Rights watchdog: Torture by police still prevalent in the Philippines
MANILA, Philippines — Torture of suspects by law enforcement authorities is still a common practice in the Philippines, with many cases never reaching the light of day after they happen behind closed doors and without any cameras rolling, the New York-based rights watchdog Human Rights Watch said Friday.
This comes after the alleged fatal beating of a suspected thief in Southern Leyte while under police custody. To recall, Police S/Sgt. Ronald Gamayon of the Southern Leyte provincial police is accused of beating Gilbert Ranes on a busy street in Maasin City on December 9, as seen in social media videos that went viral.
Asked in an interview aired over ABS-CBN News Channel if the practice is still common among the ranks of the Philippine National Police, Human Rights Watch senior researcher Carlos Conde said: "Very much so."
"I mean, it takes all forms. The case of Ranes and Gamayon, it's unusual because of the severity of the harm inflicted and a video was taken of it. Most tortures in the Philippines are being not video taped. A lot of them happen in detention facilities, in holding cells of the PNP," he said.
In another video, three men in civilian clothes and a police officer in uniform are seen dragging Ranes into a police vehicle. A witness can be heard in the video saying Ranes was being treated “like a pig.” The Southern Leyte police released a medical report concluding that Ranes died from “severe head trauma.”
Ranes was declared dead after being taken to the hospital.
“The police should have just arrested him, brought him to a police station and filed a case against him if he did steal something,” Ranes’ cousin, Jerome Paler, told Human Rights Watch. “We’re supposed to have laws.”
Conde pointed to the reported instances over the coronavirus pandemic of cops rounding up supposed quarantine violators and herding them into dog cages.
"That's a form of torture, the simple act, the normalized act of police officers mistreating, slapping, kicking victims or suspects," Conde said.
There's also the case of the secret detention cell found by the Commission on Human Rights in the headquarters of the Manila Police District where several drug suspects were detained.
In November, a court convicted a police officer for the torture of Carl Arnaiz and Reynaldo de Guzman in 2018, two teenagers who were targeted as part of the anti-drug campaign.
"It's so prevalent in the Philippines right now that we know for instance that the United Nations subcommittee on torture is very keen on visiting the Philippines at some point to look into this," Conde said.
"The torture of Ranes is unusual because it was video taped but there are other forms of torture that are being done by law enforcers across the country."
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