Less killings, but government not doing enough — Karapatan

THE number of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances may have decreased this year, but human rights alliance Karapatan says that the government “has done little to stop the political killings and disappearances except take token steps to assuage local and international outcry.”

Karapatan tallied 68 victims of extrajudicial killings and and 26 enforced disappearances from January to October this year. In 2006, the group reported a total of 209 cases of extrajudicial killings and 78 enforced disappearances, the highest since 2001.

Since Arroyo took over, the group says there has been a total of 887 extrajudicial killings and 185 enforced disappearances all over the country.

Read Karapatan’s 2007 human rights report.

Against this backdrop, Bayan and other leftist organizations were horrified that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was recently awarded the Universidad de Alcala’s highest civilian award, the Medalla de Oro (Gold Medal), during her state visit to Spain for her “defense of human rights, particularly her role in abolishing the death penalty in the Philippines.”

In response, Karapatan members gathered at the University of the Philippines campus today, International Human Rights Day, and “presented” Mrs. Arroyo with a “Medalya de Horror (Medal of Horror)” for her administration’s dismal record in defending human rights.

Source: Karapatan

Karapatan credits the decrease in political killings and disappearances not to the Arroyo government’s efforts but to “the continuing protests and calls for justice by victims of human rights violations, people’s organizations and individual human rights defenders.”

For sure though, international pressure and initiatives by the Supreme Court (SC) have also kept the issue of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the public discourse.

Karapatan and other human rights organizations have scored government initiatives such as Task Force Usig and the Melo Commission. Karapatan calls both groups “whitewash mechanisms” by the Arroyo government. Task Force Usig has recorded only 116 cases of slaying of activists, claiming Karapatan’s statistics are “exaggerated.” It says charges have been filed in connection with 56 of the cases, while 60 cases are still under investigation.

The Hong Kong Mission for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines, after conducting a follow-up fact-finding probe, deplored the slow grind of justice for victims of political killings. There have been no convictions and little development in the investigation of these cases, it said.

In cases of enforced disappearances, it said that the justice system in the country relied heavily on witnesses’ testimonies, but did not provide the “necessary protection mechanisms that should make the system work.”

Lack of trust was one of the reasons why Karapatan and other leftist groups boycotted the Melo Commission. After hearing the testimony of military generals, the commission released a report saying there was no official State policy that sanctioned such killings, and that there was circumstantial evidence linking some elements of the military to human rights violations.

The military was heavily criticized in the preliminary findings of Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. Alston said that the military “remains in a state of almost total denial…of its need to respond effectively and authentically to the significant number of killings that have been convincingly attributed to them.” He added that the President needed to persuade the military to recognize the facts.

In an oral report before the UN, Alston criticized key government agencies, particularly the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, the Ombudsman, the Department of Justice, and Malacañang for shirking their responsibilities in upholding human rights in the Philippines. Alston’s second interim report blamed a distorted criminal justice system and the government’s counter-insurgency strategy for the spate of extrajudicial killings.

Alston’s final report said that the military deliberately targeted and systematically hunted down leaders of leftist organizations, resulting in the hundreds of extrajudicial killings within the past six years.

Aside from Alston, the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal based in The Hague, The Netherlands handed down a guilty verdict to Arroyo and the Philippine government for “crimes against humanity” in connection with charges of extrajudicial killings, abductions and disappearances, massacres, and torture perpetrated against civilians.

The government was also criticized in a United States Senate hearing this year, where senators threatened to hold back U.S. military aid if the government failed to act on human rights violations.

“Unfortunately in our country with a democratic form of government, the rights of the people are not always fully respected. And the culprits: among others, public servants and elected officials,” said Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the influential Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines.

While most of the government has been scored for its inaction towards human rights violations, the Supreme Court has been commended for holding a summit on extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. The High Court gathered experts from various government agencies, members of Congress and the judiciary, nongovernmental organizations, the academe, media, and foreign groups. One of its main recommendations was to focus on the State’s responsibility to protect its citizens, and on the responsibility of its officials to ensure the compliance of State agents with human rights laws.

The SC also released the writ of amparo, which provides more pro-active measures like the protection of witnesses and a court order for investigation into human rights violations. It is also set to release the writ of habeas data, which allows for access to intelligence information in order to correct erroneous or misleading entries.