Nagpakita na si Ka Satur!

March 15, 2007
Ka Satur comes out for US Senate hearing – on YouTube

House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo made true his promise to participate in the US Senate hearing on extrajudicial killings besetting the Philippines.

While Philippine officials are spending undetermined amounts of precious taxpayers' money, Ocampo preferred the less expensive and modern way – by coming out with two videotaped messages addressed to US citizens and the international community.

The videos were posted on http://youtube.com/bayanmunadotnet -- Bayan Muna's newly-formed YouTube channel – at around 2:30 am this morning or about the same time the US Senate foreign relations subcommittee began its hearing in Washington DC.

In his two videotaped messages, Ocampo urged the international community to reject the lies of the Arroyo government and look into the role of the counter-insurgency Oplan Bantay Laya approved by the President.

He also took the opportunity to explain at length the legal shortcuts and violations to due process in the concocted multiple-murder case against him, for which he asked the international community for support.

Ocampo said that Oplan Bantay Laya's targeting of both armed combatants and unarmed activists, and the tagging of Bayan Muna as a communist front explains both the political slays and the political persecution of anti-Arroyo Members of Congress.

He stressed that the Arroyo government's own Melo Commission and the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings have rejected authorities' claims of an ongoing communist purge as the supposed culprit for the murders that have victimized more than 830 Filipinos including 129 Bayan Muna members.

Ocampo thanked the US organizations and churches for their lobby efforts that have successfully compelled the powerful foreign relations committees of both houses of the US Congress to take on the issue of unresolved and continuing political killings under Arroyo.

Ocampo urged them to undertake more fact-finding missions so they themselves will find out the real situation.

As he expressed gratitude for the groundswell of support, the former political detainee and peace negotiator called on the international community to strengthen solidarity with Filipinos especially activists and partylist representatives such as himself.

Bayan Muna's Media Bureau said that more videos will be posted today March 15.

"There are at least three more videos which we will upload within the day. These videos are addressed to Bayan Muna members and the millions who have made Bayan Muna the Number One partylist in surveys and actual elections," said a statement from the party's media bureau. "We intend to show and play these videos and their audio versions in sorties, forums and in our mobile electoral campaign vehicles."

The statement added that "the videos will be an addition to Bayan Muna's public information arsenal as we wage battle against the black propaganda emanating from Malacanang, Camp Crame and Camp Aguinaldo. We intend to maximize our YouTube channel for our national and international reelection campaign."