Deadly dirty work in the Philippines

By Cher S Jimenez
Southseat Asia online

MANILA - Political killings in the Philippines have escalated into a full-blown international issue, one that threatens to further undermine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's already wobbly democratic credentials and one that puts at long-term risk the Philippines' budding and lucrative military relationship with the United States.

Philip Alston, United Nations special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings, and three UN staff members arrived in Manila over the weekend to begin a three-week independent probe that will include meetings with high-level government officials as well as independent rights groups, some of which have had their members assassinated. Arroyo has also recently invited the European Union and certain individual European countries to assist with probes into the killings.

Significantly, the UN fact-finding mission comes hot on the heels of a revealing government-ordered investigation into the surge in political assassinations. Led by former Philippine Supreme Court justice Jose Melo, a commission on January 30 revealed in initial comments to the local media that members of the military were responsible for the "majority" of the killings, and although they acted of their own volition and not on direct government orders, that their superiors could be held accountable for their subordinates' crimes.

The military has already promised to prosecute any soldiers found to be guilty of extrajudicial killings. Meanwhile, Arroyo told foreign diplomats the day after the Melo Commission was released that both soldiers and armed leftist groups were responsible for the killings and that she believed "99.9% of our military are good, hard-working and patriotic Filipinos". The contents of the Melo Commission's report have not yet been revealed publicly.

Arroyo administration officials have consistently denied any responsibility for the killings, claiming reports that allege that the government ordered any of the deaths are being perpetuated by political opponents trying to destabilize the government and score political points before upcoming Senate elections. And judging by recent official statements, Arroyo believes that the UN's findings will somehow absolve her and her administration of any culpability for the killings.

Arroyo could, however, be in for a rude awakening. UN special rapporteur on indigenous peoples Rodolfo Stavenhagen said over the weekend that her government's inability to stop the extrajudicial killings and the pattern of human-rights violations victimizing human-rights defenders, social activists, community leaders and other innocent civilians "is seriously undermining the international standing of the Philippine government".

Echoes of Marcos

That echoes what rights groups such as Karapatan have been alleging for years. Since Arroyo took power in 2001, at least 830 people have been killed in an extrajudicial fashion, including 365 mostly left-leaning political and social activists, Karapatan claims. The larger figure includes assassinations of journalists, judges and lawyers known to be sympathetic to leftist causes. Civil-society and rights groups have frequently criticized Arroyo's perceived public indifference to the murders, raising questions of whether she is either unable or unwilling to stop the violence.

To be sure, there are questions about how much control Arroyo really has over certain military commanders and their lower-ranking officers. Her administration has occasionally been beset by military mutinies and alleged foiled coup attempts. However, the recent escalation in violence has placed her six-year administration on pace to surpass the total number of extrajudicial killings documented during the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos' brutal tenure. During his 20-year rule, including a decade under martial law, more than 3,000 people associated with the communist movement were killed. That's a particularly damning comparison for Arroyo, a US-educated economist and self-professed democrat.

It could also significantly act to complicate her government's relations with the United States, which is barred by the Leahy Amendment from providing military or police assistance to governments found to be involved in systematic rights abuses. Arroyo has firmly allied herself with the US-led "war on terror", and the Philippines has allowed US special forces and other military personnel to take up positions in the south to provide technical, logistical and, apparently in certain instances, operational support to the Philippine military in combating Muslim separatist insurgent groups, one of which Washington claims has ties to al-Qaeda.

Significantly, the US, no doubt at Arroyo's urging, also included the heavily armed and well-entrenched New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, on its list of international terrorist groups. According to Karapatan, the US has on several occasions directly supported the Philippine military's pursuit of the armed communist militia, which has been fighting the central government for more than 40 years, because of its alleged new united front with certain guerrilla Muslim organizations.

In 2002 Arroyo announced an all-out war against what she deemed internal security threats including armed leftist groups, a master military plan known locally as Oplan Bantay Laya, or Operation Plan Defend Freedom. That assault was scheduled to conclude last year, but it was recently extended by her government through 2010, when Arroyo's constitutionally mandated term as president ends. Last year was notably the bloodiest yet for extrajudicial killings, with a total of 185 people, mostly left-leaning activists, murdered without trial or punishment for the perpetrators.

It was also during this period that Arroyo made the controversial Presidential Proclamation 1017, granting exceptional unchecked powers to the executive branch. Last February she activated that order to place the country under a state of emergency and allowed law-enforcement officials to conduct warrantless arrests of alleged enemies of the state, including some members of the political opposition and journalists from critical media outlets. It's notable now that Arroyo's crackdown on civil liberties conspicuously coincided with a spike in political killings.

State of denial

Even with the international spotlight on Arroyo's rights record, Philippine military and police officials continue to play down the mounting death toll, claiming that there have been no more than 100 political-related killings over her government's six-year term. As in the past, the government blames the NPA for most of the killings, claiming the rebel group is purging its own members or those who have abandoned their ideological cause. But the pattern of the killings seems to indicate that left-leaning activists are often being targeted by security forces the same as armed NPA rebels.

Rights organizations and reportedly the Melo Commission have openly blamed particular prominent members of the military - specifically now-retired General Jovencito Palparan - for the killings of social and political activists sympathetic to the communist movement. According to Karapatan's records, more than 100 of the extrajudicial killings took place in Southern Tagalog, Eastern Visayas and Central Luzon regions, where Palparan had been assigned as a battalion commander.

Palparan told the Associated Press that "there was no evidence against him or any of his men" after the Melo Commission submitted its report to Arroyo. But Palparan's case could soon put Arroyo's government in a tricky spot. The recently retired Palparan was praised by name during Arroyo's State of the Nation address last June for his efforts in helping to reduce the strength of the communist insurgency. During the same nationally televised address, she also lamented the upsurge in unexplained extrajudicial killings.

Meanwhile, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon has said Palparan can no longer be held accountable for any charges related to the killings because his military service has ended. Bishop Juan De Dios Pueblos, a member of the Melo Commission, said that the fact his fact-finding team's authority and findings had no legal binding was apparent in the alleged "arrogant" way Palparan answered question's from the commission's members.

In the coming months, the UN and potentially the EU will likely add a new, more legalistic and potentially damning perspective to the intensifying domestic debate about whether the killings are a matter of central government policy or the dirty work of a few wayward security officials. Whether international probity will be enough to stem the bloodletting and bring high-level Philippine officials to account still seems doubtful as the killings continue this year. What does seem certain is that the Philippines' international reputation as a respectable and stable democracy will soon take another hit.


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Cher S Jimenez is a Manila-based journalist with the BusinessMirror newspaper. She recently received a grant from the Ateneo de Manila University to conduct investigative journalism on illegal workers in the United Arab Emirates.

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