Today, April 23, on the fifth month since the Ampatuan massacre, we call on colleagues, media organizations, sectors and the people to join us as we march for justice and for accountability.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) chapters nationwide will be leading rallies and other activities both to commemorate the massacre that took the lives of 58 persons, including 32 colleagues, and to protest Acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agra’s dropping of multiple murder charges against Zaldy and Akmad Ampatuan.
So outrageous was Agra’s act that even the National Prosecution Service, led by Chief State Prosecutor Claro Arellano, rose as one in protest.
In Metro Manila, various sectors and organizations will join us at Mendiola Bridge at 6 p.m. for activities organized by the Malacañang Press Corps. NUJP chapters in Baguio, Pampanga, Davao, Bacolod and Iloilo, to name a few, will also be leading their respective actions.
But more than protest Agra’s stupendous decision, let us seize this day to once and for all demand accountability from whom it is due – this administration whose politics of expediency and its nurturing of impunity made the slaughter in Ampatuan not just possible but inevitable; this administration which, notwithstanding the shock and outrage throughout the nation and the world over the massacre, has no qualms about subverting justice to further its own ends.
Too long have our cries for justice been ignored by this administration.
And let us, likewise, take this occasion to serve notice to whoever next takes the helm of power in this benighted land, given the deafening silence with which those who seek to rule us reacted to both the slaughter and Agra’s desecration of justice, that we will hold you just as accountable for ensuring that justice is given the Ampatuan 58 and the rest of our colleagues whose murders remain unsolved.
The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) chapters nationwide will be leading rallies and other activities both to commemorate the massacre that took the lives of 58 persons, including 32 colleagues, and to protest Acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agra’s dropping of multiple murder charges against Zaldy and Akmad Ampatuan.
So outrageous was Agra’s act that even the National Prosecution Service, led by Chief State Prosecutor Claro Arellano, rose as one in protest.
In Metro Manila, various sectors and organizations will join us at Mendiola Bridge at 6 p.m. for activities organized by the Malacañang Press Corps. NUJP chapters in Baguio, Pampanga, Davao, Bacolod and Iloilo, to name a few, will also be leading their respective actions.
But more than protest Agra’s stupendous decision, let us seize this day to once and for all demand accountability from whom it is due – this administration whose politics of expediency and its nurturing of impunity made the slaughter in Ampatuan not just possible but inevitable; this administration which, notwithstanding the shock and outrage throughout the nation and the world over the massacre, has no qualms about subverting justice to further its own ends.
Too long have our cries for justice been ignored by this administration.
And let us, likewise, take this occasion to serve notice to whoever next takes the helm of power in this benighted land, given the deafening silence with which those who seek to rule us reacted to both the slaughter and Agra’s desecration of justice, that we will hold you just as accountable for ensuring that justice is given the Ampatuan 58 and the rest of our colleagues whose murders remain unsolved.
PHILIP JAMES MONGAYA TREMEDALCALL OR TEXT ME : E-MAIL ME : pjtremedal@gmail.comvisit my website: www.mindanao on-line.tk
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