Altermidya
By ANNE MARXZE D. UMIL
Bulatlat.com
CABANATUAN CITY — There are 98 activists, humanitarian and church workers who are facing charges of violations of Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020 and Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012.
Human rights group Karapatan described these laws as “twin terror laws” as both are used against activists, humanitarian workers and those who serve the welfare of the marginalized.
Just today, May 3, Nathanael Santiago, Bayan Muna and Makabayan Coalition Secretary General, development worker Rosario Brenda Gonzalez, church lay worker Anasusa San Gabriel and Servillano Luna, Jr., campaign director and former secretary general of Anakpawis filed their counter affidavts after being charged with violations of ATA.
But who are they and why do their groups find these charges against them ridiculous?
Nathanael S. Santiago has been an activist since 1984.
Santiago was a former president of the Central Student Government of the Philippine Christian University in 1986 to 1987. He was also the former national chairperson of the League of Filipino Students from 1987 to 1990. He led campaigns against tuition fee hikes and the US military bases.
From 1990 to 1999, Santiago served as deputy secretary general and then secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan). He also served as an elected councilor of Caloocan in 2001-2004.
Santiago is the secretary general of Bayan Muna Partylist since 2000 until the present. He is also the concurrent secretary general of the Makabayan Coalition since its founding in 2009 until the present.
Santiago was also a petitioner in several Supreme Court cases including a petition questioning the constitutionality of the ATA.
Sevillano “Jun” Luna, Jr. meanwhile was also a student leader at the University of the East-Recto. He was a political science student at the University of the East-Recto.
In the 1980s, Luna became an activist and a student leader at the height of the student-led Democratic Reform Movement that campaigned for the reopening of student councils and student publications.
He was among the founding members of the University of the East-Recto Alyansa ng Mag-aaral sa Tinig ng Silangan (AMPS) and Kapit-Bisig Party Alliance which advocated students democratic rights and welfare.
He continued to advocate for the rights of basic social sectors and volunteered with the Sentro Para sa Tunay na Repormang Agraryo or Sentra, a legal assistance center catering to marginalized farmers and fishers where he continued his work with the peasant and fisherfolk sector.
Luna was among the first volunteers of the Pamalakaya Pilipinas, a national federation of small fisherfolk organizations in the country founded in 1987.
He served as deputy secretary general of Pamalakaya from 2002 to 2014 and helped organize fisherfolk communities, conducted research work, and launched campaigns and advocacy work to advance the socio-economic and political aspirations of the fisherfolk.
At present, Luna is the campaign director of Anakpawis Partylist. He served as the progressive partylist’s national secretary general from 2015 to 2021.
Rosario Brenda Gonzalez is a long-time development worker and has decades of experience as a project management officer.
At present, Gonzales is a convenor of Assert Socio-Economic Initiatives Network (ASCENT), which she has been a part of since 2016. The network addresses issues affecting development projects and development workers of its member organizations, which include five grassroots service providers.
Gonzales assists in the implementation of its plans and programs in line with the mandate of ASCENT.
Gonzales designs development programs to propagate “best practices” among member organizations involved in the fields of humanitarian work, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, land rights, food security, and climate justice, among others.
Gonzalez also has extensive experience in research and project evaluation in the Philippines. She has also done project evaluations in Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand. She also conducts training on project management for non-government, socio-civic, and church-based organizations.
Anasusa San Gabriel is a volunteer lay worker from Bulacan. She has been a volunteer lay worker for the Bulacan Ecumenical Forum (BEF), a group of bishops, priests and pastors of different Christian denominations in Bulacan, since 2017.
As a lay worker, she served as a coordinator for the programs of the BEF such as the Ecumenical Encounter with God and His People. The program links the church people with vulnerable communities, particularly on the coastal villages in Bulacan whose livelihood and homes are impacted by the ongoing development projects along Manila Bay.
Her work in BEF contributed to the eventual formation of AKAP KA Manila Bay in August 2017.
She also worked with the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum (EBF) and served as EBF’s coordinator for the series of consultations that were launched with the fishing communities, assisting them in the conceptualization of relevant programs.
The charges against Santiago, Luna, Gonzales and San Gabriel came just after days ago, two young human rights defenders in Southern Tagalog, Fritz Jay Labiano and Adrian Paul Tagle, were charged with violations of Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012 after providing grocery items and small amount of money to detained political prisoners Miguela Peniero and indigenous rights advocate Rowena Dasig. They are also facing charges of violating the ATA.
For Karapatan, these charges are fabricated and must be dismissed immediately.
“We demand the junking of these twin repressive laws that have proven to be gravely injurious to the people’s civil and political rights,” Karapatan said. (RVO)
Related story: Activists, church, dev’t workers charged with violation of anti-terrorism law
