PRESS STATEMENT (15 February 2019)
The Citizens’ Disaster Response Network (CDRN), a national network of 17 #humanitarian aid organizations in the Philippines, vehemently detests the arbitrary detention of Glyceria Balangiao, staff of the Panday Bulig (PB), a regional based in Cagayan De Oro City. Balangiao was inadvertently detained when she came in defense of her mother, Gloria Jandaya, who was forcibly taken for questioning to a military camp by the Philippine Army First Special Forces Battalion on February 11, 2019.
With grave concern, the network is relentlessly seeking updates on the situation of Balangiao and Jandaya who were forcibly brought in a military camp in Bukidnon. They are denied of their rights to seek legal counsel and communicate with their family. This treatment is indicative of their exposure to further #human rights violations, like torture and coercion, as their illegal detention is prolonged. Similar cases of harassment of development workers attest that the women are unjustly subjected to intimidation, baseless accusations due to their association with peasant and farmer organizations that are continuously maligned for their work for the rural poor.
Jandaya and Balangiao are lay workers of Rural Missionaries of the Philippines – Northern Mindanao Region (RMP-NMR). RMP is an inter-diocesan and inter-congregational organization composed of priests and lay people who conduct literacy, health, and livelihood programs for indigenous peoples and rural poor who have no access to basic social services. RMP-NMR is a legal non-profit organization supported by both local and international networks of social development agencies.
Ms. Balangiao has dedicated most her life as a humanitarian worker in Panday Bulig, Inc. (PB), a disaster relief and rehabilitation center that promotes community-based disaster management in Northern Mindanao. PB focuses its assistance to the most affected, least served and most vulnerable sectors of the populace through preparedness and mitigation, emergency relief and rehabilitation programs. PB has recently implemented emergency and early recovery projects to communities affected by Typhoons Urduja and Vinta from 2017 to 2018. The organization has been a part of the National Interfaith Humanitarian Mission for the Marawi Conflict Response in 2017. Since 2005, PB has conducted emergency relief and psychosocial activities in disasters in Northern Mindanao, such as in Agusan del Norte and Bukidnon in 2005-2006, and in Iligan in 2007-2008.
Glyceria Balangiao during the typhoon Vinta response
Ms. Jandaya is affiliated with Gabriela Women’s Partylist that has been opposing the extension of martial law in Mindanao. Cases of human rights violations and displacements of communities in Mindanao have alarmingly increased under martial law.
The illegal detention of Jandaya and Balangiao is one of the many cases of human rights violations among #development workers. It is a crime against humanity to target and endanger the lives of humanitarian workers who deliver aid and services to least-served communities. CDRN is alarmed at the great exposure of its members and field workers to vilification and harassments. It also very strongly condemns agencies issuing statements maligning the reputation of humanitarian agencies and personalities like when murdered peace negotiator Randy Felix Malayao was imputed to have taken money from CDRC assistance to disaster survivors. Statements of this nature harass, vilify and endanger humanitarian agencies and workers. We hope that the current hostile political climate will not impede the delivery of services to disaster-stricken peoples and communities.
We demand the immediate release of Glyceria Balangiao and Gloria Jandaya. CDRN and the humanitarian community call for the DEFENSE and PROTECTION of HUMANITARIAN AID and DEVELOPMENT WORKERS and their RIGHT to PROVIDE SERVICE to the COMMUNITIES!