The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) deeply mourns the death of long-time labor activist and political prisoner Ernesto Jude Rimando Jr on July 23.

CTUHR expresses its heartfelt condolences to Rimando’s family, friends and comrades and to the workers and the poor in the Visayas whom he worked with for almost 20 years of his life as a researcher and organizer of the Alyansa sa mga Mamumuo sa Sugbo (AMA-Sugbo), a provincial formation of national labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU, May First Movement).

We condemn the Rodrigo Duterte government for filing trumped-up murder charges against Rimando, which resulted in his arrest on January 6, 2022 and imprisonment since. Rimando at the time was undergoing medical treatment liver cirrhosis and sepsis, and was arrested by men who did not introduce themselves and failed to produce a legal document supporting his arrest.

We condemn the Bohol Regional Trial Court Branch 15 for failing to act on Rimando’s petition, filed in June, for a chance to spend his remaining days with his family. We condemn the Ferdinand Marcos Jr government for not releasing Rimando from prison, despite all the indications that the cases filed against him are merely fabricated and meant to hinder his labor activism.

The five murder charges filed against Rimando – in Capiz, Iloilo and Guihulngan, Negros Oriental – are so preposterous that any serious student of law can see that these are fabricated. It is revolting that despite the nature of these cases, Rimando was imprisoned for two years and died in prison.

The Marcos Jr government has blood in its hands with the death of Rimando, a political prisoner under its custody. We hold the Marcos Jr government accountable for the death of Rimando and for the lives of the 27 political prisoners from the labor sector and other political prisoners who remain in jail at present.

Rimando’s case is not unique. Many labor and social activists in the country remain as political prisoners because of trumped-up charges and even planted evidence.  While National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) Negros Occidental leaders Imelda Sultan and Lindy Perocho were released in July, 27 more political prisoners from the labor sector await the dismissal of the trumped-up charges against them and their release from prison.

If the Marcos Jr government is really sincere in upholding human rights and democracy, as it claims, and in righting the wrongs of its predecessor, it should consider Rimando’s death as a wake-up call. It should expedite the processes that should lead to the release of labor activists among political prisoners and all political prisoners in the country. Every day of their continuing imprisonment is an injustice.

In an ideal society, Rimando would not have been imprisoned; he would have received honors from the government. A graduate of the Philippine Science High School, a student of mechanical engineering at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, and a veteran of the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship, Rimando offered his intelligence and life to the Filipino workers and people.