Representatives of both the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Melo Commission, a body created by the government to investigate extrajudicial killings, declined the mission’s invitation to meet with them. The lawyers’ mission team also studied documents, including those provided by the government agencies.
One of the government’s usual responses to an attack is to set up a task force to supposedly investigate. But, according to L4L, it remains unclear how the establishment of these various task forces has contributed to the solution of these killings or even in addressing the other factors for the failure to investigate and prosecute extrajudicial killings effectively.
These factors, L4L’s team said, include the lack of witnesses and resources, sloppy police investigations, the unwillingness of the police to investigate the military, the inadequate implementation of the legal framework, the ineffective accountability mechanisms and the passive and politicized criminal justice system.
Recommendations Ignored
The mission noted that the Philippine government has not sufficiently implemented substantive and preventive measures necessary to materialize the recommendations of the various independent investigations to address the killings in the Philippines.
It cited the reports and recommendations of the Melo Commission and the UN’s Alston, as well as the reports of various other national and international governmental and civil society organizations. “Most reports identified the government’s counter-insurgency strategies that increasingly label civil-society groups as fronts for communist insurgents, the culture of impunity and the military involvement in politics as the main root causes for the recent spate of killings.”
In fact, the mission said, the Philippine government rejected some crucial recommendations, including those addressing the root causes of the issue of extrajudicial killings such as the appropriate reform of the judiciary and the security forces.
New Form of Attack
L4L said lawyers and judges in the Philippines are still threatened, intimidated and killed, as a consequence of which they encounter difficulties in carrying out their legal profession.
The mission noted that although the number of killings has declined, they still occur. “It must be emphasized that every killing is one too much,” it said.
From 2007 to 2008, at least nine lawyers and three judges were killed.
The mission found out that a new method of harassment has been introduced to target lawyers—the filing of fabricated criminal charges. This practice, said the mission, undermines the rule of law in the Philippines.
The National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) brought to the attention of the fact-finding team the filing of trumped-up criminal charges against labor lawyer Remigio Saladero Jr. Even as two cases against Saladero have been dismissed, he is facing another murder case.
“Lawyers also fear being silenced by fabricated charges. It seems that activists are increasingly facing questionable criminal charges, produced through the subversion of court procedures and rules on evidence,” it stated.
The international mission interviewed more than 20 lawyers and judges who experienced different forms of harassment. The mission also obtained documentation on various forms of attack against lawyers and judges.
