Earlier attempts by victims or relatives to file charges have only resulted in endless delays at the Justice Department, the inexplicable dismissal or downgrading of charges and not a single conviction.
Then there is the clear, unequivocal message sent to all concerned when implicated AFP or PNP officials are promoted and, for the special few, lauded ever so publicly during the Commander-in-Chief’s SONA.
Sometimes there is someone brave or foolish enough to be a witness. Take the case of the two female UP students and their companion who are alleged to have been taken by military men in Bulacan more than a month ago. A 14-year-old boy provided an eyewitness account. A writ of habeas corpus was issued by the Court of Appeals for military officials in the area of responsibility to produce the three missing persons but the response of AFP Chief of Staff General Esperon is to scoff at the court order and deny that they have the three in their custody.
The third basis for our skepticism is the overarching frame of “all-out war” against the Left that Mrs. Arroyo, her generals and the most virulent anti-communists in her inner circle have embraced as the ultimate solution to the decades-old, communist-led revolutionary armed struggle in this country.
Recently the PNP Spokesperson said there is no government policy that says “specifically or even implicitly, run after them” (i.e. unarmed activists and progressives referred to as the legal Left). Instead he says that there is an aggressive policy to break the spine of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, through intensified military operations and legal offensives.
What the official doublespeak doesn’t say, however, is that legal activists are considered by the government as communist rebels in sheep’s clothing; that is, they are accused to be merely fronting for the communists, are therefore equally guilty of rebellion and ergo are fair targets of government’s all-out war.
We can come to no other conclusion than this: unarmed political opponents of the Arroyo regime using their ideas, words and bodies to express their political beliefs are treated as legitimate military targets, human rights covenants and international humanitarian law be hanged.
According to the report of the International Fact Finding Mission (IFFM) organized by Dutch and Belgian lawyers groups in June, “To this date, the Arroyo administration rejects national and international criticism on its human rights record, by simply referring to its democratic institutions and human rights treaties, laws and policies.”
“Taking into account that all democratic institutions are formally in place, the IFFM considers the situation especially alarming. This makes it abundantly clear that either the constitutional state does not function
properly or that there are powers undermining its proper functioning.”
To paraphrase the IFFM report, until and unless the Arroyo regime agrees to constitute and fully support an independent body, i.e. not controlled by the government, to investigate the killings, threats and harassment and to follow its recommendations, all its bombastic statements mean next to nothing. Posted by Bulatlat
* Published in Business World 5-6 August 2006
