HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

UN Asked to Look into RP Rights Cases

Local and international human rights advocates believe that rights violations persist in the country because of the culture of impunity.  With no hope of prosecuting human rights violators in local courts, advocates have no recourse but to seek the intervention of the United Nations.

BY DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat

Six gunshot wounds took the life of Tirso Cruz 30, minutes after midnight of March 17 in Barangay (village) Pando, Concepcion Tarlac (120 kms. north of Manila). The regional chapter in Central Luzon of the human rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of Peoples’ Rights) said Cruz, 33, a union leader of farm workers in Hacienda Luisita, is but the latest victim of a cold blooded murder allegedly perpetrated by state security agents.

In barely three months, in Central Luzon alone, Karapatan documented 17 cases of summary executions and 10 cases of disappearances. The report said most of the victims were farmers and witnesses said the perpetrators were soldiers from the 7^th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army (ID PA) under the command of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan.

Joseph Canlas, chair of the peasant group Alyansa ng mga Magsasaka sa Gitnang Luson (AMGL or Alliance of Peasants in Central Luzon), said they have come to this conclusion because the killings and abductions happened in areas where there were heavy military deployment. Most, if not all, of the victims experienced harassment from soldiers deployed in their areas.

Human rights defenders have called Palparan a “Butcher” after recording numerous cases of rights violations in areas where he was assigned particularly in Mindoro, Eastern Visayas and, at present, in Central Luzon.

Nationwide, Karapatan recorded 35 cases of political killings.

UN intervention

Filipino human rights leader Marie Hilao-Enriquez and human rights lawyer Edre Olalia filed charges of human rights violations against the Macapagal-Arroyo government before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) in New York on Feb. 17.

UNHRC Special Rapporteur Rafael Rivas Posada met with Enriquez and Olalia last March 16 5:30 p.m. (U.S. time) at the UN Headquarters in New York, where the UNHRC is presently holding its session.

Hilao-Enriquez and Olalia submitted four cases to the UNHRC, the murder of human rights workers Benjaline Hernandez and Eden Marcellana, peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy, and Mindoro activist Choy Napoles as well as the frustrated killing of Ruel Landicho.

In a statement, Enriquez said the cases represent the prevalent practice of extra-judicial, summary execution of activists, human rights workers, peasant and union leaders, journalists and priests by state security agents.

Impunity

Tim Parrit, London-based researcher for the Southeast Asia team of Amnesty International, said that human rights violations in the Philippines persist even after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship two decades ago and the existence of the 1987 freedom Constitution because of the culture of impunity. 

“The confidence in the judicial system has been undermined because of the very few prosecutions, if there are any,” Parrit said in an interview with Bulatlat.

 He also said that his team has seen a weakness in the investigation of rights cases especially when the alleged perpetrators are state agents.

Investigations, the international human rights worker said, should be prompt, thorough, impartial and effective.

State agents, he added, have an obligation to protect the populace against violations. “The failure to protect is a violation in itself,” he said.

In most cases, however, what happens is the opposite. In fact, when Cruz was shot in Tarlac, his brother, Ernesto Cruz, 23 years old, said they cried for help knowing that there is a detachment of the Citizens’ Armed Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU) nearby.  But nobody came to help. “Dapat sila ang nangangalaga sa amin pero nananakot lang sila,” (They should protect us instead of harassing us.) he said.  Bulatlat 

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