It has been brought to our attention that the Malaya Movement has been tagged as a “communist front” both by the National Task Force to End Local Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) on its official Facebook page on May 29, 2020 and a facebook page called For the Global Public on July 29, 2020 together with our allies from BAYAN-USA where it posted individual pictures of its national officers by similar Facebook pages.

Zara—39 years old, a single mother, and former political prisoner—has been a tireless advocate for the rights of the most oppressed for many years. She was among the 600 names listed in a failed red-tagging scheme of the Duterte regime back in 2018, and had been receiving death threats since the beginning of 2019. Zara was most recently a research and advocacy officer for the Negros Island Health Integerated Program and a paralegal for KARAPATAN–Negros Island. She is the 13th human rights worker murdered under Duterte.

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.

On July 27th in the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his 5th State of the Nation Address (SONA) to millions of Filipino families in the archipelago and thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), who have been enduring neglect, brutality, and his opportunistic power moves in the midst of a global health crisis still yet to be resolved. In response, the Malaya Movement and BAYAN USA, co-hosted this year’s People’s State of the Nation Address (PSONA) in 14 US cities from Boston to Honolulu under the theme: “Makibaka! Huwag Matakot! Fight Duterte’s Fascist Dictatorship!”.

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.