Sunday, August 21, 2011, 1:00 PM (with discussion at nearby restaurant after film screening)
Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex
1332 2nd Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Film screening organized by Breakthrough! For questions or to reserve your $6 discounted tickets, email cfljustice@gmail.com or info@habi-arts.org.
After the screening, Breakthrough! and Habi Arts will sponsor a discussion about the film at a nearby restaurant. Stay tuned or attend the film screening for details.
Synopsis
AMIGO, the 17th feature film from Academy Award-nominated writer-director John Sayles, stars legendary Filipino actor Joel Torre as Rafael, a village mayor caught in the murderous crossfire of the Philippine-American War.
When U.S. troops occupy his village, Rafael comes under pressure from a tough-as-nails officer (Chris Cooper) to help the Americans in their hunt for Filipino guerilla fighters. But Rafael’s brother (Ronnie Lazaro) is the head of the local guerillas, and considers anyone who cooperates with the Americans to be a traitor. Rafael quickly finds himself forced to make the impossible, potentially deadly decisions faced by ordinary civilians in an occupied country.
A powerful drama of friendship, betrayal, romance and heartbreaking violence, AMIGO is a page torn from the untold history of the Philippines, and a mirror of today’s unresolvable conflicts.
Reference: Bernadette Ellorin
Chairperson, BAYAN USA
Email: chair@bayanusa.org
Filipino-Americans, Supporters Across US Stand With Melissa Roxas: BAYAN-USA Statement on the 2nd Year Anniversary of the Abduction and Torture of Founding Member
On the second year anniversary of the abduction and torture of Filipina-American human rights advocate Melissa Roxas by elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Filipino-Americans under the banner of BAYAN USA and supporters across the United States reaffirm our support for Melissa and commitment to the pursuit of justice by way of demanding for an ongoing investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators.
The recent Commission on Human Rights (CHR) resolution absolving the AFP on the abduction at gunpoint that took place on May 19, 2009, while Melissa and two of her companions were conducting a community survey in preparation of a rural medical mission in La Paz, Tarlac lines up with the current Aquino administration’s overall cover-up of the crimes and human rights atrocities committed by its predecessor– Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. On July 2009, Melissa returned to the Philippines to testify in front of the CHR the details of her ordeal, under the protection of former chairperson Leila de Lima, while the latter gathered corroborating evidence as the result of an ocular investigation of nearby Fort Magsaysay, headquarters of the 7th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army, pointing to the culpability of the Philippine military.
It must be noted that shortly after assuming the office of presidency, Aquino appointed rabid red-baiter Etta Rosales to replace de Lima as the chair of the CHR, casting a questionable light on the integrity of the office to be objective and credible in handling cases of regular abuses committed against legal activists and dissidents associated with the aboveground Philippine Left. As a former House Representative of the party-list Akbayan, Rosales participated in McCarthyist tactics along with fellow Akbayan Representative Walden Bello to blur the distinct lines between the unarmed, aboveground left and the armed underground left, resulting in the wholesale targeting of legal civilian activists in the bloody counter-insurgency campaign of the Arroyo government known as Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL). In line with this, even a US citizen such as Melissa, who was volunteering for a medical mission for a poor community, was not exempt from being subjected to 6 days of heavy torture by her captors who attempted to force her to admit that she was a member of the New Peoples Army (NPA), which she refused to do.
Despite campaign promises to investigate and prosecute the wrongdoings of the Arroyo administration, the Aquino government has coddled known human rights abusers in the Arroyo administration. Not one from the over 1,200 cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances under Arroyo’s counter-insurgency campaign OBL has seen an arrest nor a trial. Instead, the same pattern continues under Aquino’s version Oplan Bayanihan, which additionally purports so-called community development in the most marginalized areas of the Philippines as the unabated killings of unarmed civilian legal activists continue.
As an alliance of 14 Filipino organizations across the US, of which Melissa was a founding member back in 2005, BAYAN USA has lost confidence in the integrity of the justice system in the Philippines to resolve Melissa’s case. Sadly the Aquino administration, like the Arroyo administration, has amply proven its platform of lawlessness and non-interest in putting a leash on the mercenary-character of the Philippine military, one of the largest beneficiaries of US military aid in Asia.
As Melissa continues to tell her story to listeners across the United States, a real peoples movement is growing in support of Melissa. This includes seeking justice by way of international venues and particularly the court system in the United States, which set a precedent when it ruled in favor of the thousands of victims of human rights abuses under the dictatorship of the former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos.This also includes building the movement in the US to cut US tax dollar support to the Philippine military.
Now that she is no longer protected by sovereign immunity under the presidential office, the time is ripe to arrest and prosecute Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her ilk for similar crimes against humanity. BAYAN USA will stand with Melissa and all other victims of human rights abuses in the Philippines for however long it takes for justice to be served.
Justice for Melissa Roxas!
Prosecute Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo!
Justice for All Victims of Human Rights Violations in the Philippines!
Scrap Oplan Bayanihan!
Stop US Military Aid to Philippine Death Squads!
Habi Arts | habiarts | May 19, 2011 1:55 PM | Comments Off on Commemorating the Two-Year Anniversary of Melissa’s Survival
MEDIA ADVISORY
Contact: Kuusela Hilo
Justice for Melissa Roxas Campaign
Email: info@justiceformelissa.org
Website: www.justiceformelissa.org
Los Angeles Community Stands with Melissa to Condemn Philippine Government’s On-Going Cover-up of Enforced Disappearances and Torture
What: Emergency Rally
Where: Philippine Consulate, 3600 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90010
When: Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM
*Photo Opportunity
Los Angeles, CA – On Wednesday, grassroots organizations and church leaders will rally in front of the Philippine Consulate with Melissa Roxas, the first American to have survived abduction and torture in the Philippines during the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration. Supporters of the Justice for Melissa Roxas campaign are outraged at the Commission on Human Rights’ Resolution that protects the torturers and abandons the facts that Roxas courageously shared under oath with the CHR and the world in 2009 so that the perpetrators could be brought to justice.
Now almost two years since Roxas was abducted and tortured, there is still no justice for Roxas and all the other victims of human rights violations committed by Arroyo and her military. BAYAN USA, National Alliance for Filipino Concerns, Rosewood United Methodist Church Advocacy Group, Rosewood United Methodist Women, Filipino Ministry of the Diocese of San Bernardino, AnakBayan LA, SiGAw!, Habi Arts, the Filipino Migrant Center and the Filipino American Health Workers Association will be joining the emergency rally.
It has been nearly two years since the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR) started their investigation into my case of abduction and torture. They have finally come out with a resolution but one that is filled with misleading and inconsistent conclusions. Not only is it a far cry from the justice that I am seeking, but by practically absolving the Armed Forces of the Philippines of accountability, and instead give the unsubstantiated claim that the New People’s Army (NPA) was responsible, the CHR is in effect complicit with the effort of the military to cover up my abduction and torture.
At great risk to my safety, I returned to the Philippines in July of 2009, to testify about my abduction and torture before the CHR, the Court of Appeals, and the Lower House of Congress’ Committee on Human Rights . I did this because I believed it was important to bring the perpetrators, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, to justice.
As a victim of enforced disappearance and torture, for the CHR to say that what I suffered through was not torture is simply reprehensible. If the CHR purports to exist in order to protect and to investigate human rights violations, using narrow definitions and making distinctions between what is “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” and what is “torture” is disturbing. It does no good in obtaining real justice for victims of human rights violations. “Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” is torture. By any definition, what I went through at the hands of the AFP was torture.
The CHR Resolution has incorrectly concluded that there is “insufficient evidence to pinpoint individual members of the AFP as responsible or probable perpetrators” of my abduction and torture. They go on to say that they have received “credible” information that indicate that the NPA was responsible. These conclusions are inconsistent with my testimony and presented evidence that point to the AFP as the perpetrators of my abduction and torture. It also deviates from the original leads and investigations the former CHR Chair, Leila De Lima initiated.
The CHR did not present any evidence or detail to support the claim that the NPA is responsible for my abduction and torture. The CHR did not give details as to what standard was used to verify the credibility of the informant who claims this was done by the NPA. Neither does the CHR offer any rigorous review of evidence and process of investigation to substantiate this claim.
There is a lack of due process for the CHR to come up with this conclusion. By doing this, the CHR Resolution makes it obvious that it wants to distract the investigation away from the AFP as being the real perpetrators.
In its recommendations, the CHR says it has now fulfilled its constitutional mandate and left in charge State parties–the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)–with the responsibility of further investigating my case. This is nothing else but cruel for the CHR to expect that I would obtain justice by putting in charge these state agents—the PNP being one of the respondents to my case in the courts. I suffered trauma and injuries from the abduction and torture by State agents. What kind of justice do I expect to get if the very institutions that are responsible for my abduction and torture are left to investigate my case?
The CHR has certainly not fulfilled its duty to protect my human rights. This resolution only serves to maintain and perpetuate impunity for the Philippine government and military who commit these heinous crimes.
August 16, 2011 12:00 AM | 
.
Subscribe
