Philippines: Prosecute Political Killings

Failure to Prosecute, Lack of Witness Protection Leads to Official Impunity

(New York, June 28, 2007) – The Philippine government should aggressively prosecute members of the security forces responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial executions in recent years, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The 84-page report, “Scared Silent: Impunity for Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines,” based on more than 100 interviews, details the involvement of government security forces in the murder or “disappearance” of members of leftist political parties and nongovernmental organizations, journalists, outspoken clergy, anti-mining activists, and agricultural reform activists. To date there have been no successful prosecutions of any member of the armed forces implicated in recent extrajudicial killings.

“There is strong evidence of a ‘dirty war’ by the armed forces against left-leaning activists and journalists,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The failure to prosecute soldiers or police suspected in these killings shifts the spotlight of responsibility to the highest levels of the government.”

While abuses have been common in the decades-long armed conflict between the government and the communist New People’s Army (NPA), unlawful killings appeared to shift into a higher gear in February 2006, after President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo accused leftist political parties of allying themselves with military coup plotters. In June 2006, Arroyo declared a new strategy of an “all-out war” to eliminate the NPA, which may have sent a signal to the military that abuses would be tolerated. The NPA also continues to commit human rights abuses, including kidnapping and unlawful killings, which Human Rights Watch also condemned. But such abuses by insurgents do not justify the military or the government committing further human rights violations through extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of any person, including members of political groups and civil society organizations that are sympathetic to the insurgents’ cause.

Most of the victims of the political killings documented by Human Rights Watch were members of legal political parties or organizations that the military claims are allied with the communist movement. None of the incidents investigated by Human Rights Watch involved anyone who was participating in an armed encounter with the military or was otherwise involved in NPA military operations. Each victim appears to have been individually targeted for killing.

Three motorcycle-riding gunmen shot and killed Sotero Llamas, the former Bicol region commander of the NPA, while he was riding in his car on the morning of May 29, 2006, through his home town of Tabaco City, in Albay province. Llamas, who had been imprisoned in 1995 for his membership in the NPA, was released in 1996, became a consultant to the peace process, and then became a founding member of the political party Bayan Muna. In February 2006, Llamas was one of the 51 people whom the police accused of rebellion and insurrection and being involved in the conspiracy to overthrow the Arroyo administration. A judge dismissed the charges, but state prosecutors subsequently re-filed the case, which was still pending at the time of his death.

Three eyewitnesses currently in hiding told Human Rights Watch of the involvement of soldiers in the death of Pastor Andy Pawikan, a member of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, on May 21, 2006. Pawikan, his wife, his 7-month-old daughter and three other women were walking home from church when they were stopped by a group of about 20 soldiers. The women, including Pawikan’s wife, were allowed to proceed but the soldiers detained Pawikan, who was carrying the baby. After about 30 minutes, those who had just been with Pawikan heard “many” shots. They were too afraid to investigate. After some time a group of soldiers came and returned the child to Pawikan’s mother-in-law. The baby was covered in blood but otherwise uninjured. The next day soldiers from the locally based 48th Infantry Battalion told the villagers Pawikan had fought the soldiers and they had no choice but to shoot him.

Human Rights Watch also found that the Philippines government is consistently failing in its obligations under international human rights law to hold accountable perpetrators of politically motivated killings, and thus denying victims’ families justice. One apparent roadblock to prosecutions is the seeming unwillingness of senior military officials to even recognize that superior commanders may be legally responsible for acts of their subordinates as a matter of command responsibility. Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. told the media, “Criminal acts only involve the individual.”

The Philippine national police also frequently labels cases “solved” when a suspect has been identified and charges have been filed before the prosecutor or the court, even if the evidence and allegations are so uncertain as to raise significant doubts that a viable case could ever be pursued. The alleged perpetrator is very rarely in custody and in many cases is not even capable of being apprehended. Families told Human Rights Watch that they received little or no information from the police about the state of investigations, and that the police showed almost no concern as to whether the victim’s family still has unanswered questions or concerns. One widow said: “We’ve had no contact [with the police] since the killing …. That’s why we don’t trust them. Because it’s been almost two months, and the investigation doesn’t seem resolved.”

“The armed forces serve the civilian authority, but the government isn’t exercising that authority when it matters most – in protecting civilians,” said Richardson. “The victims and their families deserve better from their government.”