(Unity of Women for Freedom– Philippines) Kaisa Ka National Office: # 22-A Libertad St. Highway Hills, Mandaluyong City, Philippines 1501
Telefax: (632) 717 3262
Email: kaisa_ka98@yahoo.com and kaisakasakalayaan@kaisaka.org Website: www.kaisaka.org

Press Statement
October 25,2010 Contact Person: Atty Virginia Suarez-Pinlac #639298127864

Resolve the Case of the Malaya Lolas, Stop Threatening Critics

KAISA KA, the feminist organization that has been assisting the Malaya Lolas since 2002, laments what appears to many as the Supreme Court’s retaliatory move against the faculty of the UP College of Law and calls on the high court to take internal corrective measures instead so that it could move on to resolve the long-drawn case of the victims of the gruesome war crimes in Candaba, Pampanga.

It was on March 8, 2004 yet when the Malaya Lolas, the organization of women survivors of the siege of Mapaniqui, with the help of Center Law, filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to compel the government to espouse their demands for redress from the Japanese government. In a decision dated April 28, 2010, the Supreme Court dismissed the case. The Malaya Lolas filed a motion for reconsideration on May 31 and on July 19, they filed a supplemental motion for reconsideration when they found out that some portions of the Supreme Court decision were lifted without citations from articles of legal experts from Britain and the US and were misused against the Malaya Lolas.

The supplemental motion created a stir especially because the authors of the articles called the attention of the Supreme Court and their letters are on the internet. Also, 37 faculty members from the UP College of Law came out with a position paper assailing the plagiarism. But the Supreme Court ruled that no plagiarism was committed and is asking the faculty to explain.

With the attention the Supreme Court is now getting, it is has become difficult for the judicial body to extricate itself from the debacle without amending its own resolution. We ask the Supreme Court to do it fast so that it could proceed to resolve the motion of reconsideration asking the Philippine government through the Department of Foreign Affairs to take on the Malaya Lolas’ demand for justice.

We would like to remind the Supreme Court: When the petition was filed in 2004, some 70 women survivors signed the petition. Now, they are down to 52, as another Lola died while they were debating on plagiarism.
The Supreme Court concedes that these women underwent unimaginable horror in the hands of the Japanese soldiers. It is but right that the government takes up their cause.