At least 200 academics from universities in the Philippines and abroad jointly signed a unity statement urging the Philippine government to stop the attacks on and killings of activists.
“As academics, we are duty-bound and morally obliged to stand against all infringements of basic human rights,” said Academics Unite for Democracy and Human Rights Lead Convener Ramon Guillermo in a statement issued Wednesday, March 17.
“Academic freedom cannot thrive in an environment of fear and intimidation, for it rests on teachers’ and students’ unhampered exercise of their rights and liberties,” Guillermo, who is also the lead petitioner in the 29th case in the Supreme Court against the Anti-Terrorism Law of 2020, added.
This move came after a Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) memorandum dated March 10 that tagged two progressive organizations and unions namely: Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and Confederation for Unity Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (COURAGE).
The Conveners of Academics Unite for Democracy and Human Rights initiated the said unity statement, which also joined global calls for the “International Criminal Court to include all these recent attacks in their Philippines-related investigations.”
The statement also declared signatories’ unity “against extrajudicial killings and mass arrests of activists on fabricated charges,” pointing out that “killings and mass arrests of dissenters have no place in a country that considers itself as democratic.”
Furthermore, the academics railed “against the attacks on our right to organization and right to express dissent” which “the Philippine Constitution upholds” and which are “also enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
The statement condemned the “government profiling, and/or red-tagging and/or terrorist-tagging of lawyers, teachers, unionists, peasants, workers – activists – and activist organizations” in the Philippines.
Likewise, the signatories emphasized that “rather than waste our precious human and financial resources on such unlawful acts which can be weaponized to silence dissent or even “neutralize” (kill) dissenters, the Philippine government should channel all its energies and resources into pandemic response – especially on contact tracing, mass testing, and mass vaccination, and additional cash aid for both poor and middle-class families hit hardest by the crisis that the pandemic partly caused.”
The statement also called upon “the Philippine Supreme Court to issue a temporary restraining order on the Terror Law which has only emboldened tyrannical forces to repress and kill dissent.”
The academics also urged the Congress and Senate investigations on “all these recent attacks and consequently accelerate the passage of stronger laws to protect human rights.”
In conclusion, the unity statement urged the “Filipino people and all freedom-loving people worldwide to raise our collective voice against the dark forces that threaten to obliterate what is left of our fragile democracy.”
The statement remains open to signatories from the academe.