Canadian
Group Says HR is Victim of GMA’s ‘War on Terror’
Philippine Army replaces PNP as top human rights
violator
as world marks Human
Rights Day
As
the Philippines joins the world in celebrating Human Rights Day on Dec. 10,
government’s silent war against the armed Left continues to exact its toll
belying earlier claims by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that she will uphold
human rights. Reports show that in just two years, Macapagal-Arroyo’s record
of human rights violations surpasses that of her predecessor, Joseph Estrada,
who himself languishes in a hospital detention.
By
Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com
Over
a year ago, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared her government’s “war
on terror.” The war has since been used as a rehash of the armed forces’
counter-insurgency campaign, leaving a
trail of military atrocities which human rights groups say has surpassed the
record of the ousted Estrada government.
So
alarming has been the impact of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration’s silent
war against the Left that the Canada-based BC Committee on Human Rights in the
Philippines says in its latest report released to the press this weekend,
“Human rights is the biggest collateral damage in the Arroyo government’s
vicious war of terror.”
Citing
reports by the Philippine human rights alliance, Karapatan, the committee, which
has its offices in Vancouver, said “The painful scenario of the human rights
situation in the Philippines today only proves that the ‘war against
terrorism’ being waged by Arroyo’s strong republic is an ‘all-out war
against the Filipino people.’”
A
United Nations special rapporteur is currently in the Philippines to investigate
reports of human rights violations committed by government forces particularly
against indigenous communities. Early this year, the London-based Amnesty
International, the Washington-based Human Rights Watch and even the U.S. State
Department have warned about the rise of human rights violations in the country
despite commitments by the new government following the fall of the Estrada
government to uphold human rights.
Counter-insurgency
The
BC Committee on Human Rights reports of the rise in the number of cases as a
result of the counter-insurgency drive against the Left, including its alleged
front organizations: 19 cases of human rights violations every week where at
least two persons are killed.
“From
a total of 1,545 documented cases in at least 407 barangays, there are 19 cases
of human rights violations every week under the Arroyo administration,” the
committee reveals.
Surprisingly,
based on the reports, the Philippine Army has replaced the Philippine National
Police (PNP) as top human rights violation. Most cases of human rights
violations (69 percent) are perpetrated by the Army and its Special Forces
Companies. Following them are the PNP and its mobile groups and special action
forces (13 percent); and hired goons, vigilante groups and other paramilitary
forces (13 percent), its adds. The PNP had been earlier leading the list of
human rights violators, based on reports by the government’s Commission on
Human Rights.
Meanwhile,
since January 2001, 167 activists, mass leaders and suspected NPA sympathizers
have been killed; 851 suspected “terrorists” have also been arrested without
warrant and more than a hundred have been reportedly tortured.
Twenty-seven
persons went missing. Three of the victims, the committee says, were found dead,
two were tortured and, against their will, were forced to become military
informers. Others who surfaced later bore signs of severe physical and
psychological torture. Sixteen of the 27 “desapericidos” remain missing.
The
committee also cites 84 incidents of forced evacuation in some 64 barangays
nationwide.
Bombings,
indiscriminate firing
Another
human rights group, the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP),
reports that from January 2001 to October this year, 9,206 civilians became
victims of bombings and indiscriminate firing by military, paramilitary and
police forces. Most of those affected were farmers, fisherfolk and indigenous
peoples in both suspected NPA and Muslim secessionist lairs.
In
a primer released last November, EMJP also reports that 18,695 more civilians
were harassed by government forces; similar cases took place in labor
picketlines in the cities. If Muslim suspects are included, a total of 838
persons were illegally arrested and detained; 105 of them were tortured.
Human
rights defenders, too
If
mere suspicion of being NPA or Muslim secessionist sympathizer could subject one
to military abuse, those who are tasked to protect human rights are also
victimized. On Dec. 5 alone, the chair of Karapatan in Mindoro Occidental,
Pastor Rodel Gregorio, was reportedly arrested along with 15 others. The
alliance’s secretary general in the same province, Jojo Velasco, was also
declared missing and possibly abducted.
Gregorio,
together with his companions, was aboard a jeep with a loudspeaker announcing
this week’s Human Rights Day activities in Sablayan town when arrested around
9 a.m. by a police unit under a certain Colonel Gabriel. They were accused with
sedition and vandalism.
It
is in Mindoro Oriental, the other province comprising the Mindoro island several
kilometers southwest of Metro Manila, where government’s counter-insurgency
campaign has exacted its biggest toll. Accused before the Department of Justice
(DoJ) of masterminding the series of extra-judicial killings in the province is
Col. Jovito Palparan, commanding officer of the dreaded 205th
Infantry Brigade of the Philippine Army. Palparan has since been acquitted by
the DoJ in the assassination of Bayan Muna leader Edilberto Napoles, Jr.
Apparently,
the perennial target of Palparan’s forces is Bayan Muna, the party-list group
which topped last year’s congressional elections in that category, and other
cause-oriented organizations. Twenty-eight of the party’s organizers, leaders
and activists have been killed in the province, most of them under Palparan’s
“Campaign Plan Habol Tamaraw,” the human rights alliance Karapatan reports.
Latest
victim, Karapatan deputy secretary general Dani Beltran says, are Oscar Sacdalan,
a Bayan Muna member, Vedasco Anilao Lalong-Isip and Jude Garcia who were killed
in separate incidents on Nov. 23 and 24. Nine others went missing.
Puerto
Galera killings
Lalong-Isip,
53, was gunned down allegedly by government forces dawn of Nov. 24 in Barangay
Balatero, Puerto Galera. Garcia was also killed that day. Puerto Galera is a
tourist destination.
Aside
from the two, Anthony Danez Martinez went missing on the same day in Barangay
Talipanan, also in Puerto Galera. Jun
Saducos, a Mangyan, and seven other residents of Barangay Tabinay Malaki were
also abducted and remain missing, Beltran said.
As
the bloodbath was taking place, 10 families were forcibly evacuated by
Palparan’s men, the Karapatan report says.
Palparan
recently boasted that Mindoro Oriental “is almost an insurgency-free
province.” But that doesn’t mean, Beltran says, that peace now reigns in
Mindoro Oriental. “The people of Mindoro Oriental are silenced in a clear
state of fear with the presence of Colonel Palparan and his men,” he says.
The
state of fear described by Beltran appears to obtain not only in Mindoro but
throughout the archipelago, including Mindanao, Bohol and other provinces which
are now the subject of the Armed Forces’ Oplan Gordian Knot. Like past major
counter-insurgency campaigns begun by Ferdinand Marcos 30 years ago, Gordian
Knot promises to decimate the NPA this year.
But
fear is the least of worries of the country’s current political prisoners.
Although they do not expect to be released this December, some 314 political
prisoners (PPs) held in various detention centers throughout the country
continue to struggle for their freedom. Forty-seven of 113 PPs recommended for
release by the justice department remain in prison. Their immediate release,
along with the rest of the PPs, is now the subject of a House resolution.
A
number of visitations has been arranged by church, health and human rights
groups as a show of solidarity and support for the PPs even as outside their
prison walls the whole nation continues to be gripped by a virtual reign of
terror. Bulatlat.com
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