Romina ‘Sham’ Astudillo, activist. Lady Ann “Icy” Salem, editor and journalist.
Two women. Two human rights advocates. Taken, quite ironically, on the day the world celebrated the International Day of Human Rights (December 10). Arrested on charges as ludicrous as they were punch-drunk with lies: allegedly owning a cache of arms and explosives.
Altermidya Network builds the argument that it was more an abduction than an arrest.
Mid-afternoon of December 10, Altermidya posted on Facebook:
“The abduction is a clear attempt to silence critical journalists like Lady Ann. She has been active in the alternative media community for almost a decade and is one of the founding members of Altermidya Network. She graduated from the UP College of Mass Communication and a fellow of the Lopez Jaena Community Journalism Workshop. Lady Ann is also a board member of Tudla Productions and the current communication officer of the International Association of Women in Radio & Television (IAWRT). She is also a former officer of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) in Metro Manila.”
As for Sham Astudillo, Kabataan Party-list lawmaker Sarah Elago had this to say:
“We worked together in Kabataan Partylist in pursuit of meaningful reforms in press freedom and student rights. She served as second nominee of Kabataan in the 2016 elections as she led College Editors Guild of the Philippines local chapters in various advocacy campaigns such as pushing for free public education, and substantial funding for school publication including support for campus journalists and writers. Sham is still an advocate and now a trade union organizer dedicated to advance workers and people’s rights and welfare. We admire her not only for her wits and hard work, but also her warm and caring attitude towards others.”
In response to the lightning arrest of the two women activists, National Union of People’s Lawyers’ Edre Olalia said:
“How could supposed law enforcers in good conscience pretend to go through the motions and lock up a demure, young and the nicest person indefinitely before Christmas and during a difficult pandemic? Cold and cunning masterminds will have their due in time.
“And they are obviously taunting and mocking all human rights defenders by timing the contemporaneous raids on this significant day. They don’t just bloody care.”
Sham and Icy were not the only ones who fell under the grip of the brutal crackdown. In a separate incident, union organizer Denisse Velasco was likewise taken. Several others were also arrested.
Quezon City Executive Judge Cecilyn Burgos-Villavert was said to have issued the warrants that led to the arrest of the journalist, union leader and human rights activists.
This also came in the heels of the red-tagging of Altermidya Network by National Task Force to End the Local Communist Armed Conflict executive director Allen Capuyan during the third hearing of the Lacson committee on red-tagging on Dec. 1.
In a statement signed by several organizations, including Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University, Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, Consortium on Democracy and Disinformation, Foundation for Media Alternatives, MindaNews, National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Philippine Press Institute, Rappler, University of the Philippines Department of Journalism and VERA Files, the groups slammed the crackdown in no uncertain terms:
“The network has done its journalism despite great risk, including death threats and a massive distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. We therefore view this latest act of red-tagging with the utmost concern. It renders these community journalists even more vulnerable to abuse and violence, at the exact time we need more of their journalism.”
This crackdown only reinforces President Rodrigo Duterte’s claims last December 3 in Cavite that “For me, I don’t care about human rights.”
All this reminded me of author Arundhati Roy: “At times,” she wrote, “there’s something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism,” the sort that is infantile, as Albert Einstein once said, and the kind that serves as the “virtue of the vicious,” to quote the poet Oscar Wilde.
This vicious infantilism of Duterte, displayed by his out-and-out red-tagging campaign, puts us all at risk of sliding down a steep, rocky cliff with no one else to see it happen but him.
It is apparent in his persecution of journalists that he wants to be the hub of information, the one and only source of facts, discounting all the rest.
What these crackdowns aim to build is a society bereft of every available data save the ones coming from its own factory of fabrications, to the end that it would be the single source of information and communication.
What better way to achieve that, let alone win an election, than to shove journalists like Icy out of the way.
It has been clear from the start that Duterte’s hatred has nothing at all to do with communism, the overthrow of government or the disabling of the economy. It has nothing to do with threats to peace and order or the dismantling of the rule of law.
Red-tagging—and the accompanying crackdown on activists and journalists—is a siege, an attempt by this tokhang regime to break down the walls of the Constitution, better defined as the Bill of Rights.
And what other reason can Duterte have in waging this siege than to set himself up as the singular source of law and information in the country.
This is what happens when government takes away the freedom of the press:
First: it seizes for itself all power. Not only the power to speak but to speak exclusively without contest or debate. Worse, not only the power to converge its forces, but converge its forces wholly and singularly, barring all who seek to oppose it.
It is at this juncture where government turns itself into what might be taken to mean as a cult, where loyalty remains unquestioned and faith totally and utterly blind.
Information is power, and by this I mean there ought to be a rich diversity of information in order for one to objectively arrive at the truth. Diversity of information opens up Duterte to question and scrutiny, possible criticism and condemnation—things he has no control over.
He possesses no power over things he cannot control. Thus, the open and brutal persecution of Filipino journalists.
I’ve said this before and I will say this again: journalists should now rally together not only by holding the line, but by drawing the line and pushing back. As hard as we can, whenever we can.
We must reclaim what is ours by virtue of a standing Constitution—the freedom of the press—even if it means inch by measly inch.
We are no one’s slaves but the truth.
Joel Pablo Salud is an editor, journalist and the author of several books of fiction and political nonfiction. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of LiCAS.news.
