In Paper to UN Rights Council, Germans Decry Abuses

Extrajudicial executions of local urban poor alleged criminals have become commonplace in at least two major cities: Cebu and Davao City. Davao is notorious for the Davao Death Squad (DDS) – between 1998 and early 2005 there were 320 extrajudicial executions by the DDS. The victims are often petty criminals and urban poor street youths. During the 2004 local elections Mayor Duterte stated that the number of extrajudicial executions in response to crime will double if he is re-elected. He is hence seen as the main culprit behind the DDS and reiterated his support for the DDS in early 2008. In December 2004 Cebu Mayor Osmena formed the Hunter Team – a special force of 16 snipers who are paid by the number of crimes they allegedly prevented. The Mayors Duterte and Osmena are staunch supporters of President Arroyo and the government has not yet opposed the DDS and the Hunter Team.

Armed opposition groups are also responsible for severe and widespread human rights abuses. Human rights abuses committed by the Maoist NPA include the killing of Raymundo Tejeno on 20 th March 2003 and various harassments and death threats against land-reform activists on Bondoc Peninsula. Armed opposition groups are also known for severe human rights abuses in other parts of the Philippines. At the same time, the rival Revolutionary People’s Army (RPA) has allegedly a strategic alliance with military forces against the NPA in Negros.

A list of 1335 killings allegedly perpetrated by NPA forces has been filed at the Joint-Monitoring Committee. However, despite numerous requests for substantiating documentation, hardly any was provided. Observers allege a political nature behind the list, since nearly 90% of its cases were filed by the military on a single day in late 2006. It is important to point out, that apart from the military, police and government officials no human rights organisation draws a connection between the recent upsurge of killings and a supposed internal purge within the left.

However, Prof. Alston points to NPA practices inconsistent with international humanitarian law and describes the so-called “people’s court system”, which still uses capital punishment against “intelligence personnel”, as “either deeply flawed or simply a sham,” since it circumvents due process, as it lacks “anything that could be reasonably be characterized as a penal code” (Philip Alston, Final Report, November 2007). Impunity, therefore is also happening in the wider context of political violence in the Philippines.

Anti-Terrorism Legislation and Human Rights

Security policies and infringements on civil rights in the face of political crisis are often portrayed as a contribution to the global war against terrorism. However, Philippine human rights organisations are convinced that the so called “war against terrorism” is currently used as a pretext to suppress peaceful opposition. For example, Amnesty International’s 2006 report (ASA 35/006/2006) and follow up memorandum (ASA 35/010/2006) point to a pattern of politically targeted extrajudicial executions connected to the broader context of a current counter-insurgency campaign of the Philippines government and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) against the Maoist New People’s Army (NPA). In February 2008, two alleged assassination plans by Abu Sayyaf as well as the NPA against President Arroyo were revealed by the military. However, in the light of new calls for Arroyo’s resignation from the opposition the media widely assumed subterfuge as a motive behind the revelations.

The Human Security Act of 2007, an anti-terrorism law that became effective on 15 July 2007, poses a serious threat to existing human rights legislation. Criticism over the broad definition of terrorism is at the heart of all the five petitions filed against the law at the Supreme Court. According to the NGO Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), “the Human Security Act (HSA) is one of the most incoherent, disorganized and disjointed laws our Congress has ever passed. (…) The law has no discernible structure, no headings or subheadings, and no groupings of sections. Provisions follow one another without logical connection (…).” (7)

In the light of the climate of impunity regarding prosecution of security forces involved in human rights violations, NGOs fear the law will serve as a pretext to justify the criminalization of political dissent. As of February 2008, there were no implementing guidelines for the law in place.

Enforced disappearances

Disappearances have contributed to the erosion of the peace process with the NPA over recent years. In August 2007, the farmers Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo surfaced and alleged that they were forcibly abducted by unidentified armed men on February 14, 2007 in San Ildefonso, Bulacan and tortured and subjected to inhuman treatment during their 18-month old captivity. They also alleged, that General Jovito Palparan had questioned them during their captivity. They sought the protection of the Supreme Court, who issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) enjoining the Department of National Defense (DND) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) from causing the arrest or enforced disappearance of two farmer brothers. There are no reports regarding official, government initiated or impartial investigations into both matters, yet. (8) The Manalo case is one of many cases of enforced disappearance and abduction and impunity.

Leftist activists “disappeared” as a matter of routine under the government of President Marcos, who was overthrown in 1986 and began to decline in the early 1990s. They are still reported periodically in the course of anti-insurgency operations against the armed wing of the legal Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA), which has been fighting the government since the 1970s. Thousands of people still remain “disappeared”. Under the Arroyo administration the numbers of “disappearances” have tripled: from 15 in 2001 – 2002 to 66 victims in 2003 – 2004.