Satur Ocampo
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Saturnino "Satur" Cunanan Ocampo (born April 7, 1939) is a Filipino politician, activist, journalist, and writer. As party president and first nominee, he led the party-list group Bayan Muna in three successful elections in 2001, 2004, and 2007. He was a member of the
House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entities. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often ...
, and Deputy Minority Leader in the 14th Congress of the Philippines. He has done work in human rights and other areas. After his three terms as representative, he ran for
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in the May 2010 elections; then-Representative Liza Maza of the women's partylist group GABRIELA and Ocampo were fielded by the Makabayan coalition and were included as guest senatorial candidates of the
Nacionalista Party The Nacionalista Party (Filipino language, Filipino and Spanish language in the Philippines, Spanish: ''Partido Nacionalista''; , NP) is a political party in the Philippines which is the oldest existing party in the country and in Southeast Asi ...
, a mainstream Philippine political party whose presidential standard bearer, Senator
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, they supported. After the elections, on August 21, 2010, Ocampo started a weekly opinion column in the ''
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'' titled "At Ground Level".


Activism

Ocampo was a business editor of the pre-martial law ''
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'' and was the founder of the Business and Economic Reporters Association of the Philippines. He is a lifetime member of the National Press Club.
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Ferdinand Marcos Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos Sr. (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989) was a Filipino lawyer, politician, dictator, and Kleptocracy, kleptocrat who served as the tenth president of the Philippines from 1965 to 1986. He ruled the c ...
declared martial law on September 23, 1972, and Ocampo, among others, went underground. In 1973, Ocampo co-founded of the National Democratic Front (NDF), seeking to unite various anti-dictatorship forces. In 1976, he was arrested and incarcerated as a political prisoner. For the next nine years he was severely tortured in various prison camps. At one point, he shared a cell with detained '' Philippine Collegian'' editor-in-chief Abraham Sarmiento, Jr. Though tried by a military court for rebellion, he was never found guilty. In 1985, while on pass to vote at the National Press Club annual elections, he escaped from the soldiers guarding him and rejoined the underground revolutionary movement. At the time of his escape, Ocampo was the longest-held political prisoner in the country. After the dictatorship fell in 1986, President
Corazon Aquino María Corazón "Cory" Sumulong Cojuangco-Aquino (; January 25, 1933 – August 1, 2009) was a Filipino politician who served as the 11th president of the Philippines and the first woman president in the country, from Presidency of Corazon ...
called for peace talks with the communists. Ocampo headed the peace negotiating panel of the NDF, which represents the
Communist Party of the Philippines The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP; ) is a far-left, Marxist–Leninist–Maoist revolutionary organization and communist party in the Philippines, formed by Jose Maria Sison on 26 December 1968. The CPP has been fighting a gue ...
and the
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. When the talks collapsed due to the killing of 18 farmers at a rally near the Malacañan Palace on January 22, 1987, Ocampo returned to the underground. In 1989, he was rearrested together with his wife, Carolina Malay. Three years later in 1992, a year after his wife was released, he was freed. Neither was found guilty of any crime. On November 28, 2018, Ocampo,
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Rep. France Castro and over 70 others were arrested on allegations of kidnapping and human trafficking over the transport of
Lumad The Lumad are a group of Austronesian indigenous peoples in the southern Philippines. It is a Cebuano term meaning "native" or "indigenous". The term is short for Katawhang Lumad (Literally: "indigenous people"), the autonym officially ado ...
minors from the town of Talaingod, Davao Del Norte. Ocampo's group was released after posting bail of PHP80,000 each. In July 2024, Tagum City Regional Trial Court Branch 2 Judge Jimmy Boco sentenced Ocampo, Castro, and 11 others to 4 years to 6 years imprisonment, including P10,000 as civil indemnity and P10,000 as moral damages. The court ruled that the accused known as “Talaingod 18” violated Section 10(a) of Republic Act 7610, for endangerment of 14 Lumad students of the Salugpongan Ta Tanu Ingkanogan Community Learning Center in Talaingod, Davao del Norte. Ocampo appealed the decision before the regional trial court. Human rights groups criticized the decision of the court.
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placed the conviction in the context of red-tagging and other "bogus" accusations against Lumad schools in Mindanao. ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights described the verdict as an "absurd decision that has no basis in reality", while ACT-NCR Union said the verdict was dangerous precedent that "criminalizes acts of solidarity and support for marginalized communities". On December 4, 2024, Ocampo and 74 others with the endorsement of Rep. Castro filed the second impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte, citing betrayal of public trust for her office's alleged misuse of confidential funds.


References


External links


Satur Ocampo official profile
from the
House of Representatives of the Philippines The House of Representatives (; '','' thus commonly referred to as ''Kamara'') is the lower house of Congress of the Philippines, Congress, the bicameral legislature of the Philippines, with the Senate of the Philippines as the upper house. The ...

Satur Ocampo official profile
from the Bayan Muna website
Bayan Muna
- official website * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ocampo, Satur 1939 births Living people Business and financial journalists Filipino activists Filipino male journalists Filipino Roman Catholics Kapampangan people Marcos martial law victims Members of the House of Representatives of the Philippines for Bayan Muna Nacionalista Party politicians People from Pampanga The Philippine Star people Polytechnic University of the Philippines alumni Torture_victims