DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/ 27 June) — The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan Southern Mindanao Region (BAYAN-SMR) wants former President Rodrigo Duterte to be held accountable for the red-tagging of rights-based activists during his term.
This after Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 2 of Tagum City dismissed last June 20 the two human trafficking charges against Datu Benito Bay-ao, a respected leader and staunch advocate for Indigenous Peoples’ rights.
In a statement on Wednesday, Rauf Sissay of the BAYAN-SMR secretariat said red-tagged activists were exposed to various threats to their lives, particularly in the implementation of counter-insurgency program through the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) during the presidency of Duterte from 2016 to 2022.
Duterte was the first Mindanawon leader to become President.
“Amidst this legal victory, we in BAYAN-Southern Mindanao shall continue to call for justice for all the victims of the Duterte regime’s red-tagging spree and its brutal counter-insurgency program via the NTF-ELCAC that vilified and endangered the lives of activists and advocates nationwide and discredited their work in advancing progressive causes,” he said.
Aside from Duterte, Sissay added that the administration of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. should also be held responsible for his “utterly shameful human rights record.”
Sissay adde that the progressive group welcomes the dismissal of the trumped-up charges against Bay-ao, who was accused of exploiting students to join the activities of New People’s Army (NPA) at a “bakwit” school for displaced lumad children in Cebu in 2019.
Bay-ao’s co-accused, Chad Booc and Gelejurain Ngujo II, both volunteer school teachers, were among five persons killed during an encounter with the military’s 10th Infantry Division in Barangay Andap, New Bataan, Davao de Oro on February 24, 2022.
He said it was unfortunate that dismissal of the case came two years after their killing.
“The dismissal of the charges is proof of Datu Benito’s innocence and the prosecution’s lack of evidence against him,” he said.
The dismissal came after the trial court granted the demurrer to evidence filed by Bay-ao’s counsel, Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM) attorneys Arvin Dexter Lopoz and Jilianne Paula Ampog, after the prosecution failed to establish sufficient evidence against him.
“The prosecution failed to prove that the purpose of accused Bay-ao in accompanying the children of Cebu was for the exploitative purpose for them to join and engage in armed activities of the New People’s Army but only as their guardian in their quest to continue their studies,” the decision said.
The “circumstantial evidence that has not been adequately established, much less corroborated, cannot be the basis of conviction,” it added.
Leo XL Y. Fuentes Jr., regional coordinator of farmers’ group Masipag Inc., said he also welcomes the dismissal of the case but added that he hopes more trumped-up cases against activists would be dismissed soon.
“The filing of trumped-up charges became the trend in the recent past to attack environmentalists, political activists and development workers,” he said. (Antonio L. Colina IV / MindaNews)
