FILIPINO PROGRESSIVES IN FRANCE, FORBIDDEN TO SEND A LETTER TO THE EMBASSY

Yesterday, March 09, 2021, Dhaizie Joie Bongay, coordinator of the Nagkakaisang Pilipino sa Pransya (NPSP), a non-profit and progressive organization of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), and other Filipino nationals based in Paris, submitted a letter of appeal to Philippine Embassy in Paris, France Ambassador Ma. Teresa P. Lazaro. However, Bongay was forbidden to enter the embassy.

In their letter, NPSP appealed to the said embassy to stand with them and “denounce the terroristic programs of Duterte’s regime” following the Bloody Sunday massacre and mass arrest of activists in Southern Tagalog under the Synchronized Enhanced Management of Police Operations last March 07, 2021.

The group said that similar operations  were also done during the Tumandok massacre in Panay and the massacre of peasant and social activists in Negros island. Moreover, the group also pointed out that the killing witnesses just like what happened to a Tumandok Barangay Captain Julie Catamin, and attempts in the lives of the lawyers just like what happened to Tumandok case lawyer, Atty. Angelo Karlo Guillen, have become the norm.

NPSP said that such “massive attack on human rights may spread panic on the part of the uncontrived citizen.” Moreover, the group believes that such norm and attacks are “criminal and grossly unacceptable in [the] international parlance.”/PT