Students, teachers protest arrest of Mabinay 6
The shouts of more than 30 students and professors from the University of the Philippines (UP) Cebu rang out as they held the “Walk for Myles” yesterday to protest the arrest of Myles Albasin and five others in Mabinay, Negros Oriental after an alleged encounter with the military earlier this month.
“Free Myles Albasin! Free the Mabinay 6,” they chanted as they left the UP Cebu campus and walked on the stretch of Gorordo Ave.
“Community development work is not illegal and that’s what Myles was doing. She’s a researcher and a community development worker and not a New People’s Army member,” said Phoebe Zoe Sanchez, a human rights advocate and an associate professor of history and sociology of UP Cebu.
Sanchez said that Albasin was reaching out to farmers in Negros Oriental.
She lamented the attacks against the university and the alleged surveillance conducted by the military on the students.
“The simple work of reaching out to the farmers was made illegal by the persons who have bad intentions,” Sanchez said.
The professor condemned the arrest of the Mabinay 6 and the charges filed against them, while cases of self-confessed drug lords were dismissed.
“They are labeling us the dirtiest label they can give us. We have to stand up here in UP so that we can show them that the students here are no-nonsense youth,” Sanchez said.
Karapatan Cebu earlier said that based on the group’s investigation in Negros, Albasin and her companions were asleep when the military surrounded the house they were staying in and asked them to surrender.