KARAPATAN condemns the arrest last August 13, 2024 of the former secretary general of its Southern Mindanao chapter, Jayvee “Jay” Apiag. Apiag was arrested in Digos City and is currently being held at the Buhangin Police Station in Davao City.

Apiag is reportedly facing six trumped-up cases — four for attempted murder in the cities of Davao and Digos, and Malaybalay in Bukidnon and another case for illegal possession of firearms and explosives in another court in Malaybalay. “Jay Apiag had nothing to do with the crimes he is being accused of,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay. “In fact, in his attempted murder case stemming from his supposed participation in an encounter in Paquibato, Davao City on May 20, 2018, he presented proof that he was leading a fact-finding mission in Tagum City on the said date,” she added.

“To show how ridiculous these charges are,” said Palabay, “one of Jay’s co-accused was Karapatan national chair Elisa Tita Lubi, who was almost 76 years old at the time of the alleged encounter, and who also presented proof that she was in Metro Manila at that time.”

“All the cases against Jay have been meant to derail his work as a human rights defender,” said Palabay. “Jay Apiag was at the forefront of the fight to assert human rights in Southern Mindanao, especially when martial law was declared in the entire island.”

“Jay has been the target of threats and harassment since the Duterte regime,” said Palabay. Posters and tarpaulins branding Apiag as a rebel of the New People’s Army (NPA) began sprouting in several places in Mindanao, and digital images tagging him as NPA were posted as well on the Facebook page of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

“Jay Apiag is only the latest in a growing list of Karapatan’s human rights workers arrested, killed or threatened in the course of their work,” said Palabay. “Alexander Philip Abinguna and Alexandrea Pacalda from Karapatan’s Eastern Visayas and Southern Tagalog chapters are behind bars. Pia Montalban from Karapatan-Central Luzon has been repeatedly red-tagged and threatened. And let us not forget Karapatan-Negros paralegal Zara Alvarez who was gunned down in Bacolod in August 2020,” she added.

“Karapatan throws its support behind Jay Apiag in his struggle to seek justice,” said Palabay. “We will continue to campaign for the release of Jay and all political prisoners on just and humanitarian grounds.”