EDITORIAL — Dirty warriors

The Melo Commission blamed a small band of soldiers for many of the killings of left-wing militants. The United Nations special rapporteur for human rights also hit the military but said the killings did not appear to be sanctioned by the state. If summary executions are not being carried out on orders from the top, there should be no stopping the President and commander-in-chief from ridding the military of its death squad.

Neither the Melo Commission nor the UN rapporteur had police powers to conduct a murder investigation. Both reached their conclusions after a brief inquiry, with some of the key parties concerned refusing to cooperate. Both gave the public an incomplete picture of the problem, so there is no way of knowing whether there really is a special death squad in the Armed Forces of the Philippines, or whether different AFP personnel in various units nationwide are responsible for a number of the extrajudicial killings.

There is also no way of knowing for sure if the killings are being carried out as part of counterinsurgency operations, even if the AFP insists that this is so. And even if the dead was in fact a rebel combatant, the only legitimate environment for killing one is in an armed encounter, where the choice for a soldier is to kill or be killed. Then it is easier for those left behind by the dead to accept the circumstances of his killing, and the military does not leave a trail of public resentment against the state.

Already President Arroyo is suffering from perceptions that she cannot crack the whip on alleged AFP executioners because she is beholden to the military. This perception of executive helplessness can be dispelled if the President demands accountability from both the military and police in their areas of jurisdiction. The President must not be content simply to receive a list of unexplained killings from her officers. She must demand an explanation from the officers, if not the arrest of a suspect, for every violent death. She must demand results, and penalize those who perform below par.

Unless the President shows her officers that she means business, the soaring number of unexplained killings will continue to cast a shadow over the rosy economic figures trotted out by her administration. A dirty war has no place in a free country. The leader of a democracy who allows this to happen will reap its consequences.