EU human rights leader barred from entering PH

Giacomo Filibeck, deputy secretary-general of the PES, was invited by Akbayan Partylist as one of its foreign guests to join the Akbayan Partylist Congress which will be held today, April 16. (Photo: Party of European Socialists)

An official of the Party of European Socialists (PES) was barred by immigration officials in Cebu to enter the country on Sunday, April 15.

Giacomo Filibeck, deputy secretary-general of the PES, was invited by Akbayan Partylist as one of its foreign guests to join the Akbayan Partylist Congress which will be held today, April 16. PES is a sister party of Akbayan.

Filibeck, however, was held and immediately deported by immigration officials upon his arrival at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport yesterday, according to Akbayan.

Authorities handed a slip to Filibeck which shows that he needs to fulfill the “Black List Order (BLO) Lifting” before he can enter the Philippines.

Akbayan’s Justine Balane said that among the 20 foreign guests invited, only the European human rights leader was barred from entering.

“He was blacklisted by the Philippine government as he was part of the international solidarity mission in October 2017 where they denounced the killings,” Balane was quoted as saying in a Rappler report.

“Now the Philippine government is accusing him of ‘illegal political activities,'” he added.

Reacting to this move, Akbayan said that it condemns, in the strongest terms, the detention and deportation of Filibeck.

“Are we in a dictatorship? The deportation of Filibeck is a deplorable act of silencing the strong voices for human rights,” Akbayan said in a statement.

It added that Duterte, who is currently being examined in the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged human rights violations, “is scared of the global condemnation against his policy to kill.”

“He is hiding something about the killings in the Philippines. This is a clear sign that Duterte will block all efforts to bring justice to Filipino victims of the killings,” Akbayan stressed.

Filibeck once denounced the President for his crackdown on illegal drugs. He was part of the delegation, along with members of the Progressive Alliance (PA), that went to the Philippines in October 2017 to look into the alleged human rights violations in the country.