November deadline

In its concluding observations in 2003, the UNHRC lined up several questions on the Philippine government’s poor performance in its compliance to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The UN body instructed the Philippine government to reply to these observations on Nov. 1 this year.

Karapatan is also set to lobby for the review of the pledges the government promised as a member of the UN Human Rights Council.

According to the rights alliance, 729 persons, many of them confirmed to be identified with cause-oriented organizations and progressive party-list groups, were killed extra-judicially allegedly by military, paramilitary and police forces since Macapagal-Arroyo took power in early 2001. The number does not include 181 abduction cases during the same period.

Reports of political killings, where not one case has been investigated or suspects brought to courts, have increasingly alarmed international bodies. Nobel Peace Prize winner Amnesty International, the World Council of Churches and the Vatican’s Papal Nuncio in Manila, the International Parliamentary Union and several other groups in Europe, the United States and other countries have criticized the Macapagal-Arroyo government for its failure to rein in its security forces over the killings.

The U.S. government has also been asked to withdraw its support for the Philippine president because of the unabated killings, among others.

Following the junking of the impeachment complaint against the embattled president last week, calls were made to bring Macapagal-Arroyo to an international war crimes tribunal where she will be made to account for her responsibility over the killings.

“The people are once again denied a remedy to stop human rights abuses by the Arroyo government,” Hilao-Enriquez said in her statement. “However, this will not stop us from finding ways to make her accountable for her transgressions.”

Reports reveal that the political murders of activists, organizers, lawyers, rights volunteers, church leaders and other persons could be the handiwork of security forces under the four-year old Oplan Bantay Laya (Operation Plan Freedom Watch).

The OBL seeks to end the 37-year long Marxist rebellion. But critics have said that the military blueprint, which was approved by the president’s Cabinet Oversight Committee for Internal Security (COC-IS), led by a former Marcos colonel, now Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, should be blamed for the political killings. Leaders and members of cause-oriented organizations, who have called for Macapagal-Arroyo’s ouster, have been the targets of the attacks.

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