'No rosy Philippine human rights picture'

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines - The country’s human rights picture is not at all rosy, the human rights alliance Karapatan reports in its year-end documentation ahead of the International Human Rights Day on December 10.

“While the Aquino government plays deaf on the call to release political prisoners, it offered bounty for so-called communist leaders and got pop stars to endorse Oplan Bayanihan, that has caused lives of 114 people,” Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan said.

She added that President Aquino’s offer for bounty for Communist Party of the Philippines leaders  “could mean more arbitrary arrests and detention and, further abuses and rights violations.”

From July 2010 to September 2012, Karapatan, Palabay said, documented almost 447 victims of illegal arrests under the Aquino government, including the arrests of farmers and indigenous peoples soldiers meet in the fields and forests during military operations and presenting them as NPA members or supporters.

Karapatan claims there are 401 political prisoners in the country, with 123 persons arrested and detained under the Aquino government.

“Peace does not mean keeping mum to abuses and injustices committed against the people; that arrests and detention, torture and death could not silence the people and surrender their basic rights to land, to decent wages, to housing, livelihood opportunities, to education and health services,” Palabay said.

According to Karapatan,  the Aquino government continues to act tough against “releasing political prisoners, especially the 14 consultants to the peace process” of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) with the government.

The call for the release of political prisoners, Palabay said, has been treated by the government as an obstacle in the peace talks with the NDFP, instead of a measure to hasten the talks and tackle the agenda of social and economic reforms.

Palabay insists that NDFP peace consultants are covered by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) signed in 1995 by both parties.

Karapatan claims that “2012 saw the intensification of military operations and heavy deployment of troops in areas believed to be strongholds of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA),”    that resulted in the alleged forced evacuation and displacement of thousands of indigenous peoples and farmers from their lands, and scores of cases of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, illegal arrests, torture and arbitrary detention and military occupation of schools, chapels, barangay halls and clinics in the community.

“Killings are again becoming gruesome as in martial law years,”  the human rights group  said. They cited the cases of Genesis Ambason, a tribal leader in Agusan del Sur, who was allegedly shot and tortured to death, his head had shrunk due to heavy beatings;  and Ely Oguis, a village council member in Albay who was shot and beheaded.

“Attacks against the people are marked with contemptuous boldness as in the case of the massacre of the Capion family where witnesses heard the AFP ground commander order his men to finish off the two children who survived the shooting, so there will be no witnesses left.”

“Oplan Bayanihan’s second year is marked with 45 extrajudicial killings, to bring the death toll to 129 (as of October 30) under Aquino,”  Palabay said.  Several attacks were directed at indigenous peoples who took a stand against the entry of large and destructive mining in their ancestral domain, she added.

Children suffer hardships during evacuations and demolitions, when they are driven from their homes, Palabay also said. 

“This year, 12 children were victims of extrajudicial killings, and at least three of frustrated killings – due to indiscriminate firing by soldiers, slay try on an adult companion, or at a violent demolition.” 

Several children were also arrested during violent demolitions or accosted during military operations. At least four children and youths were tagged as “NPA child rebels,” while one was charged with violation of the Human Security Act or the Anti-Terror Law.

Though government maintains that human rights violations under Aquino are simply “aberrations”,  the Aquino government, Palabay said, intends to get the unreleased $13 million of US military assistance to the Philippines, which was blocked since 2008 when Philippine solidarity groups lobbied against its release because of the unabated extrajudicial killings.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch pointed out that  Aquino “has not lived up to his promises to bring those responsible for serious abuses to justice,” including alleged violations under this government.

During the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council, at least 22 out of 69 countries called the attention (of the Philippines) to the continuing  extrajudicial killings, disappearances and torture.  - Artemio Dumlao