Today, we in the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR), mark the fourth year of the notorious Bloody Sunday joint police-military raids in the Calabarzon region in 2021 that resulted in the killing of nine activists and the arrest of six others. We consider the Bloody Sunday raids a grave human rights violation and a crime not only to the victims and their families but to the Filipino workers and people.

We continue to cry out for justice for the victims and demand that those responsible – the Philippine National Police (PNP) Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), the Philippine Army’s Special Action Force (SAF) and 202^nd Brigade all the way to the police chief at the time, Debold Sinas, the military chief at the time, Cirilito Sobejana and the country’s chief executive at the time, former President Rodrigo Duterte – be held accountable for this grave violation of human rights.

We condemn President Ferdinand Marcos Jr who – despite his efforts to distance himself from his predecessor and his declared embrace of labor and human rights –continued the injustice against the victims of the Bloody Sunday raids and the Filipino workers and people. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) dismissal of charges related to the Bloody Sunday raids all happened under Marcos Jr’s presidency. The DOJ is most aptly called “Department of Injustice” in relation to this case.

We likewise condemn President Marcos Jr for retaining 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. Given the criticisms of redtagging made by many United Nations Special Rapporteurs and the International Labour Organization Tripartite High-Level Mission to the Philippines, the Marcos Jr government should have considered abolishing the NTF-ELCAC a low-hanging fruit.

We are appealing to the broad rank of political forces that immediately condemned the Bloody Sunday raids – from former Vice President Leni Robredo to Senators Risa Hontiveros, Leila de Lima and Kiko Pangilinan, and from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights – to reiterate our call for justice. Activists were killed and imprisoned unjustly, yet no one has been held accountable.

We remember and pay tribute to those killed: 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.

We call on the Filipino workers and people to continue to fight for labor and human rights, democracy, social justice and environmental justice in the country. The country’s rulers want us to be cowed by the Bloody Sunday raids and the lack of accountability for this crime, but these injustices only show that our struggle is most relevant now more than ever.