More HR violations hound P-Noy gov't

Simultaneously on three fronts — at the United Nations, in the United States, and in the homeland — the P-Noy government is again besieged with rebukes and demands for decisive action on the continuing incidences of human rights violations, specifically extrajudicial killings (EJKs).

Only four months ago (May 29) in Geneva, 22 member-countries of the UN Human Rights Council deplored the government’s “dismal record” in prosecuting HR violation cases. They pressed President Aquino to take “decisive measures” to end the climate of impunity.

The report then submitted to the UNHRC by Karapatan (end-March 2012) showed 76 EJKs and 49 frustrated EJKs under P-Noy’s administration. By end-June these had increased to 99 EJKs and 60 frustrated EJKs.

Yesterday (Sept. 28), the UNHRC wound up its 21st session after hearing a Philippine government report promising compliance with the recommended actions on the killings. Still, the figures had increased to 112 EJKs and 68 frustrated EJKs.

At the Philippine embassy in Washington DC last Wednesday, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima endeavored to assure six international human rights groups she had invited to a meeting that the P-Noy government had “nothing to hide” and was taking steps to solve EJKs and other HR violations.

However, the six organizations — which since 2008 have blocked the release of $13-million US military aid, until the PH government improved its human rights record — did not seem convinced by her assurance. The head of one group, Arnedo Valera of the Migrant Heritage Commission, pointed out that “the killings continue and the untouchables remain scot-free.” Ergo, he added, the US Congress must continue to withhold the military aid. 

The six organizations were Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Committee to Protect Journalists, Ecumenical Advisory Network, International Justice Mission, and the MHC.

Meantime, here at home various indigenous people’s organizations, church institutions, and a member of Congress from the Cordilleras have condemned the continued killing of tribal leaders who fought to defend their ancestral domains against large-scale mining and logging operations. They all call on P-Noy to stop the killings.

The latest case, presented by Karapatan as counterpoint to the government report at the UNHRC session, was the torture-killing of Genesis Ambason last September 13 in Binikalan, San Luis, Agusan del Sur. The suspected killers are CAFGU members under the Philippine Army’s 26th Infantry Battalion.

Ambason, 23, was the secretary-general of the Tagdumahan, an organization of Banwaon and Manobo tribes opposing large-scale mining operations in their ancestral domain in San Luis. According to the Task-Force Justice for Environmental Defenders, he was the 19th environmental activist and the 14th anti-mining activist slain since the P-Noy administration began. He was the 55th environmental activist killed since 2001.

Earlier (September 4) in Bayog, Zamboanga del Sur, motorcycle-riding men shot at Timuay Locenio Manda as he was taking his 11-year-old son Jordan to school on board his motorcycle. Manda sustained a bullet wound, but the boy was instantly killed.

Manda is a Subanon timuay (leader) in his hometown Bayog and in the Central Zamboanga Peninsula. Along with Catholic bishops, he had filed a writ of kalikasan petition in court to protect the Pinukis Forest Range, the tribe’s ancestral domain, against several applications for mining operations within it.

His slain son had dreamt to follow after him as timuay someday. Thus Manda grieves:

“In my effort to assert our rights and to protect our people and ancestral domain, my beloved son was sacrificed. It is very painful and I thirst for justice. I vow to continue my struggle so that my son’s death will not be in vain. I need your support in this most trying time of my life.”

In response, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines has issued this crisp statement:

“NCCP has heard Timuay Manda’s cry. The death of his son and the attempt on his life is an abomination. Pray we must that this impunity shall come to an end.”

On his part, Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat of Ifugao has appealed to President Aquino to put a stop to the killings. He asks P-Noy to order the PNP not to treat these slayings as ordinary crimes but as an “assault and an attempt to subjugate the indigenous peoples and our ancestral lands for mining purposes.”

He expresses alarm that the killings continue with no solution in sight and no action on the part of the Commission on Human Rights and the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples. The killings, Baguilat concludes, are “a strong justification for our call for a moratorium on mining in ancestral domains.”

From Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, executive director of Tebtebba Foundation and former chair of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, comes this statement:

“(The P-Noy administration) cannot claim that its program to clean up the government is a success if such killings, usually perpetrated by its own military and paramilitary personnel, continue.

“Even if such killings were done by paid mercenaries, the government is still legally obliged to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples...

“The record of this government in terms of adhering to its obligations to international humanitarian law is so pathetic.”

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