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Satur emerges for US hearing - on YouTube


At about the same time the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee opened its hearings on extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, Bayan Muna party-list Representative Satur Ocampo posted his messages on the issue via the world wide Web -- he came out on the party-list group's YouTube Channel at around 2:30 a.m. Thursday, Manila time. Ocampo, who is also House deputy minority leader, addressed his messages to the citizens of America and the international community. For a week now, he has been the subject of manhunt operations by local policemen for alleged involvement in the death in the 1980s of supposed former rebel allies. Tonyo Cruz, Bayan Muna spokesman, said the videos were posted 2:30 am on the party-list group's YouTube channel, http://youtube.com/bayanmunadotnet. 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 President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. 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 as the supposed culprit for the murders that have victimized more than 830 Filipinos including 129 Bayan Muna members. Ocampo also 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 American lawmakers 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 on Thursday. "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." - GMANews.TV

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