REFERENCE:
Danilova Molintas
+639602315340
PRESS RELEASE
May 3, 2024
Kalikasan PNE condemns fabricated charges against anti-reclamation environmental defender ‘Ansie,’ other activists
Cabanatuan City, Nueva Ecija, May 3, 2024 — A militant national network of grassroots environmental groups denounced the trumped-up charges filed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against environmental defender Anasusa “Ansie” Salonga San Gabriel and three other activists with a prosecutor in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija.
“The case filed against San Gabriel, along with Nathaniel Santiago, Secretary-General of Bayan Muna and the Makabayan Coalition, Jun Luna of Anakpawis party list, and development Brenda Gonzalez of the NGO Ascent, makes this crystal clear: that the Marcos Jr government is conducting a relentless attack on the legitimate struggle for environmental protection and human rights,” decried Jonila Castro, the anti-reclamation environmental defender who had been abducted last September 2023 by state forces together with fellow defender Jhed Tamano. Castro spoke at a protest action held today by various groups at the Cabanatuan City Hall of Justice to show support for the persecuted activists.
San Gabriel and her co-accused are charged for their alleged involvement in an encounter between soldiers and New People’s Army rebels on October 8, 2023, in Nueva Ecija. Although the murder and frustrated murder charges linked to the incident have been dismissed, the 84th Infantry Battalion, 7th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army is still pursuing ‘terrorism’ charges against the accused.
“Ansie’s work in defending the environment and the rights of coastal communities has been invaluable,” said Castro. “Her efforts contributed to the formation of Alyansa ng mga Mamamayan Para sa Pagtatanggol ng Kabuhayan, Paninirahan, at Kalikasan ng Manila Bay or AKAP KA Manila Bay in August 2017, a broad alliance network of affected communities, faith-based groups, and advocates united in a campaign to Save Manila Bay,” said Castro, herself a volunteer with AKAP KA Manila Bay at the time she and her colleague were abducted by soldiers.
“The terrorism charges filed against Ansie are baseless and an affront to the Filipino people’s struggle for social and environmental justice. We demand that these trumped-up charges be dropped immediately. We call for an end to the state’s persecution of environmental defenders and activists,” Castro emphasized.
The now-iconic environmental defender also said her group “rejects the state’s routine characterization of environmental and human rights activists as terrorists, and condemns the weaponization of the whole state machinery against legitimate dissent.”
“Who are the real terrorists here — the environmental defenders who resist the exploitation and destruction wrought by mining companies, large logging corporations, and large infrastructure or ‘development’ projects that displace communities, violate people’s rights, and destroy the environment? Or the state armed forces and National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) who act as protection forces for the comprador bourgeoisie, their foreign partners, and their protectors in government who want to plunder our resources for their own narrow gain?” she asked.
“Labeling activism as terrorism suppresses legitimate dissent, reinforcing the brutality and unjust nature of our ruling system. It only serves to escalate armed conflict when fundamental people’s issues are ignored and met with state-sponsored terror,” Castro ended. ##