The Malaya Movement strongly condemns the recent attack on progressive lawyer and dedicated human rights advocate, Attorney Angelo Karlo “AK” Guillen, last week in the city of Iloilo. Heading to his car, Wednesday evening, Atty. AK was chased down and mauled by two masked and unidentified individuals who stabbed him with a screwdriver and fled the scene with the attorney’s backpack and side bad. Atty. AK is in recovery, but may suffer further complications resulting from the stab wounds in his left temple and back.

The Malaya Movement calls on our members, supporters and allies to urgently raise support and relief for those who are affected by the series of typhoons that hit the Philippines. We urge our chapters, supporters and allies to organize fundraisers, solicit donations and hold activities in support of the peoples’ relief efforts.

The Malaya Movement calls on the Filipino-American community to go out and vote in the U.S. local and presidential elections. Let us show through the ballot our vote for human rights and democracy by rejecting the fascist regime of Donald Trump.

The Malaya Movement condemns the assassination of Randall “Ka Randy” Echanis, National Chairperson of Anakpawis Partylist and Deputy Secretary-General of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), who died in his Quezon City home early Monday. We also denounce the actions of the PNP who seized his dead body later that evening from his grieving wife and family. Erlinda, Ka Randy’s wife, identified his body earlier that day, noticing signs of torture as well as multiple gunshot and stabbing wounds. We further condemn the illegal arrest and detention of paralegal Paolo Colabres, and the ridiculous charge of “obstruction to justice” for attending to the retrieval of Ka Randy’s forcibly removed remains by police.

As brutal and bloody as they were, the past four years under Duterte might have only been a preamble to a more ruthless and unrelenting rule. Almost as soon as Duterte signed the Anti-Terror Law (ATL), repression and fascism have run rampant, seemingly picking up speed by the day!

As many of you already know, President Duterte signed the Anti-Terror Law this past July 3rd, ushering in a new dark era for democracy and civil liberties in the Philippines. Despite the widespread criticism and concern from legal experts and renown human rights organizations, Duterte has chosen, yet again, the way of brutality and authoritarian rule by enacting a law that threatens to institutionalize his Martial Law-style dictatorship and place a chilling effect on the practice of democratic rights and constitutional freedoms.