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Government should leave Echanis' stay at Heart Center to the doctors
Arroyo continue to degenerate his health on each day of stay at Manila City Jail
November 27, 2008
Leaders of the militant peasant group, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines ) called on the Arroyo government to leave the health issue of Randall Echanis to the doctors on whether he should stay longer at the Philippine Heart Center. About 100 activists and supporters from KMP, Pamalakaya-Pilipina s, Amihan, UMA, Anakpawis Partylist and other groups, picketed in front of the said hospital along East Avenue carrying placards and performed songs of freedom endowed to Echanis.
"Mrs. Arroyo through her lackeys justice secretary Raul Gonzales and national security adviser Norberto Gonzales should leave Echanis' medical check-up to the doctors of Philippine Heart Center, it is very obvious that he needs proper medical attention and primarily his stay at Manila City Jail keeps his health to deteriorate, " claimed Danilo Ramos in a press statement, KMP Secretary-General.
Randall "Ka Randy" Echanis is the Deputy Secretary-General for External Affairs of KMP, arrested on January 28 this year while conducting a consultation with sugar workers in Bago City, Negros Occidental, regarding the House Bill 3059 Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill and National Rural Congress II (NRC II) led by the CBCP. He was charged with multiple murders and linked with the mass graves discovered in Leyte province. He is the co-accused of Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo.
Moreover, Ranmill, Echanis' son and spokesperson of Freedom, the Free Randall Echanis Movement, said that his father really looks ill and stressed, very different to when he was still out of prison. "It is very dangerous for him to still stay at Manila City Jail because his blood pressure keeps on shooting up whenever it is hot and crowded, he could suffer an attack anytime his inside," added Ranmill Echanis. Freedom is the group formed by Echanis' family and friends, KMP and peasant groups, to campaign for his immediate and unconditional release.
KMP believed that this is just part of Arroyo's counter-insurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya II, where leaders and members of legal-democratic groups are charged with non-bailable crimes to keep them inside and hamper their organizing work of the poor sectors. This is also in consonance with extra-judicial killings (EJK) and enforced disappearances.
"Our group is really a major target of the Arroyo government as we are based on the countryside and we have the most number that protest against Arroyo and call for her ouster," Ramos noted. "We are actively testifying regarding the fertilizer scam, I am a signatory to the impeachment complaint, we oppose Chacha, we mobilized for decades against CARP and struggled for genuine agrarian reform, we have all the qualifications to being the target of the Arroyo government," explained Ramos.
About 528 coming from the peasantry have been victims of extra-judicial killings since Arroyo came to power, 109 were KMP leaders. This includes Nilo Arado, KMP-Panay chair who testified at the senate inquiries on fertilizer scam in 2005, and Ofelia Rodriguez who was killed after being interviewed by The Probe Team and claimed she never received any fertilizer subsidy.
KMP and Freedom declared that they would never cease and tire to mobilize and hold protest actions to call for Echanis' immediate and unconditional release. "We are already preparing to present Ka Randy's case to the United Nations human rights committee, even to the next president of the US, Barack Obama, we will expose Arroyo's dictatorship and their obvious difference as he is for civil liberties in their country," Ramos declared.#
Source:
PRESS RELEASE
November 27, 2008
REFERENCE:
DANILO RAMOS, KMP Secretary-General
ROY MORILLA, KMP Public Information Officer (63-905-421- 7305)
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