Joining a protest to mark the fifth anniversary of the deadly Bloody Sunday joint police-military raids in Southern Tagalog, labor NGO Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) decried the continuing denial of justice to the victims and their families and called on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to hold to account the police and military officials responsible for the raid.

Labor, human rights and people’s organizations from the Southern Tagalog region held a picket this morning in front of the Department of Justice (DOJ) main office in Padre Faura, Manila to press for justice for the nine activists killed and six activists who were arrested and imprisoned in the March 7, 2021 raid.

“The Bloody Sunday massacre is one of the most prominent cases of human rights violations under Rodrigo Duterte’s fascist reign. The president is sorely mistaken if he thinks that the Filipino workers and people will simply forget it. Nine activists, all unarmed and defenseless, were killed, while six where jailed during a COVID-19 lockdown – all because of trumped-up charges,” said Kamz Deligente, CTUHR executive director.

The raids were carried out by the the Philippine National Police (PNP) Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the Philippine Army’s Special Action Force (SAF) and 202nd Brigade under the leadership of police chief Debold Sinas and military chief Cirilito Sobejana.

“Marcos Jr likes to portray himself as different from his fascist predecessor and his father the former dictator, and as upholding human rights and democracy. That is all for show, as the Filipino workers and people are not seeing any effort to hold Duterte and his henchmen accountable for their rights violations, aside from Duterte’s trial at the International Criminal Court,” Deligente added.

In different rulings in 2023, the DOJ, already under Marcos Jr, dismissed the charges filed by the loved ones of the victims. The rulings sided with the police’s claim that the victims fought back and that firing at them was self-defense. The rulings also said that there was no way to ascertain exactly who among the policemen fired the shots that killed the victims.

“Its decisions on the Bloody Sunday massacre are proof of the DOJ acting as a Department of Injustice. The DOJ and the Marcos Jr regime turned a blind eye to the entire political context during the Duterte regime, which tells us that the police and the military were the criminals and that the activists were the victims in this case. The top officials should be held accountable for their crimes,” stated Deligente.

CTUHR reiterated its call for the complete abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict or NTF-ELCAC, which egged on and justified the raids, and redtagged and demonized the victims.

Together with the protestors in the DOJ, CTUHR paid tribute to those killed in the raids: labor leader Manny Asuncion; environmentalists Chai and Ariel Evangelista; urban poor activists Greg Dasigao, Makmak Bacasno, Abner Esto, and Edward Esto; and indigenous peoples activists Puroy dela Cruz and Pulong dela Cruz.