Letter of Concern of
Foreign Church
and Development Workers in
the Philippines
The integration of the
Philippines in the “war on terror” was aimed at two more significant internal
armed conflicts with the NPA and the MILF. Both armed resistance movements have
their roots in gross local grievances like landlessness, lack of democracy and
human rights abuses, and have a significant mass following; they became prime
targets in the Philippines in the “international war on terror.”
By
the Philippine International Forum
Posted by Bulatlat.com
Vol. IV, Number 4 - Feb.
22-28, 2004
Philippine International
Forum
2003
Introduction
The
Philippine International Forum (PIF) is a network of foreign residents of
various national and ethnic origins, religious beliefs, political views and
backgrounds committed to solidarity with the Filipino people in their efforts
for justice, peace, and self-determination. Starting in 1985 during a time of
heightened economic, social and political tensions, initiators of the PIF agreed
to work together to improve their solidarity with the Filipino people,
especially in helping to develop links with their home countries. In all its
undertakings, the long-term goal is to promote conditions necessary for genuine
people’s development and peace.
Because
of first-hand knowledge and experience of the Philippines as well as
professional expertise and experience in
their home countries, foreign residents are in a unique position to interpret
events for people in their home countries and to mobilize public opinion and
international support for human rights, sustainable development, peace efforts,
and other initiatives of the Filipino people.
Currently the PIF network is composed of about 150 church and
development workers.
PIF’s objectives are:
·
To
reach out to foreign residents in the Philippines who are willing to be
involved in international networking and linkages on behalf of the Filipino
people;
·
To
facilitate education, exposure tours and sharing of information among network
members and with other groups involved in international solidarity work;
·
To
facilitate linkages among individuals and groups in the Philippines and abroad;
and
·
To
participate in campaigns or specific issues in coordination with other
organizations.
PIF organizes an annual conference wherein current
key Philippine issues are discussed. Each year, thirty to sixty members
participate in these conferences. Aside from this, PIF has bi-annual or
quarterly regional or sub-regional discussion groups wherein national or local
issues are discussed. Issues include militarization and human rights abuses
related to militarization, environment (mining, logging, construction of dams),
economic globalization and its negative consequences for the people, natural
resources and economy, and sexual exploitation of women and children. The
regional or sub-regional venues often form the bases for support activities.
Support activities have varied from special print and video productions to
international letters of concern, to petitions, participation in pickets, or
published articles in local and international newspapers.
In 1986 a carefully researched and widely circulated
“Letter of Concern from U.S. Missioners in the Philippines to the Christian
Churches of the United States: A Call for Solidarity” followed by “A
Time of Reckoning: The United States Military Bases in the Philippines and
Global Responsibility for Justice, Peace and Dignity” in 1988, were most
effective in reaching often uninformed international individuals and groups.
The letter relayed the persistent and negative role of U.S. military bases in
the Philippines and the continuing U.S. military involvement in Philippine
issues.
This year, 2004, we see the urgent need for another
“Letter of Concern” to inform about the increasing militarization of the
Philippine islands, this time under the pretext of the “war on terrorism.” We
hope our readers will take time to learn about the negative impact of the
U.S.-led war on those who are struggling to defend their human rights and basic
needs. After reading our letter, we ask you to share its contents with others,
and to join in solidarity actions that will strengthen efforts for genuine
peace and weaken the stranglehold of the Superpower’s plans for continued
economic and military domination.
“The
Philippines is an ‘independent’ country that is not sovereign, a ‘democratic’
country whose people are not free, a state that is not yet a nation, a rich
land filled with poor people.”
– Senator Jose W. Diokno [1]
When Spanish conquistadors set foot on what is now
Philippine soil in 1521, the country entered the era of globalization and its
modern history started. From the beginning, it was a history of oppression and
exploitation which continues up to this day. Based on archeological findings, evidence of
Philippine history dates back 20,000 to 30,000 years ago when large portions of
Southeast Asia were still landlocked—a fact rarely emphasized in history books.
When the Spanish arrived in the 16th century, Islam was
already rooted in the southern island of Mindanao. Here private ownership of
rice lands by the sultans existed side-by-side with communal rice lands of
indigenous tribal groups. Slavery was
still practiced, but social relations were in transition to a feudal tenant
system. On the other islands, the tribes had more communal social systems.
Trade relations had already long been established with Arab nations, and with
China and Borneo, and women had influential positions in the tribal structures.
The
introduction of private property and the Catholic religion by the Spanish
colonizers’ teachings radically changed Philippine society. Tribal communal
lands were confiscated and converted to Church-owned haciendas. Farmers became
tenants or farm workers on friar lands. Women’s influence became limited to
family domestic affairs.
To
strengthen their control over the islands, the Spanish fostered a local elite
class, composed mainly of Spanish-Filipino mestizos and co-opted tribal
leaders. Church-controlled schools were established to educate this class. Some
were sent to Spain to receive advanced education.
Although
resistance to the colonial regime was mercilessly squelched, the conquistadors
had a hard time gaining solid control over large parts of Mindanao, Bohol,
Samar and some interior parts of northern Luzon. Resistance against colonial
rule was fierce. Moro and peasant uprisings were frequent. At the end of the 19th
century, an increasing number of the local elite, the principalia,
started organizing against Spanish colonial rule. A revolution for national
liberation started in 1896, led by Andres Bonifacio and the organization he
founded, the Katipunan (gathering, assembly).
By
the summer of 1898, Philippine revolutionaries had driven the Spanish
colonialists out of the countryside into the capital city of Manila, where they
held their former rulers under siege. U.S. forces, however, conspired with the
Spanish to have the Spanish surrender after a mock battle in Manila Bay.
Following this “victory,” the U.S. took over Manila convincing the Katipunan’s
leadership of a mutual alliance against Spain. When in February 1899, the U.S.
military started to move beyond Manila to conquer and colonize, Filipinos
resisted and a new war ensued with the new colonizers.
In
the first years of Philippine resistance against the U.S. colonizers, over
700,000, or some 10 percent of the population were killed, including women and
children. Entire villages were massacred for
‘coddling rebels.’ Policies like the U.S. military killing ten Filipinos
for every dead U.S. soldier were implemented to stifle the people’s resistance.
But the U.S. never succeeded in gaining full control; local uprisings continued
until nominal independence was granted in 1946.
Box 1: In the words of the invaders
“The good Lord in heaven only knows the
number of Filipinos that were put under ground. Our soldiers took no prisoners,
they kept no records; they simply swept the country and wherever and whenever
they could get hold of a Filipino they killed him.” (An anonymous U.S.
congressman)
“American troops have been relentless, have killed to
exterminate men, women and children, prisoners and captives, active insurgents
and suspected people, from lads of 10 and up … have taken prisoner who held up
their hands and peacefully surrendered; and an hour later, without an atom of
evidence to show that they were even insurrectos, stood them on a bridge
and shot them down one by one to drop into the water below and float down as
examples to those who find their bullet-ridden corpses.” (On the front page of
the Philadelphia Ledger)
“Caloocan (near Manila) was supposed to contain 17,000
inhabitants. The Twentieth Kansas swept through it, and now Caloocan contains
not one living native.” (A U.S. army captain from Kansas)
“Our fighting blood was up, and all we wanted
was to kill ‘niggers’ … This shooting human beings beats rabbit-hunting all to
pieces.” (A
volunteer from the State of Washington)
Sources: Daniel B. Schirmer and Stephen R.
Shalom, editors. “The Philippines Reader. A History of Colonialism,
Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance” South End Press, Boston, 1987, p.
16; Roland G. Simbulan. “The Bases of Our Insecurity: A Study of the U.S.
Military bases in the Philippines” BALAI Fellowship, Quezon City, 1983, p. 69
The
U.S. established a local government composed of the same local elite as those who
served Spain, while a public school system was established to educate the
children on the “American way of life,” enhancing loyalty to the colonizers. A
land titling system was developed in which all land not yet claimed as private
property was declared public property, thereby taking from the Filipino masses
the ancestral domains they had protected and tilled for centuries.
The
U.S colonizers intensified the exploitation of Philippine natural resources
through agriculture, logging and mining; and likewise, the exploitation of
Filipino peasants and workers. The U.S. occupation of the Philippines was
briefly interrupted during the 2nd World War, when Japan ruled the
country from 1942 to 1945. When the
U.S. returned after the war, large parts of Luzon were already liberated by
Filipino resistance groups who had formed themselves into the Hukbalahap
or People’s Army Against Japan under the leadership of the Communist Party of
the Philippines. While many of the resistance fighters were massacred after the
U.S. troops returned, the Filipino elite who had collaborated with Japan were
generally left unharmed and were reintegrated into the government.
Soon
after ‘liberation’ from Japan, the U.S. granted nominal independence to the
Philippines. It made sure, however, that the loyal local elite class was firmly
in charge, that U.S. military bases would be maintained in the country, and
that U.S. firms maintained special privileges.
From
a country under direct colonial rule, the Philippines became a neo-colony
producing raw materials such as lumber, agricultural products and minerals for
U.S. industries. It provided cheap labor and became a market for excess
products from U.S. industries. Despite its wealth in natural resources, the
country had to borrow huge amounts from international finance institutions to
rebuild infrastructure after World War II, to finance new projects, and to
patch up budget deficits.
The
ruling elite remained generally very loyal to the U.S. They received some spoils
of U.S. interests, controlled local trade, and produced part of the raw
materials needed by U.S. industries. Those in power embezzled large portions of
public funds through ghost projects and other forms of graft and corruption.
In
the later 1960s and early 1970s, opposition against the government was gaining
ground among the peasants, workers and students who clamored for land reform,
democratization and sovereignty. In 1968, the Communist Party of the
Philippines was reestablished, and just a few months later, the New Peoples
Army started guerrilla warfare in the countryside. This was the beginning of a
new phase of Filipino resistance to foreign domination and its local client
regimes.
The
ruling class felt increasingly threatened by political unrest, and President
Marcos responded by declaring Martial Law on September 21, 1972. This did not
weaken the U.S.’ support for his regime, however. In fact, Washington stepped up its military and economic aid
to the Marcos government. A U.S. Senate staff report summarized the U.S.
response: “... Military bases and a familiar government in the Philippines
are more important than the preservation of democratic institutions which were
imperfect at best.”[2]
U.S. Vice
President George Bush, the current president’s father, would later infamously
deliver a toast to Marcos in 1981 saying “We love your adherence to
democratic principles and to the democratic processes and we will not leave you
in isolation.”[3]
The twenty years of Marcos’
presidency, including ten years of martial rule, produced tens of thousands of
victims of massacres, summary executions, disappearances, illegal arrests,
imprisonment, torture and other human rights abuses. His policies made the
economy ever more import-dependent, export-oriented and foreign-dominated, and
brought the nation to the brink of economic collapse. During those years, the
foreign debt ballooned from US$ 2 billion to over US$ 30 billion. In order to
draw foreign currency into the economy, Marcos promoted the export of labor and
encouraged millions of Filipinos to go abroad. Dollar remittances from the
overseas Filipino workers have kept the Philippine economy afloat since that
time. Corruption, cronyism and nepotism were widespread, and almost all
development projects proved to be disastrous for the Filipino people.
Despite
Martial Law, both legal and armed opposition grew fast, especially after the
assassination of Benigno Aquino in 1983. Marcos was ousted in February 1986
through a popular uprising called People Power in which millions took to the
streets. After his government toppled, the U.S. government brought Marcos to
safety in Hawaii. The Marcoses and their cronies have yet to be convicted for
corruption or their crimes against the people. A son and a daughter remain in high
government positions until the present.
After Marcos, many had high hopes for the government
of Corazon Aquino because it was brought to power through a popular uprising,
and her husband’s assassination had galvanized widespread resistance against
the dictatorship. Sadly, abuse of human rights did not end with the fall of the
military dictatorship. President Corazon Aquino inherited a military
establishment consolidated under the Marcos regime, and her government still prioritized
the interests of the elite while heeding the dictates of the U.S.
Still,
the broad, progressive and nationalist people’s movement was again victorious
in 1991 when it convinced the Philippine Senate not to extend the treaty on the
U.S. military bases. The U.S. had to vacate Subic Bay Naval Base and Clark Air
Base, two of its largest overseas bases.
This nationalist highlight in Philippine history led to a relative
setback in relations with the U.S, its former colonial master. These bases had
served as staging areas, billeting, supply and service depots, and R&R
(rest and recreation) sites as early as the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in China,
during the Korean (1950s), Vietnam (1960s) and first Gulf wars (early 1991).
Throughout
the 1990s, and especially after the election of President Fidel Ramos in 1992,
the Philippine government jumped on the ‘globalization’ bandwagon.
Privatization, deregulation and liberalization became the key words in
government economic policy. Successive governments have been quick to sign any
multilateral or bilateral treaties endorsed or demanded by the U.S., often
hiding the true content of these documents from the public. The Philippines’
decision to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), for example, proved to be
disastrous for local agriculture -- turning a country that used to export food
into a net food importer, and causing the loss of a million agriculture-related
jobs.[4]
The
election in 2000 of President Estrada, a former action movie star and
self-confessed womanizer, reflected the desperation of the Filipino people with
the political system. His government was soon recognized as corrupt and
unresponsive like the previous governments, galvanizing the people’s
disappointment into another mass movement. After an aborted impeachment trial,
Estrada was ousted from the presidential palace in January 2001. For the second
time in just 15 years, the Filipino people had given the world a lesson in
‘People Power.’
Despite these two ‘People Power Revolutions,’
the poverty and exploitation of the Filipino people has not lessened, but has
intensified. Two significant revolutionary movements have therefore persisted
and grown: the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines (NDFP). The MILF is a secessionist movement calling
for the establishment of an independent Islamic state. It is concentrated in Mindanao, and operates
in areas with a majority presence of the Moro people, the Muslim national
minority comprising about 7% of the total population.
The NDFP, on the other hand, which is led by the
Communist Party of the Philippines, is national in scope. The New People’s Army
(NPA), whose ranks also number in the thousands, is said to be operating in 128
guerilla fronts that cover 823 or around 54% of the total number of Philippine
municipalities and 8,500 barrios or 18% of the total number of Philippine
villages in around 70 of its 79 provinces.[5]
The NDFP wages a struggle “to end the political rule of U.S. imperialism and
its local allies in the Philippines, and attain genuine national liberation and
democracy.”[6]
The
Philippines is also home to a vibrant and militant legal people’s movement. A
myriad of people’s organizations from the barrio level to broad national
federations are articulating the demands of the people: genuine land reform,
respect for human rights, democracy, national freedom and other calls the
Filipino people have been carrying forward for generations.
“Peace is radically rooted
in justice. Peace is the flower of justice. Unless the government sees to it
that justice is given to everyone it is very hard to talk about lasting peace.
Let’s look at some of our real problems. The land belongs to a few, health
services in the hinterlands are poor, there is corruption in offices. The
solution to these should not be momentary or plastic.” – Bishop Antonio Y.
Fortich[7]
During the past years we have been witness to
disturbing trends in relation to human rights and peace in the Philippines.
Much of the world paid attention to the last years of the Marcos dictatorship
as reports of summary executions, disappearances, torture, and detention of
members of the political opposition were brought into the open. Looking back
one can see a troubling similarity between the poor human rights records of the
current Arroyo government and that of Corazon Aquino which replaced the Marcos
dictatorship in February 1986.
Although the Aquino government did not resort to
dictatorial methods, it produced more victims than its predecessor in certain
types of human rights violations. When she opted to “unsheathe the sword of
war” in 1987, President Corazon Aquino abandoned the peace process with the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) that she had initiated, and
gave impetus to the U.S.-designed "total-war" policy that was favored
by the militarists in her government.
In similar manner, President Macapagal-Arroyo, who
replaced Joseph Estrada following his ouster by People Power II, gave lip service
to abandoning the “all-out war” policy of her predecessor. But soon after she
assumed office, she reverted to that same policy and showed her dependence on
the military who had brought her to power, especially by naming the chief
implementer of Estrada’s “all-out war,” General Angelo T. Reyes, as her Defense
Secretary.
The pursuit of war rather than peace is the primary reason for the continued
high incidence of human rights violations since the end of the Marcos dictatorship.
Local human rights organizations such as KARAPATAN and Task Force Detainees of
the Philippines (TFDP) have continued to issue statements and studies detailing
the human rights situation in the Philippines. They reveal that the majority of
human rights violations are being committed by state security forces, either
the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police
(PNP), or government sponsored paramilitary groups such as the Civilian Armed
Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU), and the Civilian Volunteer Organization
(CVO). It used to be the PNP that accounted for most human rights violations in
the statistics of the Government’s Commission on Human Rights (CHR), yet they
have recently been replaced by the Armed Forces, who now are the perpetrators
of some 69% of the cases recorded by the CHR.[8]
|
Box 2: FOUR YOUTH ABDUCTED NEAR DAVAO CITY, MINDANAO On
September 19, 2003, four youth were abducted while they were on their way
home from a birthday celebration. The
eldest (Lito Doydoy, 24) was a community organizer with Anakbayan, a legal
national youth organization, while two others (Marjorie Reynoso, 18 and
Jonathan Benaro, 16) were members of the Sanggunian Kabataan, the youth
organization of the local government unit and the Anak ng Bayan Youth
Party. The fourth (Ramon Regase, 17)
was the driver of the motorcycle they were riding. They were all residents of Maco, Compostella Valley, Mindanao. Three days after the abduction, on September 23,
their bodies were found in a shallow grave.
Marjorie’s mouth was partially covered by tape and her tongue was
sticking out, with noticeable bruises on her neck. She had two gunshot wounds in her head. The three males were stripped to their
underwear and had several stab wounds. The military blamed the NPA although
they usually accuse these youth organizations of being fronts of the guerilla
army. Witnesses and an independent fact-finding team, on the other hand,
established that the perpetrators of this abduction and extra-judicial killing
are elements of the government’s Military Intelligence Group. |
Alarmingly,
the human rights situation in the Philippines is worsening under the Arroyo
administration, especially since it enthusiastically embraced U.S. President
George Bush’s ”war on terrorism.” This has already attracted the attention of
international human rights organizations which are expressing their concern
about the persistent use of torture, a “climate of impunity,” extra-judicial
killings, disappearances, arbitrary arrest and detention, and forced
displacement of people from their farmlands and homes.
In January 2003, Amnesty
International dedicated a report to the phenomenon of torture by the Philippine
military and police. Amnesty’s conclusion reads like a flashback of those who
survived detention under martial law: “Techniques
of torture used in recent years… mirror those used in the 1970s and 1980s.
These torture methods include electro-shocks, the use of plastic bags to
suffocate detainees, burning detainees with cigarettes, beating with fists,
metal pipes or gun barrels, and placing chili peppers on the detainees' eyes or
genitals.” Amnesty also reports
the bias of human rights violators against the poor: “Those most at risk of torture are alleged
members of armed opposition groups and their suspected sympathisers, ordinary
criminal suspects and members of poor or marginalized communities, including
women and children….”[9]
Amnesty’s
conclusions were confirmed by the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT),
which presented a report on state sponsored violence in the Philippines to the
United Nations Human Rights Committee on October 20, 2003. The OMCT reported
that the use of torture continues unabated, and harassments and threats to
journalists and human rights defenders are widespread.[10]
Likewise, the United
Nations Human Rights Committee recently reported on the human rights situation in the
Philippines, expressing particular concern about the impunity with which human
rights are violated. According to the Committee, reported cases of
extra-judicial killings, arbitrary detention, harassment, intimidation and
abuse have neither been investigated nor prosecuted. “Such a situation is
conducive to perpetration of further violations of human rights and to a
culture of impunity,” it added in a 2003 report.[11]
Open political and military repression by government
forces is on the rise. For the first time in many years, the entry about the
Philippines in Amnesty International’s 2003 Annual Report refers to political
repression. It says that: “At least 28 members of opposition groups
critical of government policies were reported to have been killed by government
forces since early 2001. Four members of the Bayan Muna political party
remained ‘disappeared’ and were feared to have been killed.”
According to the Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights (KARAPATAN), 10 human rights workers have
been killed since the start of the Arroyo presidency in January 2001. Moreover,
offices of human rights organizations have been raided in Baguio, Butuan and
General Santos City.[12] KARAPATAN notes that the targeting of human
rights workers, a feature of the Marcos and Aquino regimes that seemed to have
ended in the 1990s, resumed in 2001 during the Macapagal-Arroyo administration.
Many of the killings of political and social
activists occurred in one province on the island of Mindoro, which served as
the laboratory for the government’s counter-insurgency campaign. According to
the Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP), 33 murders of grassroots
activists, including those of human rights worker Eden Marcellana and peasant
leader Eddie Gumanoy, occurred in Oriental Mindoro. These are among the 326
cases of human rights violations involving 1,219 individuals and 575 families
in the province in just two year’s time, and for which EMJP blames the 204th
Infantry Brigade headed by Col. Jovito Palaparan.[13]
When his reign of terror in Mindoro became publicly
controversial and he was forced to testify in investigative hearings, Col.
Palparan gave an insight into the policies of the military towards dissent.
Col. Palparan claimed that legal organizations like BAYAN, Bayan Muna and
KARAPATAN are recruiting members for the Communist Party of the Philippines
(CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA), and therefore they should be
“neutralized.”[14] When Col.
Palparan was asked about the use of the term “neutralization,” he clarified
that it meant either “inviting them back to the fold” of mainstream society,
limiting their effectiveness, or “reducing their number.” Unable to accomplish the first two options,
apparently the military has opted for the third in the form of brutal
killings.
|
Human rights violations in
Oriental Mindoro (January 2001-2003)[15] |
|||
|
Killings |
18 |
Harassment |
66 |
|
Frustrated killing |
4 |
Physical assault |
16 |
|
Indiscriminate firing |
5 |
Coercion |
38 |
|
Forced disappearance |
5 |
Forced evacuation |
26 |
|
Unjustified arrest |
23 |
Illegal search |
22 |
|
Torture |
16 |
Use
of civilians in military operations |
11 |
Col.
Palparan is not an isolated case. Even after his battalion’s flagrant abuse
record was publicized, he was promoted to Brigadier General by President
Macapagal-Arroyo. His ideas are being echoed in an article in the first quarter
2003 issue of “Ang Tala,” (the Star), a publication of the Armed Forces of the
Philippines. The article reads: “While Bayan Muna's influence is within
manageable level, the AFP needs to strategize how to confront this above-ground
CPP-NPA party-list with a built-in propaganda work.” The article likewise recommends
the military to launch counter-organizing. It stated that the highly organized
efforts of the legal Bayan Muna political party requires special operations,
including “neutralization.”[16]
The
International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) raised the alarm about the
killing of Filipino journalists and stated that the country is “in danger
of becoming the new Colombia as one of the world’s most dangerous places to
practice journalism.” Since 1986, 71 journalists have been killed in the
Philippines—13 of them in the past two years.[17]
Disturbingly, no cases relating to the murder of media workers have been
solved since 1986 according to the IFJ. This kind of violence, which is
evidently politically motivated, seriously challenges the perceived freedom of the
press in the Philippines. Melinda Quintos-de Jesus, Executive Director of the
Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility, said the killings are a reflection
of the immaturity of our entire system where those in power, as well as the
public, “have not established a level of civic dialogue.”[18]
The
government continues to expand its repression through promoting the
Anti-Terrorism Bill, legislation modeled after the USA PATRIOT ACT that was
passed in the United States immediately after the events of September 11, 2001.
The proposed Anti-Terrorism Act, authored by Rep. Imee Marcos, the daughter of
the former dictator, will allow law enforcers to spy on suspected terrorists
and gather information from telephone conversations, e-mail and cell phone text
messages. A suspect’s legal detention period will be extended from 36 to 72
hours without access to lawyers, or notification of relatives. Because of the
act’s very broad definition of terrorism, even peaceful demonstrations and
strikes can be labeled as terrorist activities.
In
August 2002, President Macapagal-Arroyo identified drug addicts, criminals,
and “those who terrorize factories that
provide jobs” in her list of targets in the war on terrorism[19].
Militant unions have been particularly harassed by violent dispersals at picket
lines, slander, surveillance, and termination of union leadership. Government
officials and management often collude to ensure that existing labor laws are
not enforced, while “no union, no strike” policies in some industrial zones are
in blatant violation of workers’ constitutional right to organize.
The
civil rights of foreigners are also being curtailed. Foreign residents and
visitors are denied the right to peacefully express their solidarity with the
Filipino poor in protest rallies in the interest of ‘national security.’ Even
written statements have been cited as basis for deportation or loss of visa
privilege.
Box
3: AN INDIGENOUS MANGYAN FAMILY IS MASSACRED
In the early morning
of July 23, 2003, a young Mangyan family was preparing for work in Sitio
Talayog, San Nicolas, Magsasay, Mindoro Occidental, a remote, rural village.
According to the account of an eyewitness, four soldiers indiscriminately
opened fire on the house, first killing a 3-year-old child, John Kevin. The father, 25-year old Rogelio, tried to
shield their 1 1/2 year old son Dexter from the gunfire, but he and Dexter
could not escape the rain of bullets.
Olivia, the 19-year old mother, 8 months pregnant with their fourth
child, was also shot trying to protect their children. Their daughter Len-len
was the only survivor; she suffered a bullet wound on her hand.
The witness who is
the sister of Olivia begged the soldiers to stop and take pity on the family,
but her pleading was to no avail. The
soldiers ordered that the dead bodies be taken to the hospital. The four soldiers were part of a group of
twenty soldiers of the 16th Infantry Battalion under the leadership
of 1st Lt. Danilo Escandor
of the 204th Brigade who were present in the village. Col. Fernando
Mesa, Commanding Officer of the 204th Brigade, Philippine Army, admitted to the
incident but said that it was the result of an encounter between the Philippine
Army and the New People's Army in Burirawan.
Civilian witnesses claim that there were no New People's Army rebels in
their area. The Barangay Captain attested to this, saying his community was
always peaceful.
The huge influence the military acquired under the
Marcos dictatorship has never waned, even after the lifting of Martial Law. The
Department of Defense is still in the top three government’s budget allocations
per department. In the P742 billion 2002 budget, for example, P63 billion, 8.5
% of the national budget, was allocated for the military; while only 1.6 % went
to health.[20] In its
policy towards the revolutionary
movements, the military mindset prevails; instead of examining the root causes
of social unrest, an increase in the influence of the NPA or MILF is addressed
by increased militarization of the countryside and areas that have a strong
presence of revolutionary forces.
Human rights violations increase in areas where
military operations are ongoing.
Civilians are the most effected, facing harassment by soldiers, illegal
searches, food blockades, and destruction of property. A common occurrence is forced surrender,
meaning that civilians are forced by the military to present themselves as
rebel surrenderees.
A
clear example of the impact of militarization on the impoverished civilian population are the Moro, or Muslim people of Mindanao
who are among the poorest in the Philippines despite their land being rich in
oil, natural gas, metals, and agriculturally abundant. Ongoing military
operations perpetuate their poverty, displacing hundreds of thousands and
destroying agricultural lands. Nearly a million people were displaced during
President Joseph Estrada’s ‘all-out war’ against the MILF in Central Mindanao
in the year 2000.[21]
Three years later under President Arroyo, almost 400,000 persons evacuated the
same area for the same reason during the first half of 2003. The people fled to
more than 200 ‘evacuation centers’ (none having adequate shelter, sanitation,
food and water) in at least eight provinces and three cities, not counting those
who sought shelter among their relatives. The evacuees suffered hunger,
sickness, and lack of shelter. At least
215 refugees, many of them children, died in the evacuation centers due to
various illnesses that could have easily been cured if funds had been made
available for assistance.[22]
The militarist mindset is also reflected in the
government’s poor commitment to the peace process with armed revolutionary
groups. When President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed office in January 2001,
the peace processes with both the MILF and the NDF were in dire straits. Her
predecessor, President Estrada, did not implement the Comprehensive Agreement
on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) which
he signed with the NDFP in 1998.
Although President Arroyo resumed peace negotiations
with the NDFP and the MILF in 2001 shortly after she took office, the talks
never really prospered. By June 2001, the government called a recess in the
peace negotiations with the NDF after the NPA assassinated former Congressman and retired Army Col. Aguinaldo, a
notorious human rights violator since the days of the Marcos dictatorship whose
crimes were protected by the climate of impunity. Talks with the MILF dragged
on until the massive government military offensives of early 2003 against MILF
territories undermined the government’s credibility at the negotiating table.
Last February 2003, the Philippine
Government proposed a ‘new approach’ to the NDFP which would collapse the previous
agreements that were approved by both the government and the NDFP ten years
ago. The original phases of the peace processes were to be successive, each
building on the achievement of the previous ‘substantive agenda.’ The four
phases which had been mutually agreed upon in 1992 were: 1) human rights and
international humanitarian law (to ensure that the rights of civilians as well
as of combatants in the armed conflict are respected); 2) socio-economic
reforms; 3) political and constitutional reforms (to lay the social basis for
genuine and lasting peace); and 4) end of hostilities and disposition of forces
(upon implementation of the three prior agreements).
The new government proposal is a single
take-it-or-leave-it final peace agreement with a maximum six-month
implementation period which demands that the NDFP give up its armed resistance
immediately.
The government is pursuing a similar
fast-track approach in its peace negotiations with the MILF. It treats the military
conflict as only a “peace and order” problem, and insists that the path to
peace should be simply to convince armed revolutionary organizations to lay
down their arms, without addressing the root causes of the country’s
problems.
The worsening human rights
situation, escalating armed conflict with revolutionary groups, and faltering
peace processes are manifestations of the serious and long-standing underlying
political and economic crises. Although hopes were high after the ouster of
President Estrada in January 2001, corruption is still rampant and no meaningful policies have been implemented to
improve the economic situation of the majority (and most deprived sectors) like
the workers, peasants, urban poor, fisherfolk and indigenous peoples. On the
contrary, the economic conditions of these sectors continue to deteriorate.
The
most spectacular recent manifestation of the political crisis was the rebellion
by some 300 government soldiers in a Makati, Metro Manila hotel on July 27, 2003.
Their grievances centered mainly around corruption in the military by top
ranking officers, low salaries and insufficient supplies for the foot soldiers,
and allegations that former Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes and other top
officers of the armed forces plotted the series of bombings in Mindanao in 2003
that killed scores of innocent civilians in order to set the stage for the
increased militarization and a new declaration of martial law. The group’s
leaders issued a statement from their detention cells stating that it was
through their rounds as foot soldiers that they were exposed to the deep-rooted
problems of Philippine society, the corruption within the government and the
armed forces, and the realization that the present political system serves only
a wealthy elite.
The
pervasiveness of corruption and patronage politics is making a mockery of
so-called democracy. The different political clans among the elite fight
amongst themselves during election campaigns for their highly lucrative
positions, yet the basic needs of their constituents who are predominantly poor
and lacking even the most basic services go unaddressed. In some places, people
are governed by a mayor and provincial governor from the same immediate family,
while other relatives are their representatives in congress and the senate.
According to the World Bank,
the Philippine government has lost US$ 48 billion because of graft and
corruption in the past 20 years.[23]
The country fell sharply from rank 77 to
rank 92 in an index of 133 countries rated according to perception of
corruption by the London-based Transparency International (TI). The Philippines
scored 2.5 on a scale of 1 to 10, just 1.2 points from the world’s most corrupt
country.[24]
Decades
of colonial and neo-colonial mismanagement have left the Philippine economy
burdened with a foreign debt of US$ 56.1 billion or almost P3 trillion.[25]
While the Philippines used to be a food exporting country, it is now dependent
on imports to provide food for its own population. Jobs in agriculture, still
the most significant source of livelihood for Filipinos and especially the
poor, are dwindling. The official unemployment rate reached an all-time high in
July 2003 as 12.7 percent of the labor force or 4.35 million Filipinos were
listed as jobless.[26]
Many of the ‘employed’ are actually self-employed selling cigarettes, candy and
other goods on streets and walkways. Many more are underemployed—20.8 percent
in the same survey—or do not have a stable source of income, leaving them to
resort to odd-jobs to survive.
Even
those who have a job have to bear the burden of the deepening economic crisis.
Figures from the Department of Labor and Employment showed that 2,695 out of
the 6,603 commercial establishments inspected between January and March 2003
(41%) have not been giving their workers the legal minimum wages, 13th month
pay, overtime compensation, and other benefits due them under the law.[27]
Because
of the lack of meaningful job opportunities, an increasing number of Filipinos,
amounting to 2,444 Filipinos per day, or
an average of 73,000 per month in 2002, leave the country in search of jobs and
livelihood abroad.[28]
These overseas Filipino workers are particularly vulnerable to human rights
abuses, as the Philippine government is unable or unwilling to provide them
necessary protection or defense when they are wrongfully treated. Moreover,
this massive exodus for jobs abroad counts among them the country’s best
doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers, computer experts, and deprives the
Philippines of their much-needed talents, and deprives their families of their
presence.
The crisis extends to the
natural bounty of the archipelago, which is rapidly being devastated. The
Philippine forests have been steadily shrinking at an average rate of 2% per year
and now cover a mere 18.6 % of the country’s total land area (compared to 64%
in 1920).[29] Destructive
chemical-dependent monoculture farming techniques, imposed by foreign
transnational corporations, have fostered soil erosion and toxic contamination
of soil, water and air. The seas and freshwater ecosystems are polluted and
depleted by overfishing, especially by large commercial trawlers whose nets
drag the seafloor destroying even coral and other natural fish spawning areas.
Mineral resources are put up for grabs by foreign mining companies who use open
pit mining, cyanide and mercury in their processing, to the detriment of the
local environment.
Together with the eco-system,
the great majority of the Filipino people suffer, as poverty is unmistakably
worsening. According to the most recent statistics of the National Statistical
Coordination Board, 34 percent of the population, or 26.5 million Filipinos,
live below the official poverty threshold, which is pegged ridiculously low at
P11,605 per person per year (P32 or about US$ 0.60 per day). These figures are
based on a survey done in 2000, and show an increase of the number of poor
compared with 1997. The ranks of the poor increased by 2.5 million in only
three years.[30] Using a
poverty threshold that corresponds with more decent living conditions, IBON, an
independent research institution, estimates that about 88 percent of Filipinos
should be considered poor.[31]
Undeniably, the living
conditions of the Filipino people are deteriorating. The Human Development
Index, a measure used by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to rank
countries, shows the Philippines’ decline from number 70 to 85 between 1999 and
2001.[32]
This reflects the sad fact that while general living conditions are
deteriorating, the Philippine government has taken no significant step toward
resolving underlying social problems. Landlessness, corruption in a government dominated by
landlords and big business, and foreign domination in the economic and
political arenas continue to plague Philippine society as a whole. For Muslims in Mindanao and other national
minorities, the right to self-determination and ancestral lands continues to
gain relevance after centuries of subjugation by foreign and Philippine
government forces. Neglect of these
fundamental problems by the government fuels the people’s revolutionary
movements, especially among the workers and peasants, while the pursuit of the
militarist path to peace only exacerbates the violation of fundamental human
rights.
“We cannot provide adequate
protection to our citizens and our forces while only playing defense.…
Countering terrorism … has not fundamentally altered the region's security
challenges. … We continue to base our power and influence on our values,
economic vibrancy, our desire to be a partner in this critical region, and our
forward-stationed and forward-deployed forces of USPACOM.”— U.S. Pacific
Command Commander Dennis C. Blair [33]
In this era of
globalization, the plight of the Filipino people can be correctly analyzed only
in an international context. The Philippines is profoundly affected by the
developments on the world scene. The country’s close relationship with the
U.S., its former colonizer, has made it the foremost lackey in Southeast Asia in the U.S.’ “war on terror.” This,
in turn, has had far-reaching consequences on the domestic environment.
Eight days after September
11, 2001, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo became the first Asian
leader to endorse the Bush Administration's global “war on terrorism.” While other Asian leaders
were more reserved in their support for the U.S. military aggression against
Afghanistan and Iraq, the Macapagal-Arroyo government volunteered the use of
former U.S. bases Clark and Subic for U.S. attacks on Afghanistan, and in 2003,
offered to send a contingent of soldiers and other personnel at the Philippine
government’s expense to shore up the occupation force in Iraq.
The
loyalty of the Philippine government to the aggressive international campaigns
of the U.S. has tremendous consequences on the local scene, causing further erosion of civil liberties and
increasing human rights violations.[34]
Soon
after the U.S. started attacks on Afghanistan in October 2001, the Philippines
was called by the U.S. government the “second front” in the “war on terror.”
The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), a small criminal gang operating in Mindanao, was
mentioned as a terrorist threat and a local branch of the Al-Qaida network. In
reality, however, even President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo attested that there
was no evidence of ties between the Abu Sayyaf and the network of Osama bin
Laden after 1995.[35]
It
is ironic that the Islamic fundamentalist orientation of the Abu Sayyaf
founders and the ‘terrorist’ ways and methods that make the Abu Sayyaf
specially dreaded are actually the direct result of U.S. foreign policy. The
original founders of the Abu Sayyaf were among the group of Muslim Filipinos from
Mindanao who were directly recruited and trained by the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) in the early 1980s to fight in the CIA-sponsored US proxy war in
Afghanistan against the USSR which invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The Abu Sayyaf
originals probably dealt with Osama bin Laden as co-CIA recruits in the Afghan
war. So therefore, if it can be said at all that the Abu Sayyaf has links to
bin Laden, that link is the CIA itself.
The Abu Sayyaf is a CIA monster, not bin Laden’s.[36]
There have been repeated indications of ongoing
collusion between the Abu Sayyaf and the Philippine military. The most shocking
confirmation of this collusion was the escape of Abu Sayyaf leaders and members
from the Dr. Jose Torres Hospital in Lamitan, Basilan on June 2, 2001. Witnesses
testified that the ASG members, who were holding hostages in the hospital, were
already surrounded by heavily armed Philippine troops. Despite this, they
walked away with their hostages, unharmed, in broad daylight after money
changed hands.[37] It seems
that the bandit group was an effective tool in the hands of the Philippine
military to sow terror and discord among the Moro population and to discredit
legitimate Moro groups that are fighting for self-determination.
Although
the Abu Sayyaf never constituted a destabilizing threat to the Philippine
government, much less to the United States, it was drummed up to justify a
dramatic intensification of military cooperation between the U.S. and the
Philippines. When Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo visited the
White House in November 2001, Bush announced a US$ 92.2 million military
support package for the Philippines including a C-130 transport aircraft, 8
Huey helicopters, a patrol boat and 30,000 M-16 machine guns with ammunition.[38]
In
January 2002, the U.S, announced Balikatan 02-1, supposedly a joint
U.S.-Philippine military exercise, right in Basilan, where the Abu Sayyaf was
hiding its hostages, including U.S. missionary couple Gracia and Martin Burnham. In the words of U.S.
Defense Secretary Colin Powell, “United States military trainers will be
helping the Philippine government and Philippine armed forces to deal with the
terrorist threat they have that affects their interests, as well as ours.”[39]
In order to justify the military deployment, U.S. President George W. Bush even
referred to the ragtag band of kidnappers as “terrorists with links to
Al-Qaida (who) are trying to seize the southern part of the country to
establish a military regime.”[40]
Although
it was supposed to be a military training exercise, U.S. Special
Operations Forces joined the Philippine troops on patrols and, most unusual,
the exercise was held in an area with ongoing fighting between government
forces and Moros. An international fact-finding and solidarity mission that visited
Basilan in Zamboanga City in July 2002 when the ‘exercises’ were scheduled to
end, documented human rights abuses and a joint military action where an
unarmed Muslim civilian was shot by a U.S. soldier during a midnight raid on
his home.[41] The fact-finding mission opined that
Balikatan 02-1 was only the beginning, as the U.S. was intent on expanding and
perpetuating its armed presence and activities in the Philippines.
Balikatan 02-1 elicited strong protests from progressive and natio