I was there as the facts were gathered. I held the statements from rights groups, the legal motions, and the witnesses’ accounts. The evidence was planted. The accusations were political. The illegal arrest was meant to silence the struggle of the Indigenous Peoples.
[TAGALOG] Nilukot ng Panunupil, Bitbit ng Paglaban
It began in the quiet hours of the morning.
A raid. July 16, 2021. Manobo activist Julieta Gomez and Indigenous Peoples’ rights advocate Niezel Velasco were arrested in Quezon City by a joint police-military team. The trumped-up charges were murder, attempted murder, and illegal possession of firearms and explosives. Some media echoed the state’s narrative. Photographs of seized rifles, grenades, and a New Peoples Army flag were circulated. Officials claimed they were high-ranking rebels. But those who knew the truth saw through it immediately.
Julieta, an activist from Agusan del Sur, had long been at the forefront of defending ancestral lands from mining and militarization. As a member of KASALO Caraga and a council member of Katribu Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas’ National Council of Leaders, she led campaigns for Indigenous land rights and organized community activities. She also served as a teacher in Lumad schools and as a provincial focal person for the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC). Her work was rooted in collective struggle.
Niezel was no stranger to the communities she served, either. She had worked for years in Indigenous communities in Mindanao, providing emergency assistance to Lumad. She led disaster response efforts after typhoons Yolanda, Sendong, Pablo, Seniang, Auring, and Basyang. As former NAPC LocalAffairs Coordinating and Monitoring Services community organizer, she coordinated marine sanctuary protection and livelihood projects for fisherfolk in Caraga. She trained communities in disaster preparedness.
I was there as the facts were gathered.
I held the statements from rights groups, the legal motions, and the witnesses’ accounts. The evidence was planted. The accusations were political. The illegal arrest was meant to silence the struggle of the Indigenous Peoples. The raid happened at 1:30 a.m. in Barangay Pansol. The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group claimed to have found rifles, grenades, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. But the items were discovered only after the two were already handcuffed. The inconsistencies were glaring.
I moved through offices and communities, through forums and detention centers. I carried the names of the wrongfully accused, the contradictions in the police narrative, and the calls for solidarity. I bore witness to the grief of those who knew this wasn’t just a legal case—it was an attack on every Indigenous advocate who dared to speak.
And then, I was lifted.
I felt the wind and the sun. I heard the chants echoing through the crowd. I was held high above heads, turned outward toward the world. The words across me were no longer quiet—they were assertions. I was no longer confined to folders or courtrooms. I was in the streets, among those who refused to be silenced.
Around me were others—faces of the disappeared, names of the illegally detained, slogans demanding the release of political prisoners and accountability from the perpetrators of human rights violations. I saw calls for justice for slain Indigenous leaders, for an end to red-tagging, and for the repeal of laws that criminalize dissent. I heard the voices of the Indigenous Peoples, advocates, and human rights defenders: Makibaka! Huwag matakot!
I felt the tremble of hands that held me, not with fear, but with resolve. I was waved in the rain, photographed by journalists, and shared across timelines. I was no longer just a record; I was part of the resistance.
Even after Niezel’s acquittal in April 2025, I remained close to the struggle. The court had dismissed the charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives for lack of evidence. The murder and attempted murder cases had already been dropped in Surigao Del Sur and Agusan Del Norte in 2022 and 2023. But the harassment didn’t end—not immediately.
New false charges surfaced: estafa, unjust vexation, and maltreatment, filed under the name “Mary Jane Velasco,” a person Niezel had no connection to. Despite repeated clarifications, the legal system and state forces redirected these cases to her. The estafa charge was finally dismissed by Quezon City Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 34 on June 25, 2025, due to lack of merit and prosecution. And then, on July 31, 2025, the Antipolo Municipal Trial Court formally discharged Niezel from the remaining unjust vexation and maltreatment cases. The court recognized what the Indigenous Peoples and advocates had long insisted: these charges were not hers. The misattribution was not a clerical error—it was a tactic of repression.
This was not just a legal victory, but a testament to collective resistance. Niezel’s years of service to Lumad communities and her disaster response work had been criminalized by a system that fears collective action. That the fight for justice continues, even after the last case is dropped.
I’ve been present in silence and uproar, grief and defiance.
I’ve carried truths that institutions tried to bury. I’ve moved through protest lines, courtrooms, and communities. I’ve been marked by ink, by tape, by fingerprints. I’ve been folded, waved, archived, but never discarded
But I am only paper—creased by repression, carried by resistance. I’ve been folded into affidavits, taped onto protest signs, passed hand to hand. I’ve held the anger of Indigenous communities, the strength of those who resist. I’ve absorbed the urgency of advocates who risk arrest just to speak. I’ve been raised in the streets, soaked in rain, trembling in defiance. I’ve stood outside camps, inside courtrooms, bearing names the state tried to silence. Their stories are etched into me. And like them I will not forget. #