In Wake of Alston Final Report, Heads Should Roll, Militarist Policies Scrapped — Solons
JOINT STATEMENT
November 28, 2007
The report of United Nations Human Rights Commission Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston is an affirmation of our long standing position that the intensified extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the country, since 2001 emanates from the highest level of state policy on counter-insurgency.
The report zeroes in on the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Operational Plan (Oplan) Bantay Laya and the National Internal Security Plan approved by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as the blueprint for counter-insurgency target research, casing and the resultant extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of civilians, mostly activists.
It criticizes and calls for the abolition of the Malacañang-created Inter-Agency Legal Action Group (IALAG), the super body tasked to prosecute leaders of peoples’ organizations and progressive party-lists and, that undermines the justice system and other democratic institutions.
The Alston report is correct to highlight the AFP’s continued state of denial on the extrajudicial killings. The AFP’s continuing state of denial is part and parcel of the administration’s systematic cover up of its accountability on the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, rampant corruption, widespread electoral fraud, and other high crimes.
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