Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan)-Cavite condemned the arrest of five cultural activists at dawn on June 27 in Pasong Buaya, Imus, Cavite. The five were painting graffiti when state forces apprehended them. The five is now dubbed the Imus 5.
According to the group, the five were restrained, threatened, and forcibly taken while conducting graffiti operation expressing the people’s opposition to demolition and commercialization in Cavite. Before they could even paint, the victims were trailed, overwhelmingly besieged, threatened with guns, and then brought to the barangay hall.
Among the arrested are Shinice Wacan and Ronald Valderama, members of the Cavite Collective Alliance for Social Change (CCLASIC), the cultural arm of Bayan-Cavite.
Wacan comes from a community in Bacoor City that has repeatedly been subjected to demolition and fires deliberately set to drive them away from the area to make way for state infrastructure projects. She was organized into CCLASIC in 2014 alongside the so-called “hot demolition” under Bacoor City’s “rehabilitation” project as part of Mega Manila.
Valderama was organized during the demolition in Talaba 2 in 2016 and became the voice of the youth as the former Anakbayan Cavite vice chairperson. Since 2019, he has actively participated in CCLASIC, and helped in raising awareness and organizing through art.
“This kind of violent arrest of people’s artists is clearly an attack on the right to express and participate in the people’s struggle,” said Bayan-Cavite.
The group emphasized that using art as a form of protest is not a crime. The group said, “it is a legitimate form of art in holding the state accountable and opposing ongoing state violence.”
Bayan-Cavite demand the Imus 5’s immediate release. “Hold the state accountable for its continued repression of artistic resistance,” it said.
