AN official of left-leaning labor center Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU) on Tuesday said the group is bracing for a surge in the number of illegal arrests after a new law vested the chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and select police officials subpoena powers.
In a news statement issued on Tuesday, KMU Chairman Elmer Labog said he fears that the passage Republic Act (RA) 10973 will only pave the way for arbitrary, unjust arrests and detention of administration critics.
“Duterte’s RA 10973 is an escalation of his attacks on labor and human rights, essentially giving the government permission to circumvent due process and conduct mass arrests of his political dissenters and critics,” Labog said.
The labor leader also slammed the announcement of the PNP that it will no longer issue “internal guidelines in the issuance of subpoenas.”
“The PNP’s refusal to set guidelines clearly shows that they are planning to abuse their subpoena powers,” Labog added.
KMU staged a protest in Quezon City on Monday to push for the junking of RA 10973 and for the release of one of its union organizers, Marklen Maojo Maga.
The labor center claimed Maga was illegally arrested by authorities last month in connection with a murder case in Agusan in 2017.
Maga is a son-in-law of Rafael Baylosis, one of the peace process consultants of the National Democratic Front, who was, likewise, detained last month.
Baylosis is currently among the 600 persons allegedly affiliated with communist groups, and whom the Department of Justice (DOJ) would like to be branded as terrorists.
KMU decried the DOJ’s so-called bogus “terror list” as another desperate attempt of the Duterte administration to silence its critics.
“The family and friends of Raffy and Maojo, along with scores of human-rights defenders, denounce the infamous terror list. They strongly believe that the Duterte regime will harp this in the pursuit of his much-drooled authoritarian rule,” the KMU said.