Luis V. Teodoro » Task Forced

By Luis V. Teodoro

MANILA, Philippines — Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has formed another task force, described as a “high level” one, against political violence. The task force supersedes the police’s task force Usig which she also created for the same purpose.

Mrs. Arroyo issued Administrative Order 211 on the heels of the final report by United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston on the extra-judicial killings that have multiplied in number and frequency since 2001. AO 211, however, includes those killings occasioned by partisan politics in the task force’s coverage.

Though Filipinos take them in stride, so used are they to violence as a fact of life in this “peace-loving” country, such killings mock the country’s claims to the stability of its political institutions. But above all should they be matters of concern as much as the extra-judicial killing of leftist activists because they are part of the same lawlessness that has thrown the country into near-anarchy.

The politicians and their followers have been killing each other since elections were introduced in this country. The most recent and so far most spectacular case is that of Basilan Congressman Wahab Akbar, who was killed by a bomb on the grounds of the Batasang Pambansa complex in Quezon City last November 13.

Police say Akbar was likely to have been killed by his political enemies, of whom there are legion. It is almost impossible for politicians not to have enemies, but Akbar’s seem to have been more determined and more ruthless than most. They killed three other people and injured 13 others through the unprecedented act of planting a bomb where Philippine laws are made.

But if the Akbar killing—if indeed Akbar was the target—indicated anything, it was the degree to which, despite government’s claims to the contrary, lawless violence has become the preferred means of settling differences in this country. There are a number of reasons for this, among which we must include police corruption, incompetence, and lack of professionalism. A situation in which the police are very often the partisans of politicians and other interests is hardly conducive to impartial inquiry.

But there is also the demonstration effect of impunity. That too many killings remain unsolved results not only in the killers’ remaining free to kill again, but also in encouraging others to kill.

That the killers of politicians and their followers are too often not even identified, much less apprehended, is not, however, solely the result of police incompetence and corruption. In recent times this has also been the consequence of the government policy of hunting down the leaders and members of legal leftist organizations, whose military killers are, naturally, never identified and punished.