Barrio Siete’s OFFICIAL STATEMENT on the Maguindanao Massacre

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Barrio Siete Collective Blog was conceived with a common goal of responsible freedom of expression, radical tracing of one’s provincial roots and the upholding of democracy via the written form of communication despite of various differences and diversity among its members.

One proof of this is the fact that Barrio Siete writers consist of members with different faiths (including Islam), with different financial and legal status, with different political views, with different ideologies, with different citizenship and with different principles in life.

Simply put it, we firmly believe in the spirit of Democracy in diversity armed with responsibility and civility. We consider ourselves as citizen journalist with Imbalanced News and Biased Views, precisely because we are not professional journalists. But despite of this we still try our very best to always present the two faces, if not, multiple faces on an issue. We are writers armed with “passion” to express what we believe in — FREEDOM and TRUTH.

But the recent Massacre in Maguindanao which murdered journalists, innocent civilians and political supporters including women threatened this same Freedom and Truth we are upholding in our blog. We are alarmed and appalled at the same time by the horrific and ghastly expression of usurpation of power and the lawlessness in our society by the very same people in the position who have sworn to protect us.

With this we at Barrio Siete dare to assume, given the circumstances of events, that implies lack of action and haste from our Philippine Government to bring to justice the men behind the attack, that Killing of innocent Lives for the sake of Staying in Power is utterly wrong, shameful and intrinsically evil.

We, the unified and solid bloggers and writers of Barrio Siete publicly condemn this gruesome ungodly act against freedom of speech and democracy in the strongest possible term.

Thus, with disgust and indignation and in support to all journalists around the world, we call on the Philippine Government under the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to:

1. STOP negotiating with the alleged suspects under the guise of Sec. Dureza and arrest those who are responsible under the burden of proof found on the scene of the crime, circumstantial evidence or otherwise, including the testimony of several witnesses. We also ask the immediate preventive relief of the people implicated on the crime, so as not to influence the on-going investigation.

2. STOP issuing statements from the Palace mouthpieces but instead ACT on the case and bring to justice the alleged perpetrators. We ask the immediate placement of the area under Comelec control.

3. STOP and break all political ties on allies in the name of fairness

4. ABOLISH all private armies on all sides of political affinity

5. and lastly, STOP ALL THE STALLING AND PROLONGATION OF THE INVESTIGATION. BRING JUSTICE TO HASTE

The implication of this massacre does not only involve journalists working on the mainstream media, but also on ordinary Filipino citizens, innocent people who are commonly called citizen journalists, and currently maintains 2 million blogs to date.

The lack of action from the Government is sending the wrong signal of tolerance and god forbid, might be repeated in the near future under a different name, different location and a different number of human lives wasted by diabolical inclination to gag freedom with the use of terror.

We ask all Filipino Bloggers, collective or individual otherwise, to make a stand against annihilation of the innocent, and uphold basic human rights to life and freedom of speech.

Barrio Siete stands by its statement.

AS AGREED UPON AND COLLABORATIVELY WRITTEN BY BARRIO SIETE WRITERS