The families of the Bloody Sunday Massacre victims have filed cases of murder against the Philippine government before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) after the Philippine courts failed to provide them with justice. The Bloody Sunday Massacre refers to the coordinated campaign of the Duterte regime that resulted in the killing of nine activists in Southern Tagalog on March 7, 2021.

Rosenda Lemita, the mother of slain activist Ana Marie Lemita-Evangelista, and Liezl Asuncion, the wife of slain union leader Manny Asuncion, filed the said cases at the UNHRC. They had previously filed cases at the Department of Justice, which dismissed their complaints and acquitted the perpetrators after a sham investigation.

“This is the kind of ‘working justice system’ that we have in the country,” Karapatan secretary general Tinay Palabay condemned. “It is one that works to ensure impunity for the perpetrators of state-sponsored killings and deny justice to the victims.”

Meanwhile, VJ Topacio, called on the Quad Committee in Congress to include the Duterte regime’s extrajudicial killings of activists and revolutionaries in its investigations. The committee is currently hearing cases of murders committed by Rodrigo Duterte and his cohorts under the guise of a war on drugs.

Topacio is the son of slain National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultants Eugenia Magpantay and Agaton Topacio. Police killed Magpantay and Topacio, both elderly, in their residence in Rizal on November 25, 2020.

Topacio said the perpetrators of the fake war on drugs are themselves the same perpetrators of political killings. These include Debold Sinas, Lito Patay, and Romeo Caramat, police officials who are currently under investigation.