STREETWISE
Melo Commission – Still No
Surprises*
It is important to point out that while
the Melo Commission report is kept under wraps, with only alleged parts
of it revealed piecemeal, as suits the purposes of Malacañang, there can
not be any meaningful nor even worthwhile response to it except that of
continuing caution, if not skepticism. What the human rights
organizations, progressive and militant groups whose ranks are being
decimated by the killings and abductions, as well as the general public
have to go by, are what is already known about the Melo Commission's
composition, powers, predilections and biases, and methods of
investigation. On this basis an informed opinion can be made about what
the commission is capable of concluding and recommending in its final
report to Mrs. Arroyo.
BY CAROL PAGADUAN-ARAULLO
Business World
Posted by Bulatlat
The Melo Commission created by the Arroyo administration to address
extrajudicial killings of activists and journalists has submitted its
89-page report to Mrs. Arroyo but she has so far refused to make it
public. All we know about it are the initial, off-the-cuff comments by
the commission's chairman and a bishop-member to the media, subsequent
Malacañang press releases and Mrs. Arroyo's pretentious, if rather smug,
statements to the diplomatic corps during the traditional vin
d'honneur at the Presidential Palace.
The refusal of Malacañang to release the report for the scrutiny of all
interested parties, not least of all the aggrieved kin of victims of
summary executions, attempted killings and enforced disappearances, is a
telling indicator of Mrs. Arroyo's sincerity and seriousness in her
avowal to put an end to these human rights violations and punish those
responsible. It is important to point out that while the Melo Commission
report is kept under wraps, with only alleged parts of it revealed
piecemeal, as suits the purposes of Malacañang, there can not be any
meaningful nor even worthwhile response to it except that of continuing
caution, if not skepticism.
What the human rights organizations, progressive and militant groups
whose ranks are being decimated by the killings and abductions, as well
as the general public have to go by, are what is already known about the
Melo Commission's composition, powers, predilections and biases, and
methods of investigation. On this basis an informed opinion can be made
about what the commission is capable of concluding and recommending in
its final report to Mrs. Arroyo. The overwhelming perception, then and
now, is that the commission has lacked the independence, credibility,
powers and funding to come up with any significant report but that its
findings would likely be used to further whitewash any government
culpability.
For example, much has been made of Mr. Melo's revelation that a
"majority of the victims were leftist-activist-militants" and that the
suspected assailants belonged to the military. At the risk of sounding
facetious, apart from journalists killed, wasn't the Commission supposed
to look precisely into the killings of this particular category of
people? And how could it have concluded otherwise about the involvement
of military men as assailants without appearing to be deaf, blind and
dumb to the glaring facts and the clear pattern of said killings that
can be gleaned even from newspaper reports.
But Mr. Melo is quick to say, "We don't want to tag the entire military
establishment, only elements of the military who were allowed to do
their thing without supervision from higher authorities." So there it
is, the built-in limitation of the so-called independent commission of
inquiry that was implicit upon its creation: the premise that the
extrajudicial killings cannot be part of state policy, that these have
nothing to do with the Arroyo regime's vow of "all-out war against the
Left" and its latest counter-insurgency programs, Oplan Bantay Laya I
and II, which speaks of "neutralizing" and "dismantling" the communist
movement's legal, political infrastructure with a clear plan to "target"
specific key individuals, leaders and organizers of legal, militant mass
organizations.
Furthermore, without seeing the complete report, it is reasonable to
conclude from Mr. Melo's statements to the media, that the indictment of
Gen. Jovito Palparan for "command responsibility" is the farthest the
commission has gone in determining guilt for the killings. Why did the
Melo Commission go this far in its findings and what are its
implications?
It would appear that 1) Mr. Palparan's involvement is too glaring that
the Melo Commission had no choice but to indict him to gain some
credibility; 2) the Arroyo regime needs a credible and dramatic
scapegoat; and 3) the crime of "command responsibility" is in fact a
much lesser offense than directly ordering the perpetration of such
fascist crimes. In fact, Mr. Palparan had already admitted to
"inspiring" his men and some civilians to go after the communist rebels
and their supporters. Reading between the lines, Mr. Palparan seems to
be saying that those he "inspired" may have killed some people in their
understandable overzealousness.
But until concrete steps are taken by the Arroyo government to charge,
prosecute and punish Mr. Palparan even for the lesser crime of command
responsibility, this most sensational recommendation of the Melo
Commission is merely grist for the Malacañang propaganda mill, eager to
give the impression to the European Union (EU) and the international
human rights community that Mrs. Arroyo is taking decisive measures to
put an end to the killings and to curb the impunity of their
perpetrators.
Already, Mrs. Arroyo is using the Melo Commission report to repeat
before the diplomatic corps the barefaced lie that her regime does not
tolerate the killings, has the will to stop them and punish those
responsible. She can also assert that that "99.99 percent of the
military are good, hardworking and patriotic" and thus cannot be a party
to such arbarity. The AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) chief of
staff Gen. Esperon, while finally admitting that some military men are
involved, is quick to point out to other, more likely, perpetrators,
"the CPP/NPA (Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army) and
goons of politicians" and that, so far, only six soldiers had been
charged with the majority of cases already dismissed. In other words,
Mr. Esperon reminds us not to overblow this finding of the Melo
Commission.
The six orders issued by Mrs. Arroyo ring hollow. She instructs the Melo
Commission to continue its work without informing the public about what
exactly her hand-picked commission has achieved. She directs the Defense
Department and the AFP to submit an "updated document on command
responsibility" when the generals, as exemplified by Mr. Palparan all
the way up to Mr. Esperon and even the commander-in-chief, Mrs. Arroyo
herself, are the ones on the line and have every reason to find a way to
escape or limit their accountabilities.
Mrs. Arroyo's directive to the Justice and Defense Departments to
coordinate with the constitutionally independent but practically
toothless Commission on Human Rights in forming a fact-finding body to
"delve deeper into the matter of involvement of military personnel in
unexplained killings…" makes a mockery of the pursuit of truth and
justice. These government agencies put at the helm of further
investigations have been proven to have a major interest and involvement
in frustrating any honest-to-goodness investigation.
One of the critical powers that should have been immediately given to
the Melo Commission was that of giving protection to witnesses. Thus
the belated order to the Department of Justice (DoJ) to expand its
witness protection program to include those in extrajudicial killings is
not just a case of "too little, too late" it has already been proven
useless. In the murder cases filed by the families of human rights
worker Eden Marcellana and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy versus General
Palparan, Sgt. Donald Caigas and several civilian assets, the witnesses
received not an iota of protection from the DoJ and were exposed to
tremendous pressure and continuing harassment from suspected military
agents until the cases were dismissed.
Lastly, the invitation to the EU to send investigators to assist in the
Melo Commission's work is nothing new. Mrs. Arroyo had issued a similar
call after her shameful sojourn to Europe last year but nothing came of
it since it appeared the government merely wanted the foreign
investigators to grace the commission's hearings and lend it
credibility.
Mrs. Arroyo, the Cabinet Oversight Committee for Internal Security and
military and police generals think themselves clever in being able to
evade, once more, responsibility for the killings, whether direct or
indirect, given the Melo Commission's damage control. Nonetheless,
wittingly or unwittingly, the commission implicates Mrs. Arroyo herself
in its indictment of General Palparan, due to the generous rewards (i.e.
rapid promotion to plum posts) and lavish praise heaped on Mr. Palparan
by Mrs. Arroyo.
Meantime, despite flak about their refusal to cooperate with the Melo
Commission, the victims, their families and advocates, have been proven
correct in refusing to be a tool in the Arroyo regime's deadly game of
deception. They must seek justice elsewhere as well as work for the
ouster of a regime that has its hands bloodied by repeated and unabated
acts of murder and their most foul cover-up. Business World / Posted
by Bulatlat
*Published in Business World
2-3 February 2007
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