USPG has welcomed news that Philippines President Benigno C Aquino III has ordered the withdrawal of charges against 43 illegally detained health workers.The health workers – known as the Morong 43 – were arrested in February this year without warrants and held illegally by a composite team of the Philippine Army and Philippine National Police.
The Revd Fr Rex RB Reyes Jr, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), said the President’s announcement was applauded during an ecumenical gathering in the Philippines, last Friday Dec 10, to mark international Human Rights Day.
The Morong 43 were working with poor communities, and their detention was seen as evidence of government opposition against social action that might empower the rural poor. Since 2001, more than 1,200 human rights activists, journalists and lawyers have been murdered, and hundreds of others have been attacked.
Fr Rex said: ‘We hope that the Morong 43 will be released from detention at the soonest possible time so they can be home and re-united with their families and friends. We are glad for the families and relatives who never gave up and stood on principled grounds in maintaining the wrong done to their loved ones.’ ‘Evidence wrongly gotten’ Earlier this year the President issued a statement claiming that the Morong 43 were being detained on the strength of ‘evidence wrongly gotten’. USPG has been a strong advocate calling for the release of the health workers. Fr Rex said: ‘We would like to express our most profound thanks to the solidarity and unwavering support of the international community.’