The report seems like an indictment of systematic human rights violations under martial law: Philippine police use electric shocks and waterboarding in their operations. Suspects are punched and beaten with pipes or wooden sticks, burned with cigarettes, hanged upside down or subjected to mock executions. Police put plastic bags over detainees’ heads until they are close to asphyxiation, and strip suspects naked and pull their genitalia. Some women are raped. In the worst cases, suspects are shot dead.
The report, however, is not from the martial law years but circa 2014, released a few days ago by Amnesty International. Government officials may take some comfort in the fact that Amnesty reported the use of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment by police forces in many other countries. But nations differ in the way they deal with extrajudicial methods of law enforcement.
In the case of the Philippines, Amnesty denounced a “culture of impunity and corruption” that has encouraged police to employ torture “for extortion, entertainment or to extract a confession.”
Amnesty noted that no one has been convicted under the Philippine Anti-Torture Act, which was passed five years ago. Instead, in a country that acceded to the United Nations Convention Against Torture 28 years ago, video recordings in recent years have shown police beating suspects and even using a “Wheel of Torture” to select torture methods.
Last year the country’s Commission on Human Rights received 75 complaints of torture, with 80 percent involving cops. Of 36 torture cases investigated by the Office of the Ombudsman, three were referred for prosecution, according to Amnesty.
Some quarters argue that in cases particularly involving hardened criminals or committed terrorists, certain forms of physical or psychological violence can help keep the public safe. The problem with such methods is that at a certain point, abused detainees will confess to anything and provide false leads or testimony that will prove useless in court. And no one is certain when that point is reached.
Lazy short cuts to law enforcement often lead to injustice for the innocent and erosion of public trust in the police. Human rights violations are also employed for police extortion. The administration that professes to uphold values of freedom and democracy must do more to end the impunity.