DAVAO CITY, Philippines – The human rights watchdog Batug Katungod Mindanao welcomed the ruling of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) over the death of human rights worker and campus journalist Benjaline Hernandez, calling it a “vindication against the string of lies and deception employed by her killers” – alleged to be military men – “to justify her barbaric demise in their hands.”
In its decision recently, the UNHRC said the government is responsible for the death of Hernandez, as it also violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
It also said that the government cannot “avoid its responsibilities under the covenant with the argument that the domestic courts are dealing with the matter, when the remedies relied upon by the State party have been unreasonably prolonged.”
Hernandez, who was the deputy secretary general of human rights group Karapatan-Southern Mindanao and former editor of the Ateneo de Davao school paper Atenews, was murdered on April 5, 2002 allegedly by elements of the 12th Special Forces Co. and the 7th Airborne Battalion in Arakan Valley in North Cotabato.
Also slain in the incident were Crisanto Amora, Vivian Andrade and Labaon Sinunday. They accompanied Hernandez to the area to document the impact of the peace process to the people of Arakan Valley.
Named as primary respondent in the killing was Sgt. Antonio Torilla, a member of the 7th Airborne Battalion based in Arakan.
“In a country where various forms of injustice is happening, and impunity the prevailing culture, the decision was timely as it is most needed not only by the family of Benjaline Hernandez, but also by the other victims of human rights violations committed by state security agents,” said lawyer Carlos Isagani Zarate, secretary general of the Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), one of the convening organizations of Barug Katungod Mindanao.
Zarate said that the government must do something to save its face and reputation by bringing to justice those behind the execution of Hernandez and put them behind bars.
“Because the next big question is what now? Barug Katungod Mindanao welcomes the decision of the UNHRC as it nailed down the culpability of the State and the next big question is how the new administration, will be able to prosecute the suspects. But it must serve as a litmus test to the Aquino administration who has inherited a bloody long list of victims of human rights abuses from the previous administration,” Zarate, a human rights lawyer himself, said.
“The Aquino administration has to prove to the international community that unlike the previous administration, it is a government that has the heart and the political capital to end the culture of impunity,” said Zarate.
With no let-up, Barug Katungod Mindanao and their network of human rights advocacy groups, he said, will demand for the prosecution of those who were behind the murder of Hernandez and all other victims of human rights violations.