Act 10168 also known as the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 was filed by Col. Joey Escanillas, Commander of the Joint Task Force Cebu, 3rd Infantry Division of the Philippine Army, with the Department of Justice (DOJ) against CERNET, its Council, Board, and staff members, and a PO leader. CERNET maintains that the allegations of the witnesses in the above criminal case are all false accusations and mere fabrications.
This systematic and continued persecution of the institution, including its members, staff, and partner POs, represents a violation of the rights protected by the Bill of Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Convention on Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights. Furthermore, the deliberate targeting of CERNET and others violates their rights as human rights defenders, as defined in U.N. General Assembly Resolution 53/144 (9 Dec. 1998).
It ought to be seriously considered by the leaders of our nation that Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and institutions like that of CERNET are supposedly its ally in alleviating the poor socio-economic conditions in our society as well as its partner in forwarding development initiatives in a developing country like the Philippines. Instead of considering this, the Philippine government has weaponized the recommendations of the global anti-money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force, to pass laws such as the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 and the Anti-Terrorism Law of 2020, which it has used to target and persecute CSOs in the country, particularly those advocating collective action and development initiatives.
The government has erroneously interpreted these noble pursuits and initiatives as destabilization attempts within its extremely perverted counterinsurgency program, leading to legitimate development workers and human rights defenders being labeled as “enemies of the state” and subjected to counter-insurgency operations.
In light of all the aforementioned above, CERNET strongly condemns the state’s systematic persecution and continued violation of the rights of development workers and human rights defenders. CERNET calls on the Philippine government, as the entity primarily responsible under domestic and international laws for the protection of human rights, to uphold and protect the rights of all development workers as human rights defenders under UN GA Resolution No. 53/144 and the aforementioned international treaties to which it is a signatory.
CERNET further urges the Philippine government to repeal Republic Act 10168, commonly known as the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012, along with the Anti-Terrorism Law, and to ultimately, bring an end to the culture of impunity within the country. # # #
