Activist charged by police for joining protest vs Discayas
Environmental activist Jonila Castro has been singled out by police in a complaint filed against her after she joined a protest outside the office of private contractors Pacifico “Curlee” and Cezarah “Sarah” Discaya, the couple at the center of the widening controversy over the government’s flood control projects.
On Friday, Castro was ordered by the Office of the City Prosecutor in Pasig to submit a counteraffidavit to a complaint filed on Sept. 11 by Police Capt. Ralph Santos accusing her of violating Batas Pambansa No. 880, or the Public Assembly Act of 1985.
The law was passed by the Batasang Pambansa, the legislature during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr., amid the anti-Marcos demonstrations at that time. It required protesters to secure a mayor’s permit before they could hold any assembly in public areas with the exception of freedom parks and other such designated spaces.
Castro, spokesperson of environmentalist group Kalikasan, took part in a Sept. 4 protest outside the Pasig City compound of St. Gerrard Construction General Contractor and Development Corp., one of at least nine construction firms owned by the Discaya couple. The demonstrators hurled mud and rocks at the property and spray-painted on its walls the words “magnanakaw” (thief) and “ikulong” (jail them).
The one-page subpoena signed by Senior Assistant City Prosecutor Rowena Simbahan gives Castro until Sept. 25 to submit her counteraffidavit.
Failure to comply would be deemed a “waiver of your right to present your defense,” Simbahan said in the subpoena.
‘Thieves, accomplices’
In her statement on Friday, Castro said: “The complaint I received from the police reveals who they are really protecting”—the “thieves,” and “not the people who are exposing the truth and calling for justice.”
“The people are drowning in mud caused by the Discayas and their accomplices who are corrupt politicians. The mud thrown at them is not even enough,” she said.
Castro’s lawyer Maria Sol Taule said the case against her client aims to “cover up and divert attention from the real issue of corruption, while persecuting activists and human rights defenders.”
“The government should first hold accountable those who have stolen billions in public funds and continue to profit from anomalous projects. This subpoena is nothing more than an attempt to criminalize protest and shield the real plunderers from scrutiny,” said Taule, deputy secretary general of Karapatan.
Karapatan noted that the basis of the complaint is a “Marcosian law” that “criminalizes basic rights.”
“When billions are being siphoned off from public funds and leaving millions of Filipinos suffering from floods and disasters, our anger is justified,” the group said.
Castro and fellow activist Jhed Tamano have been subjected to legal actions by the police and military since that press conference on Sept. 19 2023, when the two activists presented by state authorities as rebels who sought their protection instead turned the tables on them, saying they were abducted by the military. —WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH
