Labanan ang Pasismo! People Power na! Chantal is coming home! Hold the AFP and NTF-ELCAC accountable!
Our hearts feel profound relief that Chantal Anicoche is alive and finally safe. This would not have happened without thousands who acted to pressure the Philippine military into revealing they secretly had Chantal alive in their custody and then releasing her after 3 weeks of constant public outrage.
We also feel angry and disturbed that those 3 weeks were likely defined by physical and psychological torment, like many who were either killed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) like Chad Booc or survived the AFP like Jonila Castro.
As usual, the Philippine government's propaganda arm, the NTF-ELCAC, claims that Chantal, someone they captured in a military operation riddled with violations of International Humanitarian Law, is an enemy of the government. Even the Supreme Court of the Philippines has decried the practice of terror or red-tagging as a threat to life.
But this whole incident surrounding Chantal only reveals what the military and its propaganda taskforce desperately tried to distract the public from: indiscriminate bombings on an indigenous community in an area where violent corporate takeover of mineral-rich land is ongoing.
Here in the United States, we can’t deny that what we are seeing happening with activists in the Philippines is also unfolding here. People in Minneapolis who are standing up to a fascist government force are being killed in broad daylight. Journalists are being arrested for reporting on democratic protests. People are being taken from their homes without just cause whatsoever, but rather to serve a political agenda meant to multiply power and money for a small few.
From the Philippines to the US, we are in solidarity of each in every single person who is exposing and opposing tyranny and mass deception. This February, we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of EDSA People Power, when millions rose up against Marcos Sr.'s fascist rule and criminal government corruption. Let us carry that legacy with us as we resist against attacks on the people's just movement for genuine social change.
Labanan ang Pasismo! People Power na!
From the US to the Philippines, stop the terror-tagging! End the culture of impunity!
Expose the lies of the NTF-ELCAC & AFP! Abolish the NTF-ELCAC!
Defend Mindoro! Stop the killings! Stop the bombings!
