State rumor mongering

THE Alliance of Concerned Teachers strongly urges state agencies to engage in more exhaustive actions towards ensuring justice, and much less rumor-mongering in relation to the frustrated extrajudicial killing of teachers Zhaydee and Ramil Cabañelez in Valencia City, Bukidnon.

The demand comes after various agencies issued flip-flopping, inconsistent, and false claims about the victims, which include their non-membership to ACT and different versions of NPA involvement in the incident—the couple being NPA surrenderees, teacher Zhaydee being the daughter of active NPA leaders, her father being an NPA surrenderee, the assailants also coming from a unit of NPA, even ACT as supposedly having links to the NPA. The state’s claims is unsettingly similar to what the assailant said to the victims, that they allegedly have connections to NPA, before firing at them.

Both teachers Zhaydee and Ramil are members of ACT. In fact, as their Secretary General, I visited them at the hospital to check on their condition. They are reasonably upset at all the untrue claims being spread about their family and their affiliations. They also found the police’s public release, without their consent, of Zhaydee’s hospital photos offensive. This utter disrespect is especially deplorable as there is no sincere investigation being conducted into the vicious attack they experienced.

The family is also requesting to be granted peace and respect amid this difficult time. Further, instead of the senseless presumptuous claims and rumormongering, ACT calls for a serious investigation into the attempted EJK so the perpetrators may be brought to justice at the soonest possible time.

According to co-teachers and the local community, the police is still yet to step foot on the site of the crime, neither have the cops taken an official account from the victims. Even the bullet shells at the scene were gathered by the students, and only recovered by barangay officials later! These raise serious concerns about the police’s credibility who was quick to issue a report that’s turning out to be based on what?

ACT fears that the Cabañelez shooting will only add to the state’s thousands of unresolved EJKs, albeit a failed attempt in this case, should the PNP continue with its remiss handling of the case. The teachers’ federation urged other concerned agencies—the Department of Education, the Civil service Commission, Department of Labor and Employment, Commission on Human Rights, and both chambers of Congress—to exhaust all measures to serve justice to the victims and to ensure the protection of teachers and schools from all forms of rights violations through the adoption and implementation of the safe schools declaration and upholding of schools as zones of peace.

It is crucial that all agencies pool in to help the family find justice, and from here on out, seriously address the issue of rampant extrajudicial killings, human rights violations, and the worsening culture of impunity in the country. – Raymond Basilio, secretary general, ACT