Faced with this formidable “cordon sanitaire,” Karapatan turns to independent international bodies including our Canadian fact-finding mission, to pursue their work. Arroyo’s spin doctors try to discredit the organization and deftly question Karapatan’s numbers. On Dec. 1 the alliance released its yearend report and called 2006 the “worst year for human rights in the Philippines” since Arroyo took power in 2001. Their last count now approaches almost 800 political killings. The Canadian fact-finding mission is also labeled as “tools” of Karapatan.
Still, this writer came face to face with terror no amount of propaganda can dispute. And more.
No civil rule
Unmistakably martial rule reigns in the barangays we visited. Eyewitnesses say the military not only acts as judge and jury but also the executioner.
A young man we interviewed was arrested and tortured by the military for selling a stolen goat. He was paraded around town together with another accomplice, wearing a sandwich board tied around his neck proclaiming that he was a thief – the stolen animal reluctantly following them.
In another instance, we were told by the barangay captain (the highest civilian official in the local government unit) of an army lieutenant who was accused of conduct unbecoming an officer. He was “paddled” by his superior in the town square in the presence of the villagers. Paddling means being hit in the back repeatedly by a 2×4 until you bleed and fall to the ground.
In these two cases there was no due process – in the first case, crime is a police matter not a military prerogative. In the second case, military law should apply, not the medieval and barbaric beating of an accused.
In these far-flung villages, the military is the law. If you are labeled as a supporter of the NPA and do not report to them to “clear” your name you automatically end up in the Order of Battle or OB.
Such was the case of the people whose relatives we interviewed – for failing to convince the military that they had nothing to do with the guerillas, they ended up in the OB and ultimately paid for their lives.
They are the innocent victims of the unrelenting war of terror now gripping this country of 85 million people many of whom escape the grinding poverty by working in 186 countries around the globe – ten million of them euphemistically called Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW). Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo calls them the “modern heroes”. Their remittances of around $10 billion a year prop up the country’s poor economy.
Meanwhile, many of those who are left behind are killed with impunity while the government prepared to host a regional meeting and put up a benign face to the world.(Bulatlat.com)
