Stop harassing Inday Espina-Varona, end red-baiting of journalists
Stop harassing Inday Espina-Varona, end red-baiting of journalists
AlterMidya, a national network of alternative media outfits and individuals, supports veteran journalist and press freedom advocate Inday Espina-Varona as she seeks redress for malicious and dangerous red-baiting engaged in by a top military official, the Philippine Army’s 4th Infantry Division and 401st Infantry Brigade commander Colonel Alexander Macario.
In an official statement by the 4th ID—wherein the military denied its involvement in the burning of a teachers’ cottage of the ALCADEV Lumad school in Sibagat, Agusan del Sur—Macario questioned where Espina-Varona got her information, referring to a Facebook post wherein she merely reposted an alert from the human rights group Karapatan.
“Aside from the witnesses, the only persons who can give this information are the perpetrators,” Macario said, alluding that Espina-Varona got the information from the communist New People’s Army (NPA). Karapatan, in its alert reposted by Espina-Varona, said that the suspects of the November 12 arson were members of the 23rd Infantry Batallion. But as with numerous Lumad killings for which it is accused of perpetrating, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) denied the claim and instead pointed at the NPA.
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