Karapatan condemned the National Task Force (NTF)-Elcac for its continued judicial harassment against its officials, as well as leaders of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines (RMP) and Gabriela. This is in relation to the renewed attempt of Ret. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and the NTF-Elcac to ask the Court of Appeals in December 2024 to overturn the perjury cases filed against the groups back in 2019.

In January 2023, four years after the case was filed, Judge Aimee Marie B. Alcera of the Quezon City Metropolitan Court Branch 139 dismissed the perjury case against 10 members of Karapatan, RMP, and Gabriela.

Esperon refused to recognize the court’s decision and accused the judge of “abusing her discretion.” Esperon and the NTF-Elcac filed a motion for reconsideration in March 2023, which ultimately upheld the court’s earlier decision. In February 2024, Esperon then brought the case to the Regional Trial Court which once again upheld the decision. They appealed again in December 2024.

“After being stymied in their attempts to overturn the acquittal at the MTC and RTC levels, they are now turning to the Court of Appeals,” Karapatan said in a statement. The group’s secretary general, Cristina Palabay, described the move as “desperate.”

“[Esperon] and his NTF-ELCAC cabal have an obsessive urge to persecute us, and are deluded enough to think they can succeed, despite having been thwarted at every turn for lack of merit,” Palabay added. The group further emphasized that this squanders public funds and a waste of the court’s time.

Palabay strongly denounced this continued repression against human rights defenders. “We demand an end to the attacks and reiterate our call for the abolition of the NTF-Elcac,” Palabay said.