Palace says latest Alston report 'inaccurate, off-tangent'

MANILA, Philippines – Malacañang described yesterday the report of the United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston on unexplained killings as inaccurate and “off-tangent.”

In his report, Alston said the Arroyo administration has failed to act on the killings and implement reforms recommended two years ago.

Deputy Presidential Spokesman Anthony Golez said the Palace was surprised by Alston’s report that “was off-tangent to the results of the bold steps the President has taken.”

Golez pointed out that the figures submitted by human rights groups were found to be bloated and inaccurate.

He said the government “recognizes the fact extra-judicial killings, if unresolved, undermines the integrity of justice system.”

“This is why there are systems to decrease the killings and solve new cases at once,” Golez told a news briefing.

He said the Arroyo administration has taken many steps to stop the killings, including putting up the Task Force Usig that investigates such cases, and forming the Melo Commission.

“The President has had her own government subjected to outside scrutiny by Alston, the European Needs Mission, and even meeting Amnesty International officials in London, the first ever head of state to do that.”

‘Alston already prejudged Philippines’

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez said it would be better to ignore claims of Alston on the human rights situation in the country, considering that he already had preconceptions of the Philippines.

Interviewed by reporters at Malacañang, Gonzalez said Alston already prejudged the Philippine government when he first visited the country three years ago.

 “The point is I think it’s unfair. We presented a very good presentation in Geneva last year with the group of Secretary (Eduardo) Ermita and Mr. Alston was also there,” he said.

“Before he came to the Philippines, I think he was already prejudging us because he met first with the left before he met the government counterparts. He already formed an opinion against us.”

His use of the data on unexplained killings came from the human rights watchdog Karapatan.

From close to a thousand deaths, the government claimed that the actual figure was less than 500 and that many cases cited were highly questionable.

Gonzalez said in some instances, the government was able to prove that some of the fatalities were still alive while others were victims of ordinary crimes and their deaths not politically-motivated.

The government also noted that some of the cases involved communist insurgents killed during encounters with the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Gonzalez said Alston was in effect unfairly smearing the reputation of the Philippine government with his negative reports.

Although he noted that Alston made some positive comments about the Philippine government, Gonzalez lamented that these were not highlighted in press reports.

While he denounced the unfair statements made by Alston, Gonzalez admitted that the government should still exert more effort to address the perceived problems on human rights.

“What we should do is do our best to perform the task that is assigned to us to the limits of our authority and power. Anyway, there will always be detractors,” Gonzalez said.

He saw no need to make further representations before the UN since the government representatives were able to successfully prove its case before the international body on several occasions in the past.

In fact, he said, Ermita was back in Geneva the other week for a meeting of the UN Security Council on terrorism. – Paolo Romero, Marvin Sy