Posted in Words for Melissa on Aug 30th, 2009
By Alexander Martin Remollino You thanked me for lending an ear to your story, which you have said you will not tire of telling. I can listen to your story a thousand times or even for a thousand years, because it is one of those stories that really matter in an age when stories are [...]
Posted in Press Statements on Aug 29th, 2009
PRESS RELEASE Contact: Kuusela Hilo Justice for Melissa Roxas Campaign Email: info@justiceformelissa.org Website: www.justiceformelissa.org While the recent ruling by the Philippine Court of Appeals (CA) in favor of Melissa Roxas’ petition for a Writ of Amparo and Writ of Habeus Data affirms Roxas’ testimony to her May abduction and torture while illegally detained as the [...]
Posted in Press Statements on Aug 27th, 2009
PRESS RELEASE Migrant Heritage Commission Fil-Am Volunteer’s U.S. Lawyer Asks Rights Watchdog To Release Findings The veil of lies put up by Philippine President Gloria M. Arroyo’s military to hide their role in the abduction and torture of Filipino-American human rights volunteer Melissa Roxas has now crumbled. With their defense in the case now shaken, [...]
Posted in Press Statements on Aug 27th, 2009
PRESS RELEASE BAYAN Philippines The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan welcomes the positive findings and decisions of the Court of Appeals in relation to the petition for a writ of amparo by our colleague Melissa Roxas. The CA has correctly pointed out that Melissa was indeed abducted and tortured and that there is no truth to the [...]
Posted in Words for Melissa on Aug 26th, 2009
From Friends of Lolas Originally posted on July 23, 2009, 5:45 PM By M. Evelina Galang Something happens to you when you are born outside of your parents’ mother country. You are born with a longing to go home to a place you’ve never been. You go about your business, being all American and knowing [...]
Posted in Words for Melissa on Aug 23rd, 2009
From Kundiman On May 19, 2009, Melissa Roxas, 31, an activist and Kundiman fellow from Los Angeles who had been doing volunteer health work in Tarlac Province in the Philippines, was kidnapped along with two other health volunteers for a nongovernmental nationalist group called Bayan. Let us participate in a community of cymbals through poems– [...]
Posted in Melissa's Words on Aug 21st, 2009
Humus by Melissa Roxas I. The composition of earth changes every time something is mixed into it. The rains come and it becomes mud when mixed with water. Seeds, when planted, flower into something that feeds you. The same is true of smell and sounds. Isn’t it often said that when you talk to plants [...]
Posted in Articles on Aug 21st, 2009
From Bulatlat.com Published on August 21, 2009, 8:24 PM The Philippine military, through its attack dogs Pastor Alcover and Jovito Palparan, are trying to discredit the Commission on Human Rights and its chairperson, Leila de Lima. Human-rights groups are understandably concerned. “Now that the CHR chairperson insists on the mandate of the commission, they consider [...]
Posted in Melissa's Words on Aug 7th, 2009
Disinter by Melissa Roxas Her red shorts were left in an abandoned shack a rag on the rotting wood floor the heavy screen door, shut the echo of her voice a scrap between the cracks… found a fingernail. It was said two women and a man were spotted somewhere along that road in a solitary [...]
Posted in Melissa's Words on Aug 2nd, 2009
[This poem was conceived and memorized by Melissa during her abduction.] Come before the Night Hour Come and Sing before Night Comes. I am Flame to the Body. The Incipient Wing that can’t Fly. The Open Skin on a Foot that Bleeds Black. Tonight I will learn to Die a Thousand Times and Be Resurrected.