Death Squad-Style Murders Rise in GenSan

PHILIPPINES: A series of unsolved murders reveals the lack of
investigations into even the worst crimes in the country

The Asian Legal Resource Center (ALRC) has in recent months
documented a pattern of murders of persons supposedly either involved
in criminal activities or who are victims of motorcycle robberies.
These have been taking place in General Santos City (GSC), in the
South of the Philippines. The utter failure by the authorities to
investigate these grave crimes points to the inadequacies of the
State in protecting its citizens, notably their right to life. This
inadequacy has also previously been seen with regard to the spate of
hundreds of targeted extra-judicial killings of leftist activists
that have placed the Philippines under the spotlight in recent years.
Despite international condemnation with regard to these killings, the
Philippines have promised much but delivered little, and one of the
main causes of this can be put down to the unwillingness and
inability to thoroughly investigate crimes and human rights
violations. How can the Philippines live up to its pledges to promote
and protect human right to the highest standards when it does not even
move to investigate multiple murders?

Between February 4 and May 14, 2008, the ALRC has been alerted to 17
murders in GSC and it is believed that this is not an exhaustive
list. Seven of those murdered, including a 16-year-old boy, have been
accused by the police investigators of having criminal records, being
former detainees or persons involved in committing motorcycle
robberies. In several other cases, the victims are persons illegally
working as motorcycle taxis, who were killed when criminals stole
their motorcycles. This paints a picture of deep lawlessness, which
is compounded by a lack of investigations by the authorities into
both the robberies and the killings. Nobody has been held to account
despite the police’s initial findings that the murders could have
been perpetrated by a group, based on ballistic evidence recovered
from the scene of the crimes.

The city’s mayor, Pedro Acharon Jr., has implied that six of the
murders were carried out by rival gangs of criminals, repeating such
claims made previously by the police. However, these statements have
been made without any reasonable and convincing proof. The ALRC is
seriously concerned by the evident lack of investigations being
carried out in such grave cases. A similar lack of investigation into
other crimes, including where those responsible are thought to be
State agents, is at the source of the ongoing wide-ranging serious
human rights violations that are present throughout the Philippines,
both in terms of torture, extra-judicial killings, forced
disappearances as well as violations of a range of economic, social
and cultural rights, including the right to food. Where the right to
life is not respected or protected, what hope is there for other
rights?

This right is enshrined under Article 6 (1) of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Human Rights
Committee’s General Comment No. 6 1982, par. 3, states that:
“the protection against arbitrary deprivation of life which is
explicitly required by the third sentence of article 6 (1) is of
paramount importance. The Committee considers that States parties
should take measures not only to prevent and punish deprivation of
life by criminal acts, but also to prevent arbitrary killing by their
own security forces (sic)”.