This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 1, Feb. 4-10, 2007
STREETWISE 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 © 2007 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.
Melo Commission – Still No
Surprises*
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