Uphold the Indigenous People's rights! JUSTICE FOR JOVY CAPION AND CHILDREN!!!

Manifestations in front of DOJ, Manila (Photo by Kamp Katribu)

The news is very much dismaying! 

Only days before the first anniversary of the murders of 27-year-old Juvy Capion and her two sons in a gun-strafing incident in Tampakan, Kimlawis, Davao del Sur, a resolution was received by the complainant, Sukim K. Malid, from the Office of the Provincial Prosecutor in Digos City, Davao del Sur ordering the dismissal of the murder raps filed against Lt. Col. Noel Alexis Bravo, Lt. Dante Jimenez and fourteen others.

The court’s decision to dismiss the charges against Lt. Bravo and the others is outrageous. How can the testimony of a survivor of the Capion massacre be insufficient and circumstantial? The other witnesses reached the crime scene only minutes after the volley of gunfire racked the Capions’ hut, and saw only members of the 27th IB in the scene, cleaning up the crime scene.

Capion was an indigenous Blaan leader. A year ago today, she and her sons were killed by multiple gunshot wounds. allegedly by elements of the 27th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army. The Capion family’s slay is linked to the tribe’s protracted defiance of mining operations in their ancestral territories. 

In the resolution submitted by Prosecutor I Jayson Banjal and approved by Provincial Prosecutor Artemio A. Tajon, it described the evidences filed by the complainants as circumstantial, and insufficient to establish probable cause for murder. 

The resolution was received by IP group with a manifestation in front of the Department Of Justice, Padre Faura, Ermita, Manila.

The court’s decision to dismiss the charges against Lt. Bravo and the others is outrageous. How can the testimony of a survivor of the Capion massacre be insufficient and circumstantial? The other witnesses reached the crime scene only minutes after the volley of gunfire racked the Capions’ hut, and saw only members of the 27th IB in the scene, cleaning up the crime scene. Who else could have possibly killed the Capion family? ”  Piya Macliing Malayao, spokeswoman of KAMP demanded. “Even the AFP admits that there were violations in the rules of engagement"

 We are not in grief. We are furious that none of their slaughterers are held accountable for their brutal crime,”  Malayao said. “The resolution of the DOJ to dismiss the case is a huge step backwards for the achievement of justice for their killings.”

Today. October 18, is the anniversary of the slaying of a brave woman and her children who died in defence of what is righfully belongs to her and her tribespeople. That justice is denied by the Philippine court is a sign that even justice is in the grasps of the hyenous animals in the government and its military murderers.

JUSTICE FOR JOVY CAPION AND OTHERS WHO WERE MURDERED IN DEFENCE OF INDIGENOUS RIGHTS TO THEIR OWN LAND!!!