Malaya Movement Canada raises alarm over the recent attack on human rights defender and lawyer Atty. Angelo Karlo “AK” Guillen. Two unidentified masked men stabbed Atty Guillen in the head and at the back on March 3 in Iloilo City. Clearly this attack was planned and had intent to kill and silence Atty. Guillen.

Atty. Guillen, the Vice President of the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) for the Visayas region, has been red tagged by state security forces. In December 2018, his photo was included in the posters placed around Iloilo City tagging him as member of the New People’s Army. Atty. Cris Heredia who was among those listed in these posters survived a shooting attack in September 2019.

According to the NUPL: “Atty. Guillen serves as counsel in various public interest and human rights cases, as in the 37 petitions questioning the constitutionality of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020. He also represents activists and human rights defenders facing trumped-up charges including those activists arrested during the police raids in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental in October 2019 and the Tumandoks arrested inPanay in December 2020. On Labor Day last year, he was arrested after responding to the illegal arrest of 42 activists who were protesting the extrajudicial killing of Bayan Muna Iloilo coordinator Jory Porquia.”

The human rights situation under Duterte continues to deteriorate without let up and the senseless killings of rights workers have worsened since the passage of the Anti-Terror Law (ATL) last year. The ever-increasing cases of human rights abuses cut across all sectors including youth, women, church people, workers, peasant, indigenous people, lawyers, journalists,and media workers. The ATL is used to legitimize countless human rights violations and attacks on human rights defenders by state security forces. This is clear in the killings of peasant leader Gloria Apique and community activist Jory Porquia.

With national elections in the offing, the Duterte regime manipulates the legal system to threaten those that he considers obstacles to his tyrannical rule. The Duterte government uses this draconian law as a desperate move to silence its critics and all opposition to his anti-people and pro-imperialist policies and practices. Thus, the demonic implementation of this Anti-Terror Law now clearly demonstrates that the killings can be justified legally. It is being applied as a state policy to silence dissent.

Malaya Movement Canada is one with the exploited masses of Filipino people in vigorously opposing and calling for an end to the tyrannical and fascist rule of the Duterte regime. All the senseless killings must be stopped,and the Anti-Terror law must be repealed NOW. The Duterte government should be made accountable even when Duterte himself is not the president by 2022. As a matter of fact, Duterte should be ousted before then.

Tama na! Sobra na! Duterte OUT na!

Stop the Killings in the Philippines!

Repeal Anti-TerrorLaw!

#DefendHumanRightsDefenders!

Signed: Marissa Corpus, Malaya Movement Canada Spokesperson

6 March 2021