The UCCP Council of Bishops strongly condemns the recent killings of nine (9) Tumanduk barangay leaders in Calinog, Iloilo and the abduction of their seventeen (17) leaders in Tapaz, Capiz, on December 30. 2020. The massacre and arrests are heinous crimes against the individual and collective life of the Tumanduk. These acts have been well-planned by the military and police operatives under the intensified counterinsurgency program funded by the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
Day: February 4, 2021
WOE TO THOSE WHO MAKE UNJUST LAWS, AND ISSUE OPPRESSIVE DECREES
The Anti-Terrorism Law is no less than a vicious act of power grab passed under the pretext of national security amid the coronavirus pandemic, presenting a stern peril against Philippine democracy. Replacing the Human Security Act of 2007. The new law criminalizes an abstruse new offense: the incitement of terrorism “by means of speeches, proclamations, writings, emblems, banners or other representations without taking any direct part in the commission of terrorism.” Section 29 authorizes law enforcement to arrest and detain, without a warrant and for fourteen to twenty-four days, anyone suspected of any terrorism offense including those accused of incitement.