03/09/2026
DROP TRUMPED-UP CHARGES AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS! HANDS OFF DYAN GUMANAO! HANDS OFF JOHN RUIZ AND JHONGGIE RUMOL!
Former NUSP Vice President for Visayas, Dyan Gumanao and two other Cebu activists are facing state intimidation through an arrest warrant issued by RTC Branch 55 in January 2024. John Ruiz III, Vice President for Visayas of MAKABAYAN Coalition, was arrested by elements of CIDG last August 31 but was later released on bail. The same arrest warrant includes Jhonggie Rumol, a community development worker and former Executive Director or VIHDA. Gumanao and Rumol are yet to post bail for their temporary release.
Dyan Gumanao has long stood at the forefront of the struggle for students’ rights and against the commercialization of education. During her days as a student leader, she campaigned for free education that led to the passage of the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act in 2017. She staunchly opposed the tuition fee increase in private education institutions and established the STOP TOFI ALLIANCE in Cebu. As Chairperson of the UP Cebu University Student Council, she fought to abolish the Socialized Tuition Scheme (STS) in the UP System, budget cuts in education, and student repression.
This is not the first time that the state has resorted to silencing human rights defenders. The same machinery of fascism has also been directed against Dyan and her partner back in 2023. They were apprehended in broad daylight at one of the busiest ports in Cebu City. The same attacks has been perpetrated against John Ruiz and Jhonggie Rumol who were previously charged with frustrated homicide for an alleged armed encounter in Toboso, Negros Occidental. Rumol was also charged with terrorism financing in the same year with 26 other community development workers but was later dismissed in 2026. Ruiz is also one of the 7 activists charged with violations of BP 880 for an anti-corruption protest conducted in front of DPWH Region VII. The repeated filing of criminal charges against activists and human rights defenders reveals a disturbing tendency in which legal mechanisms are used not only to prosecute, but to intimidate and silence dissent.
Such repression is not confined to the state. Students and youth continue to face restrictive and repressive policies within educational institutions, where student activists and organizations are subjected to administrative control, intimidation, and vilification for speaking out on campus and national issues. Whether through state authorities or school administrations, those who organize and challenge existing structures are increasingly treated as threats rather than as members of the community exercising their rights.
This recurring motif of repression creates a climate of fear among students and young people. When student leaders and activists are criminalized for their advocacy, it leads students to believe that speaking out can cost them their freedom, education, livelihood, or safety. But fear must not become a tool for silencing dissent.
As students and youth, we refuse to be intimidated. We must continue to organize, speak out, and defend our rights. The attacks should not drive us into silence, but rather, strengthen our resolve to stand together against repression. We condemn the use of criminal charges and the justice system to harass, intimidate, and silence activists, community organizers, and human rights defenders. We call for the immediate dismissal of the trumped-up charges against Dyan Gumanao and all other activists facing similar forms of judicial harassment.
Hands off activists. Defend our right to organize. Junk the trumped-up charges.
END STATE FASCISM.
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We also appeal for support to raise the needed bail bond of PHP 240,000.00 for Rumol and Gumanao.
Donation channel:
CLEISTEIL CIMAFRANCA
MariBank Philippines Inc.
10409410177
