No troop pullout in Metro

Despite recommendations from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is not about to pull out troops now immersed in slum areas of Metro Manila.

"No, we are still studying it," AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said in response to CHR’s call to the military leadership to pull out soldiers deployed in Metro Manila.

The deployment of troops in 26 slum districts of Quezon City, Caloocan, Manila, Parañaque and Taguig came under criticism from human rights advocates as well as militant groups.

"We are open to anything but we are studying it," the military chief added.

The CHR wrote President Arroyo, Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Oscar Calderon and Esperon last week calling for the pullout.

But Ebdane said he has not received the commission’s letter. He added that CHR Chairperson Purificacion Quisumbing had not mentioned the proposed pullout to him in their recent meetings.

"I have not heard of that," Ebdane said of the CHR recommendation. In a separate interview, Ebdane stood firm in his position that the soldiers should stay in their present assignments.

"Should we stop it (deployment) just because some people, who are not even from the areas, are complaining?"

Philippine Army (PA) chief Lt. Gen. Romeo Tolentino said the deployment was meant to stop the communist New People’s Army (NPA) from establishing staging points for the liquidation squad it planned to deploy in Metro Manila.

Meantime, Manila Archbishop Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales yesterday raised his objection to criticisms from various quarters that likened the present state of military affairs in the country to martial law.

"You young people didn’t see what it was like during martial law. It was worse than what you are going through now. What’s going on now is nothing as compared to martial law - gagatinga lang yan," Rosales said in an interview aired over Radyo Veritas.

But Rosales clarified that while the present state of the military in the country is not comparable to martial law, it is still as alarming.

"Killing people — whether extrajudicial or not — is bad. That is a given," he said.

The cardinal also believes the issue of unexplained killings in the country should not be blamed completely on the military as "they are perpetrated both by the soldiers and insurgents."

"We should tell the government as well as the rebels that it is wrong to kill. And this is what we are doing exactly... We must help one another in cultivating a culture of peace," he stressed.

Rosales issued this statement after the six-member jury of the Permanent People’s Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands that investigated killings in the country reportedly declared the administration of President Arroyo to be worse than the Marcos government it had tried in 1980.

It was learned the jury had found the Arroyo government and its accomplices guilty of gross violations of human rights, economic and social rights and transgression of the national sovereignty of the Filipino people.

Jury President Francois Houtart said that the jury found very similar situations during the time of Marcos and the present government.

"During Marcos, the whole world knew that there was a dictatorship and it is expected that there will be violations of human rights. Today, democracy... that is perhaps the reason why it is less known in the rest of the world that today’s situation is similar to martial law, thirty years ago," Houtart was quoted by the ABS-CBN news website.

Earlier, the Archdiocese of Manila already expressed alarm over the military presence in Metro Manila.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said they had received a report that showed soldiers were harassing members of party-list groups.

In fact, he said, he recently joined a solidarity mission in Baseco and Parola in Tondo, to have a dialogue with the soldiers but the soldiers did not talk to them: "We went to the barangay hall where they were staying in the second floor but they did not want to go down and listen to the people."

He said this gives them enough reason to appeal to the government to respect the human rights of the poor. - with Edu Punay