JUSTICE FOR KAREN AND SHERLYN!
Statement of UP Kilos Na!
June 26, 2014
It has been eight long years since June 26, 2006, when UP students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan were seized by elements of the Armed Forces of the Philippines while they were doing fieldwork in Hagonoy, Bulacan. Thereafter, they were illegally detained and, in confinement, repeatedly tortured, harassed, and violated — for what? Karen, then a sociology major doing research on the plight of farmers, and She, then a College of Human Kinetics student and community organizer for the Alyansang Magbubukid ng Bulacan, had simply embodied the public character of the University of the Philippines: seeking to understand the conditions of the impoverished majority, applying theory to practice through community integration, and putting education in service of the people
Yet the current state, which has tried so hard to set itself apart from the Arroyo Regime, continues to conveniently ignore any real effort to serve the two students justice; in fact, it has taken up the very same policies that have, for too long, legitimized extrajudicial persecutions and human rights violations in the Philippines. Aquino, the “virtuous” president, chose to extend Arroyo’s notorious Oplan Bantay-Laya counter-insurgency campaign — which reaped 1,205 cases of extra-judicial killings and 206 victims of enforced disappearances, Karen and She amongst them — through the Oplan Bayanihan, a campaign that fails to refute the sugarcoated fascism of this state as it is still based on the US COIN Guide of 2009, and, naturally, is also funded by US coin.
Resultantly, in the first two quarters of the Aquino Regime from 2010 to 2014, Karapatan has recorded 192 cases of extrajudicial killings, 21 cases of enforced disappearances, over 900 cases of illegal arrest with and without detention, and more than 65,100 complaints of threats, harassment, and intimidation by the AFP. Gen. Jovito Palparan, the unrepentant executor of the crimes of OBL, remains at large after a brief mention of a two-million bounty in 2012.
Meanwhile, his successor, Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, the incumbent AFP chief and architect of Oplan Bayanihan, has been awarded the UP outstanding alumnus for peace and social cohesion. This recognition from the very university where Karen and She worked to defend the rights of the people reeks of the deep and pervasive rot that festers under the puppet regime of BS Aquino III.
To date, the proceedings for the Cadapan-Empeño case remains at a crawl from eternal postponements, while Aquino signs more agreements that violate the human rights and sovereignty of the Filipino people like the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) with the US; dodges criticism through a series of anti-opposition cover-ups in the pork barrel scam; sells off basic social services just to boost his GDP statistics by peddling so-called “public-private partnerships”; and disabuses himself of accountability in matters where he is the pivotal force: the disbursement of pork funds, the distribution of land in Hacienda Luisita, the implementation of neoliberal policies, etc.
But for all these efforts to stifle the militant nationalist fervor of the Filipino people, we remain staunch and undaunted. Oppression is but a means toward a far greater, more intense struggle towards meaningful emancipation. We commemorate the eighth year of the abduction of Karen and She with a reiteration, nay, intensification, of their undying pursuit of social justice, genuine independence, and freedom for all. JUSTICE FOR KAREN AND SHE!