STEM HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES
MANILA, JANUARY
24,
2012 (INQUIRER) The New York-based Human
Rights Group on Monday lamented that President Aquino's valiant promises to stem
the rampant violation of human rights have remained just that, and said it could
show its resolve by arresting a high ranking retired military officer accused of
kidnapping militant students.
After a year and a half in office, the Aquino administration made little
progress in addressing impunity, with extrajudicial killings still taking place,
the Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its World Report 2012 where it assessed
various countries' achievements, or lack thereof, in protecting human rights.
HRW also said the government failed to acknowledge the involvement of
security forces in those crimes. It added that the government should now make
these forces accountable for their role in killings, and should disable abusive
paramilitary forces as well.
[PHOTO - FUGITIVE GENERAL J. PALPARAN] At the same
time, the group called on the administration to arrest retired Major General
Jovito Palparan, who stands accused of kidnapping two militant University of the
Philippines students. Palparan is the highest-ranking military officer to be
charged for human rights abuses since the ouster of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in
1986.
"The arrest and prosecution of Palparan would be the most significant move
against impunity for military abuses in the last decade," HRW deputy Asia
director Elaine Pearson said in a separate statement.
"But the government should be more proactive in investigating killings and
torture, arresting suspects, and vigorously prosecuting them," she added.
Still weak
In its report, HRW said key institutions in the Philippines, including the
judiciary and law enforcement agencies, are still weak and the military and the
police violate people's rights with impunity. The New People's Army, Islamist
moro groups and other armed opposition forces also abuse civilians. Incidents of
extrajudicial killings continue, it added.
It noted that the President has pleaded for patience, saying that his
administration is working overtime to prevent new cases of human rights
violations and solve earlier ones.
"Yet despite promises of reform, his administration has made little progress
in addressing impunity. Extrajudicial killings of leftist activists and petty
criminals continue, with the government failing to acknowledge and address
involvement by the security forces and local officials," it said in its report.
"His administration will ultimately be measured by what it achieves, not by
his stated intentions," Pearson also said.
According to HRW, the government has failed since 2001 to prosecute
members of the military implicated in the killings despite strong evidence
against them.
It said only seven cases of extrajudicial killings from the past decade were
successfully prosecuted, and none of them involved active military personnel. It
said that since Aquino became chief executive in 2010, it had documented at
least seven cases of extrajudicial killings and three cases of enforced
disappearances, which bore signs of military involvement.
It also said that even in Palparan's case, it was the family of the students,
and not the government, which initiated the criminal case.
The HRW also noted in a statement that a P1 million bounty has been put up
for information for Palparan's capture, and tracker teams were formed to hunt
him down. But it said that Aquino should direct the police and military to do
more to arrest him.
Private armies
The group also said that while Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo claimed that
the government had dismantled nearly half of private armies in Mindanao, there
was no evidence presented to back this up. It also said Executive Order 546,
which officials use to justify the arming of their own personnel, has yet to be
revoked despite a promise to do so.
The private armies of politicians and other powerful personalities had been
implicated in serious cases of human rights abuse.
"Aquino still defends the use of poorly trained and abusive paramilitary
forces to fight NPA insurgents and Islamist armed groups," HRW said.
Pearson said it was hard to believe that two years after the gruesome
Maguindanano massacre, where the Ampatuan clan and its private armies had been
implicated, Aquino had still not dismantled the paramilitary forces.
The rights group also noted that police and military personnel have been
implicated in torture incidents, including Manila precinct chief Sr. Insp.
Joselito Binayug who was supposedly caught on video abusing a crime suspect
Darius Evangelista during interrogation, as well as army scout rangers who
allegedly sexually assaulted and set on fire suspected Abu Sayyaf member Abdul
Khan Balinting Ajid.
The soldiers had been restricted to barracks, but none had been charged for
the incident, HRW added.
Death squads
It also found that death squads still prey on petty criminals, drug dealers,
street children and gang members in Davao and Tagum cities.
"Aquino's administration has not acted to dismantle such groups, end local
anti-crime campaigns that promote or encourage unlawful use of force, or
prosecute government officials complicit in such activities," it said.
It added that the Commissiom on Human Rights has yet to release the report on
its multi-agency investigations into summary killings in Davao in 2009.
The HRW also said the New People's Army, the armed wing of the communist
party, has killed and detained civilians and extorted taxes from individuals and
businesses. The NPA had justified the killings by saying the victims had been
condemned by its "people's courts."
But HRW also took note of the findings of Philip Alston, former United
Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, that the NPA's court
system is "either deeply flawed or simply a sham."
On the other hand, it said the Philippine army had fabricated stories that
several children it had taken into custody were NPA rebels. It also cited a UN
Children's Fund report of children being used in armed conflict by the NPA, the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front and government forces. The UN had found a more
frequent occurrence of government forces using schools as barracks and bases.
The HRW further said in its report that the government had proposed or
implemented bans on sending Filipino workers to countries with high incidences
of abuse, but these have been ineffective on the whole in stopping abuse since
host countries just turn to other labor sources.
It also said the Philippines has not yet extended labor protections to
domestic household workers, although it had played a vital role on the matter
globally since it chaired the negotiations for the International Labour
Organization Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers last year.
HRW also said said the pending reproductive rights bill, which the President
said he supports, helps enhance the protection of sexual and reproductive rights
and the right to highest obtainable standard of health, and still makes abortion
a criminal offense.
Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
© Copyright, 2012 by PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE
All
rights reserved
PHILIPPINE
HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE [PHNO] WEBSITE
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/phnotweet
This is the PHILIPPINE HEADLINE NEWS ONLINE (PHNO) Mailing List.
To stop receiving our news items, please send a blank e-mail addressed to: phno-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
Please visit our homepage at: http://www.newsflash.org/
(c) Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
-------------------------------------------------------------Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phno/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/phno/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
phno-digest@yahoogroups.com
phno-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
phno-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
