Surface Randy Malayao

The phrase “tall, dark and handsome” were a perfect match for Randy Malayao. Towering above student journalists during assemblies of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, Randy was a force to reckon with at the period 1991-1994 when he served as the guild’s vice president for Mindanao under the presidency of Teddy Casino.

Randy was editor-in-chief for two years of Mangingisda, the student publication of the UP Visayas in Miag-ao. His fraternity brothers remember him as part of Beta Sigma’s history of student leadership there.

I first met Randy in the 1994 national congress of the CEGP in Initao, Misamis Oriental. He was a convincing and natural public speaker, and knew the ins and outs of campus journalism very well. He impressed many, including myself.

In about a year, Randy convinced me to join the CEGP national executive committee as assistant vice president for Luzon, under his direct tutelage, so to speak. That was 1995, when malignant forces were trying to disrupt the glorious history of the CEGP through attempts to split it in half. Randy was a forceful and compelling voice at the time, encouraging us to take to heart what CEGP is and what these forces wish to turn it into.

Randy was a joy to work with. He usually sang a signature song titled “You’ve got to do more than that” during Guild assemblies. The song could perhaps be his life’s theme song.

The CEGP national leadership along with about 99.99 percent of active student publications and local formations back then stood solidly behind the patriotic and progressive tradition of the guild, saying no to the splittists who wanted to misuse campus journalism towards insurrectionist ends.

In 1995 (or was it 1996?), during my turn as organizing committee chair of the CEGP convention when we paid tribute to Randy as he bade goodbye to the Guild he so jealously protected and heartily served. He wept right in front of the hundreds of Guilders assembled at the Boy Scouts Jamboree Site in Los Banos.

Randy soon left us afterwards, but only after giving us endless reminders on what to do or not to do, about the needs and demands of campus journalists. He reminded us to be true campus press freedom fighters and to follow what our heroes and martyrs did: To put the CEGP and student journalists in the service of the studentry and the public.

We rarely met afterwards. When he had time, he would invite us to small meetings at another Guilder’s house. When he discovered the joys of mailing lists, he made his presence felt at the CEGP alumni e-group.

Today, Randy Malayao is missing. He has not surfaced since May 15. We are angry and indignant. Words cannot contain our concern. We want to see him safe and sound. The evil bastards who took him should be put on notice that they cannot just whisk a man away like that.

I texted my friends tonight about Randy and one replied: Wasn’t he part of the underground? I retorted: So what? Can’t the authorities who deem him a criminal just obtain a warrant of arrest to legally take him?

Before we get engulfed in the debate about beastly conduct and beastly treatment courtesy of death squads, a debate I do not wish to dignify further, I just wish to state that friends like Randy Malayao don’t deserve to be abducted or forcibly disappeared. Randy deserves respect. If he has done something wrong, the legal processes should be availed of.

Thus, I urge my friends and Randy’s friends to press the authorities to find him and for those who have taken him to please release him. We must act both for Randy’s sake as well for our own, so that we and our family would be spared the plight that unfortunately befell him. What the malefactors did was to terrorize both Randy and all of us.

It is imperative that we fight back, and the simplest way to do it is to add our voice to those of his family, who now cry out: Surface Randy Malayao now!

 

One Day is One Day Too Many

On the second year of the abduction and subsequent detention of the “Tagaytay 5,” we — their relatives, friends, colleagues, and sympathizers — reiterate our call for their immediate release.

They should be released at the soonest possible, at the very least because the manner of their “arrest” which led to their detention was clearly unlawful.

The “Tagaytay 5″ — Axel Pinpin, a consultant of the Kalipunan ng mga Magsasaka sa Kabite (Kamagsasaka-Ka) and a poet who was a fellow in the 1999 University of the Philippines (UP) National Writers’ Workshop; Riel Custodio, a Kamagsasaka-Ka member; Aristides Sarmiento, a freelance researcher for people’s organizations; and Tagaytay City residents Enrico Ybanez and Michael Masayes — were abducted by a composite Philippine Navy and Philippine National Police (PNP) team on April 28, 2006 in Tagaytay City. Pinpin, Custodio and Sarmiento had just come from a meeting with coffee farmers in the city and were on their way to Manila for the forthcoming Labor Day rally — with Ybanez driving for them and Masayes accompanying Ybanez.

Three days later, they were presented to the media — with most of them bearing marks of torture — as “communist rebels” who were conspiring with “dissident soldiers” in a “destabilization plot” against the Arroyo administration. They were subsequently charged with rebellion.

Last April 28, they entered their second year of detention at the PNP’s Camp Vicente Lim in Calamba City, Laguna.

It is a bitter irony that because their paths crossed in the midst of a perfectly legitimate and legal struggle for “food and freedom, jobs and justice,” in the words of the late Sen. Jose W. Diokno, they now stand accused of rebellion and languish in detention.

Their agony is being prolonged as the Tagaytay City Regional Trial Court sits on their case, conducting hearings as seldom as once every three months. We decry the court”s snail-paced action on their case. As those of us who have read the law closely know too well, “justice delayed is justice denied.”

The “Tagaytay 5″ should be released immediately. For the likes of them, a day in detention is a day too many.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

SIGN THE PETITION

Defacing History, Censoring the People

We in the Artists’ ARREST Alliance join our fellow artists in the Neo-Angono Artist s Collective in their outrage over the defacing of a press freedom mural they did for the National Press Club (NPC). At the core of this unfortunate and utterly reprehensible development lies not only the total absence of respect for the integrity of the work of art and the artists who went through the difficult process of creation to produce it, but also the issue of censorship.However hard the NPC may try to hide behind its lame excuse that the changes made are “temporary,” as so eloquently elucid ated by Joel Sy Egco, one of its directors, the censorship is evident in the alterations that were made, to wit:

* In the newspaper read by the mural’s central figure, the replacement of a statement by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) on the potential dangers of the Human Security Act (HSA) with an illustration of what Neo-Angono has described as “a hideous bird-monster in a cage”;

* In another newspaper, held by Jose Rizal depicted as a man on the street, the replacement of the headline “Press Freedom Fighter’s Son Abducted” with “Press Freedom Fight is On,” together with modifications in the likenesses of abducted activist Jonas Joseph Burgos, son of press freedom hero Jose “Joe Burgos, Jr. and his mother Edita;

* The painting of a red heart pierced by an arrow over the Alibata “K” tattoo, symbolizing kalayaan (freedom), on the arm of Andres Bonifacio depicted as a cigarette vendor;

* The erasure of the initials of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP) from the streamers of the protesting journalists, as well as the alteration of the “Stop Killing Journalis ts” slogan on another streamer;

* The lengthening of the hair and moustache of academician-columnis t Randy David, depicted as a construction engineer, and the adding of a goatee to his face;

* The change in the hair color of columnist and Martial Law detainee Juan Mercado, depicted as a pugo and balut vendor, from white to black and the adding of a moustache and a goatee to his face.

The intention in these alterations is clear: to remove any references to issues that take to task the Arroyo regime, as well as to deface or altogether eliminate the likenesses of
personalities and organizations known to be sharply critical of the ruling political clique. This is censorship, however the NPC may try to slice it.

Freedom of expression is not only the lifeblood of artists and writers and journalists, it is a sacrosanct right that lies deep in the foundations of any country like the Philippines which
claims to be a democracy. Without it, the powers that be enjoy boundless impunity.

Censorship is, then, a crime not only against freedom of expression but against democracy itself.

Artis tic freedom and press freedom are both facets of the freedom of expression. Any attack on artistic freedom must enrage not only artists but also writers and journalists, as any attack on press freedom must enrage not only writers and journalists but also
artists.

It is thus doubly despicable that the NPC, which claims to be a bastion of press freedom, has allowed itself to be a party to such a brazen travesty of artistic freedom.

The NPC has not contented itself with sinking lower than imaginable by embroiling itself in racketeering scam after racketeering scam and election scandal after election scandal within its ranks: it has sunk even lower down the rut by instigating the defacement of a mural that depicts press freedom struggles in the Philippines within the context of the Filipino people’s struggle for sovereignty, democracy, and justice.

This is a disgrace to the historical legacy of the NPC as an institution that once took a stand against the forces of tyranny, and to the memory of all Filipinos – journalists and
non-journalis ts alike – who gave their lives that genuine sovereignty and democracy and justice may one day reign in the Philippines.

The Artists’ ARREST Alliance supports the Neo-Angono Artists Collective in their fight against censorship and for the integrity of artistic creation. We urge our fellow artists and the people to take similar stands in the defense of the freedom of expression, as well as
the arts.

Artists ‘ ARREST (Artists’ Response to the Call forSocial Change and Transformation)
November 6, 2007

PAHAYAG SA PAG-IPIT SA PAGPAPALABAS NG RIGHTS

Mariing kinokondena ng UP SINING AT LIPUNAN (UP SILIP) ang pahayag mula sa MTRCB na pagkakategorya bilang X-Rated sa RIGHTS : isang koleksyon ng mga public service announcements mula sa iba’t ibang filmmakers.

Ayon sa MTRCB, makaisang panig at pagmamaliit sa pamahalaan ang nilalaman ng naturang maiikiling vidyo kaya’t di ito nararapat na maipalabas sa publiko. Tampok sa mga vidyo na ito ang mga pananaw ng mga artista’t filmmaker sa iba’t ibang isyu ukol sa karapatang pantao-mga sapilitang pagkawala, pulitikal na pamamaslang, pagsupil sa kalayaan sa pamamahayag at iba pang paglabag sa karapatang pantao. Ngunit ang bawat artista ay may kalayaang pumili ng nais niyang panigan. Sa pagkakataong ito, sa mga biktima–ang mamamayan.

Ang ganitong uri ng paniniil ay isang paghadlang sa karapatan at kalayaan ng mga alagad ng midya at ng sining na magpahayag. Marahil ay takot lamang ang mga institusyong ito na makita ang tunay na mga kaganapang sila mismo ay ayaw nilang harapin at tugunan.

Naniniwala ang UP SILIP na ang pelikula ay isang makapangyarihang porma ng sining at nararapat lamang na magsilbi ito sa panlipunang pagbabago. Kaya naman bagkus na censorship, pagkilala at pagpupugay ang dapat ihandog sa grupo ng mga filmmakers na ito na ginamit ang kanilang sining para ipamalas ang katotohanan.  At sa  ganitong mga insidente ng represyon, higit lamang nilang pinupukaw ang pagnanais ng mga artista’t filmmaker na patuloy na lumikha, magsiwalat at magmulat.

Ipagtanggol ang mga karapatang pantao!

Ipagtanggol ang kalayaan ng sining at ng pamamahayag!

Sumipat at mamulat.

UP SINING AT LIPUNAN