By “When the people are united, they will never be defeated.”
ILOILO City – The All UP Academic Employees Union (AUPAEU) – Iloilo Chapter today slammed the harassment by profiling of the Philippine National Police Miagao.
In a statement on their Facebook Page, AUPAEU said that on June 25, University of the Philippines Visayas Chancellor Ricardo Babaran received a letter from the Miag-ao Municipal Police Station requesting to acquire information “in reference with the mandate from the higher headquarters…regarding the members of All UP Academic Union-Iloilo Chapter.”
“Under current climate of impunity when profiling is weaponised, physical browbeating is normalized, and political tokhang is regularised, the Academic Union strongly denounces this harassment,” their statement said.
The said request was signed by Police Major Johnny R. Tumambing, acting chief-of-police of PNP Miagao.
“Such a request reads malicious, spells reproachable, and conveys a “chilling effect” to the REPS (researchers, extension, and professional staff) and faculty members composing the Union,” said the AUPAEU.
“Under normal circumstances, such request is unusual, odd, and bizarre, as Tumambing claims arising from the “mandate from the higher headquarters.” Which mandate? Whose orders? The PNP request letter is mute in its obscurity,” the Union added.
The same hideous pattern was employed against members of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT)–Philippines, according to the Union.
“What else are these all about but the prevailing pattern of harassment, intimidation, and silencing of groups that are principled, public, and vocal on societal issues of the day. The Union seeks to be militante, progresibo, and makabayan (militant, progressive and nationalist) to serve better its constituents yet this is dangerous, subversive, and inimical to the state in the eyes of the PNP hierarchy,” the Union added.
This “sinister act” of the Miagao Police violated the citizen’s rights under the Bill of Rights, Article III of 1987 Philippine Constitution, the Republic Act No.10173 (Data Privacy Act 2012) and the legality and legitimacy of the UP Academic Union ruled by the Supreme Court (G.R. No. 96189, 14 July 1992), the Union said.
“Such harassment clearly violates the letters and spirit of laws of our land!”
The Academic Union called all its constituents of the University of the Philippines to clearly denounce this case of harassment and also invited the broad public, all people with civic consciousness, to rebuke and oppose the prevailing state terrorism./www.panaytoday.net
