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The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary
or Arbitrary Executions, Philip Alston, whom Justice Secretary Raul
Gonzalez called a “muchacho” who should not be given any
importance, on Monday told the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council
of the good work the Arroyo administration has done to bring about
improvements in the handling of human rights abuses.
“Many actors contributed to bringing about
this major improvement and the government deserves credit for its
part. As I urged in my report, a clear message has been sent to the
armed forces,” Alston said. He noted the decline by two-thirds in
politically-related murders here, attributing it to government
efforts to curb the allegedly military- and police-linked
extrajudicial killings of militants and rights activists.
The Commission on Human Rights of the
Philippines also gave a statement in Geneva. Commissioner Cecilia
R.V. Quisumbing said the CHRP basically agrees with the UN
Rapporteur, who found Philippine law-enforcement efforts against
human rights violators to be wanting.
The CHRP and the UN Rapporteur also share the
opinion that there is no state policy approving or encouraging
extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of Left-wing
activists, human rights campaigners and journalists.
Most Filipinos perceive these murders and other
human rights crimes to be perpetrated with impunity by paramilitary
operatives working for the government military.
Although there has been a drop in EJKs in 2007,
Alston as well as the CHRP, as Commissioner Quisumbing says, “are
of the position that the government must increase its efforts to
ensure that the momentum [of EJK decline] is not only maintained but
accelerated and these violations be stopped once and for all.”
Rebels commit rights abuses
Alston had also pointed to the rebels and
insurgent forces as human rights abusers. CHRP Commissioner
Quisumbing said, “The Philippine Commission expresses its
appreciation for the constructive comments of the Special Rapporteur,
Prof. Philip Alston, and for his recognition that non-state actors
have also played a role in extrajudicial killings. International law
in this area must be developed further to reflect current challenges
in many countries.”
[To obviate confusion, we must explain at this
point, that Cecilia is the daughter of the recently retired CHRP
chair Purificacion Valera Quisumbing (who was replaced only on May
12 by Lawyer Leila de Lima).]
Alston’s says also that the leadership of the
Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army/National
Democratic Front “has failed to take any steps to avoid or deter
these killings.” He said the Communists’ “system of
‘people’s courts’ is deeply flawed at best or a sham at
worst.”
Improvements not enough
Alston is dissatisfied with the improvements
because “only the first steps have been taken so far. Not a single
soldier has yet been convicted and punished for any of these
killings.” And he laments that victims have not been given justice
and that the government and the military and police authorities have
not taken the necessary steps “ to deter commanders from returning
in the future to [the practice of] such killings.”
Perhaps the UN Rapporteur would not have been as
pessimistic if the new Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen.
Alexander Yano, had been around in 2007. For in General Yano’s
first address to the officers and men of the AFP he gave the message
that he gives the highest value to the dignity and human rights of
every human being and that he expects government officers and
soldiers to do the same. Even in the course of fighting to uphold
the sovereignty of the Republic against enemies, he told the
government’s soldiery, they must at the same time never fail to
consider the human rights of the enemy.
But, perhaps, the future Alston fears has come.
The latest news from General Santos City is that
the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission, which monitors
rights abuses throughout our continent, is asking the Arroyo
administration to urgently look into the extrajudicial killings in
GenSan. Some 30 persons have been summarily executed in just the
past three months. Some of the victims are minors.
Davao City “death squads”
Alston also mentions the cases of more than 500
people killed in the last decade by alleged members of the notorious
“Davao Death Squad.”
“Most of the victims were suspected of petty
crimes, some were just street kids seen as undesirables. The
evidence points very strongly to the officially-sanctioned character
of these killings,” Alston said in Geneva.
Alston urges the government to stop the killing
of suspected criminals (not Communist or Muslim separatist rebels).
The UN Rapporteur named Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in
particular. “I met with Mayor Duterte who had boasted publicly
that he would make Davao ‘dangerous’ for criminals,” Alston
said. “I continue to receive reports suggesting that death squad
‘justice’ may be used in Cebu and in other parts of Mindanao.”
In our country, ordinary people, especially the
middle and upper classes and businessmen, are fed up with criminals.
Of this Alston says: “Defending the rights of street children may
be unpopular, but no one deserves to be shot or stabbed to death for
petty crimes.”
CHRP Chair Leila de Lima and Commissioner
Quisumbing and their other colleagues have a lot more to do.
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