Imprisoned Filipino writers. Gazans
LAST November 15 was PEN International Day of Imprisoned Writers, and so the Philippine PEN held its own activity in support of the Free Ericson Acosta Campaign.
Ericson Acosta is a Filipino writer (poetry and songs) and a journalist ( Philippine Collegian, ABS-CBN, and The Manila Times). On February 13. 2011 he was arrested without warrant by government soldiers in an upland barrio of Samar. He was then carrying a laptop that he used for research on human rights and environmental violations. He was accompanied by a barrio official when arrested.
He endured three days of interrogation and torture in a military camp and was charged with illegal possession of explosive. He has since been detained at the sub- provincial jail in Calbayog City.
SELDA secretary-general Angelina Pong said at the forum in UP Manila that there are 401 political prisoners ( including those from past administrations) charged with criminal offenses to make it appear that there are officially no political prisoners. Under the Aquino government there are so far 123 political and cultural workers detained under criminal charges, 114 extrajudicial killings, and eleven enforced disappearances. Pong noted that in the last State of the Nation address of the President human rights was never mentioned.
Ericson Acosta was editor of the Philippine Collegian in the 90s and later worked as segment writer for ABS-CBN’S Wanted TV Patrol, and assistant entertainment section editor of the The
Manila Times. He was chairperson of STAND-UP (Student Alliance for Democratic Rights in UP) and member of the UP Amnesty International.
Groups that have supported the call for Acosta’s immediate release include the UP Diliman faculty University Council, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, Amnesty International, and the Writers in Prison Committee of PEN International through Philippine PEN, which has consistently petitioned since martial law years for the freedom of writers of conscience from detention.
Axel Pinpin, one of the Tagaytay Five detained for several years and released after an intensive campaign for their freedom, shared his poem “Awitng Bilanggong Politikal.” The following is a condensed version by Alexander Martin Remollino:
“Spray poetry on the scab of sadness/ And destroy the steel that of silk is made/ With the light of anger rise from darkness/ Crash against the bars, bondage be waylaid.”
Professor Sonny San Juan in the US sent his poem of solidarity with the political prisoners mentioning Alan Jazmines, poet/ revolutionary whose detention and severe torture had been the subject of his book of poems written in prison— Moon’s Face (1989). Jazmines was arrested the second time (as NDFconsultant in the peace talks between the National Democratic Front and the government) in violation of the JASIG (Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees). The other detainees mentioned in San Juan’s poem are Maricon Montajes, an urban poor activist, and Ericson Acosta. The lines on Acosta read:
“Bawat takipsilim/ binibilang ng aktibistang Ericson Acosta kung ilang sampal, bigwas, palo, tadyak at/ bugbog ang gantimpala sa kanya ng military – kailan darating ang ganti ng hustiya?”
Isaias Acosta, father of Ericson, intimated that he received a text message through his driver that Ericson would be killed during All Saints’ Day. It didn’t happen but the next message received said that it would be by Christmas. Such threats are the captors’ ways of tormenting and mocking not only the prisoners but also their families.
Recently the government announced the giving of bounty amounting to some P460 million for the capture of 235 alleged revolutionary leaders. Luis Jalandoni, chairperson of the NDF negotiating panel, has called this a flagrant violation of the bilateral agreement JASIG. Furthermore the bounty seeks to “criminalize the revolutionary movement which has wide support of the people whose fundamental and democratic rights and interests the movement upholds and defends.”
“Who are in reality the criminals who must answer to the Filipino people?” asks Luis Jalandoni. “Those who perpetrated the extrajudicial killing of Fr. Pops Tentorio, Dutchman Willem Goertman, Leonardo Co and 111 others during the Aquino regime. Those who carried out the enforced disappearances of Leo Velasco, Prudencio Calubid, Rogelio Calubad and the 12 others since July 1, 2010. Those who are responsible for the forced eviction of 8,266 victims, and those who perpetrated the forced evacuation of 29,613 under Benigno Aquino III’s watch. The people know who are the crimi- nals who must answer to them.”
One may add, where is Jovito Palparan, the general behind the disappearance of two UP students and numerous human rights violations in provinces where he was assigned? Where are the soldiers who abducted Jonas Burgos? Many other criminals in uniform are unaccounted for. When will impunity end and justice begin?
Ericson Acosta, writer and journalist, dared to document human rights violations in Samar and incurred the ire of the military.
On the first day of the ASEAN conference in Pnom Penh, President Aquino signed the ASEAN joint declaration for human rights. Will this be implemented in our country?
“EXTERMINATE ALL THE BRUTES” ( Kurtz in Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness).
Noam Chomsky, a Jewish professor of linguistics at MIT and leading American public intellectual, visited Gaza October 25-31 and wrote: “Even a single night in jail is enough to give a taste of what it means to be under the total control of some external force. And it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to begin to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where a million and a half people, in the most densely populated area of the world are constantly subject to random and often savage terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade, and with the further goal of ensuring that Palestinian hopes for a decent future crushed and that the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement that will grant these rights nullified.”
To be continued