EDITORIAL - Still, impunity

A year into the Aquino administration, human rights continue to be violated with impunity by government forces in the Philippines, according to the US-based Human Rights Watch. The Armed Forces of the Philippines lamented the report, saying the group failed to take note of reforms implemented to improve the rights record of the AFP.

Reforms will discourage human rights violations. But Human Rights Watch attributed the impunity largely to the failure of the government to bring to justice violators of human rights, particularly those involved in killings and enforced disappearances. Since President Aquino assumed power, Human Rights Watch has chronicled seven cases of unexplained killings and three cases of enforced disappearances.

Since the restoration of democracy in 1986, hundreds of left-wing militants, legal professionals and journalists have been killed or gone missing, never to be seen again. The AFP has consistently denied involvement in extrajudicial killings, insisting that victims identified by human rights watchdogs were killed in legitimate counterinsurgency operations. The most notorious of the military officers suspected of involvement, Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, became a party-list congressman upon his retirement from the AFP.

Palparan is now under investigation for the disappearance of two students of the University of the Philippines when he was military commander for Central Luzon. He has denied any involvement in the case. The probe into the disappearance of activist Jonas Burgos has also been revived. The AFP under Aquino has vowed full cooperation, but the trail appears to have gone cold in the two cases, as in the many other killings and disappearances attributed to state forces.

President Aquino must see to it that this is not because AFP officers are covering each other’s backs. The only son of Benigno and Corazon Aquino is unlikely to tolerate state-sponsored violations of human rights. He must see to it that witnesses are given protection and victims’ relatives assisted in their quest for justice. Discipline must be imposed on paramilitary “force multipliers” that have not been disbanded. The AFP as well as the Philippine National Police must be encouraged to undertake a thorough housecleaning. Ferreting out the bad eggs in the AFP, PNP and paramilitary units will make them better and more suited to fulfilling their roles in a democracy.