The Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) celebrates the junking of trumped-up charges against two urban poor activists after almost six years of imprisonment. Their case is yet another example of how the government uses trumped-up charges to repress activism and dissent.

We are glad that urban poor group Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) organizer John Griefen Arlegui and Anakbayan organizer Reynaldo Viernes were released from prison on February 4, after the Malolos Regional Trial Court Branch 78 junked the trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives that were filed against them.

The court cited irregularities in the narrative submitted by the Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group Regional Field Unit 3 (PNP-CIDG RFU 3) about the firearms and explosives allegedly found in the activists’ possession.

Arlegui and Viernes were arrested on April 13, 2019 along the Angat-Pandi Road while they were participating in an electoral sortie for Bayan Muna Partylist and then-senatorial candidate Neri Colmenares.

Almost six years in prison due to trumped-up charges filed by the police! This is a human rights violation and an injustice that many labor and social activists in the country have already suffered from.

The country’s democracy and development suffer when the voices of the marginalized are silenced and when dissent is stifled by the government. The people are further kept out of policy spaces and the few elites at the top of the government entrench themselves in power and avoid accountability for their crimes.

In the same way that the country’s legislature is investigating former President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, we demand that it also investigates the numerous trumped-up charges filed against activists, especially those that have resulted in their imprisonment for years.

We demand that court processes relating to the country’s political prisoners be expedited and that politica prisoners be freed immediately. We demand that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr himself makes a clear statement and take decisive action against this modus operandi of the police against labor and social activists.

Those responsible for the human rights violation and injustice similar to those inflicted on Arlegui and Viernes should be held accountable. The leadership of the PNP CIDG RFU 3 and the entire PNP should be investigated in relation to trumped-up charges against activists and be held accountable.