KARAPATAN: CA decision on appeal of Satur, France, Talaingod 13 is deplorable
KARAPATAN Public Information
PRESS RELEASE
December 22, 2025
Reference: Cristina Palabay, KARAPATAN secretary general, 09173162831
KARAPATAN Public Information Desk, 09189790580
KARAPATAN: CA decision on appeal of Satur, France, Talaingod 13 is deplorable
KARAPATAN assailed the affirmation by the Court of Appeals 21st Division of what the human rights alliance called the “unjust decision” on the trumped up charges against former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, ACT Teachers Partylist Rep. France Castro and 11 others.
The denial of the appeal of Ocampo, Castro and their 11 co-accused, collectively known as the Talaingod 13, is especially deplorable, said KARAPATAN secretary general Cristina Palabay, since Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and many other high-ranking government officials remain unscathed despite damning evidence that their involvement in bureaucratic corruption has reached scandalous proportions. “Impunity reigns. Our so-called justice system is skewed in favor of the rich and powerful,” added Palabay.
The fraudulent charges stemmed from the rescue in November 2018 by Ocampo’s group of 14 Lumad students who had been harassed, threatened with death and locked out of their school and dormitory by the 56th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army (IBPA) and Alamara paramilitary forces.
The beleaguered students and faculty had requested assistance from Ocampo and Castro who were then in Mindanao participating in a national solidarity mission. The group traveled immediately to Sitio Dulyan in Barangay Palma Gil, Talaingod, Davao del Norte to bring the Lumad students and teachers to safer ground.
They were intercepted, however, at a checkpoint by the Talaingod police and the 56th IBPA. Eighteen of the group, including four pastors of the United Methodist Church (UMC), were arrested and charged with child abuse. The UMC pastors were acquitted after a six-year trial, but the Tagum City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 2 decided on the unjust conviction Ocampo, Castro, eight Lumad school teachers and the administrator of the Salugpongan Community Learning Center and the Community Technical College of Southeastern Mindanao and two other teachers from the Alliance of Concerned Teachers.
“Both the RTC and the Court of Appeals have maliciously imputed that helping the Lumad students and teachers navigate through hostile territory in order to get them out of harm’s way constitutes child endangerment,” said Palabay. “They have completely disregarded the death threats and other perils faced by the Lumad teachers and students and further emboldened the military and the Alamara to commit graver human rights violations against the Talaingod 13 and other Lumad people.”
KARAPATAN said that former president Rodrigo Duterte and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict are most responsible for this judicial harassment against Ocampo, Castro and the eleven others, noting that this is their form of reprisal on the Talaingod 13’s efforts to expose the violations on human rights and international humanitarian law in Mindanao, when martial law was in effect.
“Karapatan and the rest of the human rights community will stand by Ka Satur, Teacher France and the rest of the Talaingod 13 even if their struggle brings them all the way to the Supreme Court,” declared Palabay. “Their struggle is bound to the Filipino people’s overall quest for an end to impunity and the attainment of justice and accountability.”
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KARAPATAN is an alliance of human rights organizations and programs, human rights desks and committees of people’s organizations, and individual advocates committed to the defense and promotion of people’s rights and civil liberties. It monitors and documents cases of human rights violations, assists and defends victims and conducts education, training and campaign.