Group laments unsolved human rights cases

MANILA, Philippines - The state of human rights in the Philippines is still not a rosy picture with the long list of human rights violations committed in the country, human rights groups said yesterday.

Members of Karapatan, Manilakbayan, Bayan and Defend-Southern Tagalog gathered in Manila, while other human rights groups converged at major cities and provinces to commemorate International Human Rights Day yesterday.

Karapatan cited 226 victims of unexplained killings – mostly peasants, people from Mindanao and indigenous people – and the 225 victims of frustrated killings.

In Caraga region alone, there are 162 cases of human rights violations that remain unsolved from November 2012 up to the present, the group reported.

Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said that what is more alarming is the manner by which a number of victims were killed.

She noted that 15 victims of unexplained killings were tortured to death, beheaded, hogtied and dumped in shallow graves.

Karapatan also cited as a brutal crime against Filipinos the Aquino government’s alleged lack of attention to the demands of peasant and indigenous peoples group Manilakbayan to pull out the 55 battalions of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in Mindanao that implement Oplan Bayanihan and protect big foreign mining corporations and plantations, which plunder the country’s resources.

There are also more than 145,000 victims of the AFP’s encampment in schools, medical and religious places and other public places for military purposes. Most of the documented cases are in Mindanao, Karapatan claimed.

Palabay lamented that the government used trumped-up criminal charges against activists and community leaders to silence them and quell their protests against government policies and projects that affect communities.

There are reportedly 491 political prisoners, most of them charged with criminal offenses that Palabay said “were false.”

Karapatan also said that the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and Department of National Defense (DND) have used millions of government funds as bounty for “communist leaders” in their order of battle.

For 2014 alone, the DILG and DND gave away P51.2 million to “informers” as reward money, Karapatan claimed.

“While mouthing slogans of peace, the government continues to stand in the way of peace. It refuses to seriously face the National Democratic Front of the Philippines at the negotiating table, disregards previously signed agreements including its commitment to release “all, if not most, political prisoners,” Palabay added.

The Commission on Human Rights admitted that incidents of human rights violations persist in the country even as the government continues to implement measures and policies to ensure and uphold human dignity. – With Janvic Mateo, Ben Serrano