[OPINION] Elusive justice for Chad Booc and companions

February 24 this year marks the second anniversary of the killing the New Bataan 5, which includes our clients Lumad teachers Chad Booc and Jurain Ngujo II.

Now known as the New Bataan Massacre, and despite calls for accountability over their deaths, justice remains elusive. 

Dr. Raquel Fortun, who examined Chad’s body after his death, said that he likely died instantly after he was pelted with bullets fired with “an intent to kill,” despite the claims of the military that the five, alleged New People’s Army (NPA) members, were killed during an encounter with soldiers in New Bataan town in Davao de Oro.

But what has happened in the two years since their deaths?

When reports first came out of the killing, many groups denounced what had happened, particularly the persistent red-tagging of human rights activists and environmental defenders as well as the culture of impunity that had normalized such violence. 

These groups, which included Karapatan, IBON Foundation, Greenpeace, and the UP Cebu Student Council, as well as many individuals, demanded justice for the New Bataan 5, just a handful of the many victims of state-sponsored crackdown against dissenters.

Lumad schools have continued to be forcibly closed down, violating the rights of the Lumad children to an education that, according to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, should be provided in their own languages, and in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of learning and teaching. 

Many of these Lumad children have had to enroll in other schools or stop going to school completely, and others are still forcibly displaced from their homes.

The terror of the anti-terror law

Ironically, Chad Booc was our client in the petition we filed against the anti-terrow law. As we argued in that petition we filed for indigenous and Moro peoples and those who worked with them, our clients were going to be targeted by the state because of their activism.

We were proven right.

The culture of impunity continues to pervade the lives of human rights and environmental defenders, especially leaders if indigenous peoples and those who work with them. 

In the Cordillera, indigenous rights activists, including Sarah Dekdeken, the secretary general of Cordillera Peoples’ Alliance (CPA), and Windel Bolinget, the Alliance’s Chairperson continue to be charged with cases claiming them to be terrorists.

 In June 2023, the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) designated four leaders of the CPA, including Bolinget, asserting that they were leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines. 

Five months after their designation, the four CPA leaders challenged the ATC designation in court – calling the same arbitrary and unconstitutional, as well as injurious and constituting a violation of their rights. This challenge, which took place in the form of a petition for the issuance of the writs of certiorari, prohibition, and preliminary injunction against the ATC, was filed on the same day three activists (which included Hailey Pecayo, spokesperson of Tanggol Batanggan) secured a victory against two soldiers for trumped-up charges of violation of the Anti-Terror Law.

An anti-terror law complaint against Kenneth Rementilla and Jasmine Rubia, human rights advocates, was junked in November 2023; in addition, environmental activists Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano were granted a temporary protection order as well as writs of amparo and habeas by the Supreme Court en banc, although arrest warrants were also issued against them for perjury.

Elusive justice

Despite this, many human rights activists and indigenous peoples still face constant threats, harassment, intimidation, and other kinds of violence for speaking up against oppressive government policies, and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) continues its practice of red-tagging. 

And yes, teachers Chad and Jurain and the rest of their group have yet to access the justice they so deserve, as no one has been held accountable yet for their killing. 

We owe it to teachers Chad and Jurain, to their students, to the communities they work with, and to the world they envisioned is possible and the legacy they left behind to keep fighting. We need to work on ensuring that justice is afforded to everyone, and that we create a safer world for all. 

Teachers Chad and Jurain may no longer be with us physically, but their work lives on in each and every single one of us. Justice may evade them now, but we will carry the torches, we will continue the fight, and we – as everyone in this struggle for the imagining of a better world – will persist in pursuing justice. – Rappler.com

Tony La Viña teaches constitutional law at the University of the Philippines and several Mindanao law schools. He is former dean of the Ateneo School of Government.

Joy Reyes is a climate justice lawyer affiliated with the Manila Observatory and the Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center. She’s currently in Scotland taking up her MSc in Global Environment, Politics, and Society at the University of Edinburgh.