Extra judicial and political killings still major problem in Philippines

Malacanang Palace and the military were in denial mode on extra-judicial and political killings linked to counter –insurgency campaign against the left. The Arroyo has done concrete to stop killings of suspected enemies of the state. Poverty and social injustice are the root causes of insurgency. Massive corruption in the bureaucracy may have direct effect on rising poverty nationwide. As usual, Gloria Arroyo is in denial mode on corruption under her watch.

Activists protest as terror law takes effect

Photo from Arkibong Bayan
www.arkibongbayan.org

Palace document shows gov’t plan to neutralize Left


Supreme Court-led summit attempts to stop killings

Peasant Leader Killied in Davao Del Sur

It’s another casualty of war . Some elements of the security forces were allegedly responsible for extra judicial killings, disappearances, torture, and arbitrary arrest and detention. The Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Hermogenes Esperon insists that the murder of political activists is mere communist propaganda, if not self-inflicted. UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Philip Alston and Melo Commission Report blamed the military for political killings. The Arroyo government is in a state of total denial.

Militant shot dead in Davao del Sur
Victim a party-list group coordinator

A PEASANT leader and provincial coordinator of the party-list group Anakpawis was shot dead yesterday morning in Davao del Sur by two motorcycle-riding masked men.
Victim Renato Pacaide, 45, was secretary general of the Nagkakaisang Magsasaka ng Davao del Sur, a provincial chapter of the militant farmers’ group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).
Wilfredo Marbella, KMP internal deputy secretary general, said Pacaide was shot four times with a .45 caliber pistol at around 10:45 a.m. at Rizal avenue and Lim street in Digos City.
Marbella said Pacaide died at the Davao del Sur provincial hospital.
Camp Crame reports said Pacaide was with his daughter Michelle when attacked.
Investigators recovered three shells and a round of ammunition, two slugs and a wristwatch.
The killers escaped on their black Yamaha DT motorcycle.
The human rights group Karapatan listed Pacaide as the 835th victim of extra-judicial killings since President Arroyo assumed office in 2001.
The 834th victim was student leader Farly Alcanta, who was killed last February 15 in Camarines Norte. Malaya 03/03/2007

BAYAN: Evidence Showed Malacañang Sanctioned Killings

What is Operation Phoenix? Oplan Bantay Laya is patterned after Operation Phoenix in Vietnam. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative Colonel Edward Lansdale masterminded the 1950s counter-insurgency program of the Quirino government and later against the Vietcong. The CIA used death squads during the agrarian Huk rebellion in Central Luzon provinces.



Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), a left-leaning activist group, claimed Tuesday "Cabinet-level documents" showed that Malacañang sanctioned extrajudicial killings in the country.

"The responsibility for the killings goes all the way up to Malacañang and the Cabinet Oversight Committee on Internal Security. We have seen Cabinet-level documents that show how these killings were sanctioned at the highest levels of office," BAYAN Secretary General Renato Reyes Jr. said in a press statement.

Reyes said BAYAN is set to present the evidence to international bodies Permanent People's Tribunal and the United Nations Special Rapporteurs, which is scheduled to visit the country this year.

Reyes said the documents detail a "step-by-step matrix" on how to "neutralize" legal organizations. He added that the document was presented to the Arroyo Cabinet.

The group, meanwhile, challenged Malacañang to abide by the Melo Commission's recommendation to pursue charges against retired Major General Jovito Palparan and other military field commanders for their involvement in the killings.

"If the Melo Commission report is to be believed, cases must be filed otherwise the Melo report will not really amount to much. It’s like telling us what we already know. We thus dare Raul Gonzalez and the Department of Justice to file the necessary cases against Palparan. This is the logical next step," Reyes said.

He also said President Arroyo, as commander-in-chief, should "take responsibility for the killings."

Karapatan, a left-leaning human rights group, said more than 700 leftist activists, farmers, community organizers and journalists have been killed since Mrs. Arroyo came to power in 2001.

On Saturday, Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos, member of the Melo Commission, said the body found out that aside from some members of the military, leftist groups and private armies of politicians were involved in a rash of politically-motivated killings in the country.

"There are different results in the killings. We have identified that there are killings really perpetuated by the military," Pueblos said. "There are other killings by politicians and the military, politicians and their goons and killings as part of a [family] vendetta."

"There are also some killings perpetrated by the leftists," he said, referring to the communist New People's Army and its front groups.

"The thing that is bad in the country is that vigilante killings are tolerated," he said, referring to extrajudicial murders. ABS-CBN News

Related Links:
Melo Panel Tags Palparan In Slays
Palparan: Killings Not Part Of Our Operations
Focus on the Extrajudicial Killings in RP:
Operation Phoenix's Long Shadow
Stop the Killings

The Philippines: 2006 Worst Year For Human Rights

The Arroyo regime wants to insurgency by the year 2010. Psychological warfare, combat and target killing formula ended up with more deaths in the countryside and urban areas. Internal Security Operations (ISO) Oplan Bantay Laya and its death squads are responsible for the political killings. More than 800 activists, journalists, lawyers, farmers, workers and religious workers had been summary executed for their anti-Arroyo stand. The Arroyo government is just doing a lip service to stop political killings after international pressures.


2006 worst year for RP human rights

Daily Tribune 12/30/2006

Another record-high has been notched by President Arroyo and her administration, in line with political murders in the Philippines reaching their highest level in 2006 since the toppling of former President Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, human activists were quoted by Agence France Presse as saying.

Mrs. Arroyo’s poor record on political murders and human rights abuses have topped the numbers racked up by Marcos, Aquino, Ramos and Estrada years combined.

More than 180 activists —including journalists, human rights workers, left-wing politicians, trade unionists, judges and lawyers — were assassinated this year for their criticism of those in power, they say.

“An average of three extra-judicial killings are occurring every week in the country,” a Canadian human rights team concluded recently after a fact-finding mission to the Southeast Asian nation.

“A clear pattern of state-perpetrated politically motivated extra-judicial killings” was occurring in the country, the team said.

The Canadian team’s report has been dismissed by the Arroyo government as propaganda to serve the country’s communist insurgents who have been fighting a Maoist war for four decades in their bid to seize power.

But local human rights group Karapatan says it has recorded 185 such killings in 2006, the highest number since the regime of Marcos, renowed for his suppression of critics and ousted in 1986.

The sheer number has alarmed the European Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Roman Catholic Church, all of which have called on Mrs. Arroyo to take action to stop the bloodshed.

Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, vice-president of the Catholic Bishops Conference in this largely Roman Catholic country, said action must be taken irrespective of who was behind them.

“In the past, there were allegations of killings from the left and the right but regardless of which end of the political spectrum is responsible, public authorities should be even-handed in trying to resolve them,” he told AFP.

Opposition congressman Roilo Golez warned the “murderous year” was undermining democracy, in a nation with a history of coups and dictatorships.

The most high-profile murder came Dec. 16 when Rep. Luis Bersamin, an ally of the President representing the northern province of Abra, was shot dead along with his security aide outside a church in a Manila suburb after the completion of the wedding rites of a niece where he stood as a wedding sponsor.

Police say they have a witness who has linked Abra Gov. Vicente Valera to the killing. Valera has denied responsibility, saying he and Bersamin were longtime allies.

While the family of the slain Bersamin tags Valera as the mastermind of the murder of the congressman, along with a suspect who, in an affidavit, linked Valera to the murder, the Philippine National Police said the testimony was hearsay and that the police have no strong evidence to charge Valera at this time even as he remains a suspect.

Earlier senior government lawyer Nestor Ballacillo was shot dead along with his son also in a Manila suburb. Police said they had arrested a suspect.

In response to the bloodshed, Mrs. Arroyo has ordered an increase in the visibility of police and for officers to work closer with communities.

She has also set up a special commission to determine who are behind the slayings which has yet to report its findings.

The Melo Commission, a fact-finding body created by Mrs. Arroyo said it would be finished with its task by end December and submit its report to the President. But this early, several commissioners have said that the report would be based mainly on police and military accounts, which would then blame the leftists for these murders.

The Melo Commission, from the start, suffered credibility problems, as the body’s composition has as majority members, officials from the Justice Department, who are known to kowtow to Mrs. Arroyo’s directives.

The President, despite many calls for her to order her police and military to stop the killings by foreign governments and international church leaders, along with international press groups, has not done so, preferring instead to direct her attacks at the leftists groups and her other critics, saying it is the communists who have been behind all these political murders to destabilize her government.

Military and police officials have blamed at least some of the deaths on an internal purge or factional fighting within the 7,100-strong Communist Party’s New People’s Army.

The military, whose officers have also been accused of some of the killings, claim the overall numbers are bloated.

For its part, the New People’s Army has admitted carrying out purges in the past but has largely denied it is behind the latest spate of political murders.

Several international press organizations have also called on Mrs. Arroyo to put a stop to the killings, but these calls have largely been unheeded by Malacañang. They also scored the Arroyo government for suppressing press freedom in the country through the filing of numerous libel suits by the presidential spouse, Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo against several journalists, including publishers, editors, reporters and columnists deemed critical of the government and of his alleged power and influence over government affairs.

The Freedom House based in the US has also scored the Philippines under Mrs. Arroyo for the loss of press freedom, pulling the country’s ranking from an earlier “free” to half-free” state.

Last February, Mrs. Arroyo issued Proclamation 1017, imposing a country-wide national emergency rule, where rallies were banned and demonstrators quickly dispersed, with their leaders arrested without warrants.

A newspaper, the Daily Tribune, was raided at midnight by police operatives and illegally searched and seized several documents, without a warrant. The police padlocked the printing press and offices while surrounding the Tribune offices for days.

Then Police chief Gen. Arturo Lomibao announced in a televised press conference that he and his police force would be taking over the editorial aspect of the paper.

The Tribune, along with others went to the high court to question the constitutionality of the emergency rule. This proclamation was struck down by the high court.

During a visit to Finland where European leaders were gathered for a summit, Mrs. Arroyo was also scored by these leaders on the deteriorating human rights situation in the country. In reply, Mrs. Arroyo said she had formed the Melo Commission to look into these murders, but ended up blaming the leftists and the communists, as her police and military do.

But blaming the communists and establishing a commission have failed to ease fears among many Filipinos about their own safety. With AFP


International Reactions Fail to Stop Killings and Disappearances
Stop Political Killings
Philippines: The Killing Fields of Asia

US Pulls Out Balikatan Joint Military Exercises

Photo: DoD/LCPL THOMAS D. HUDZINSKI, USMC


Political prostitute Gloria Arroyo will show her true colors soon after the United States flexed its muscle to achieve Daniel Smith custody. Future US military and economic aid to the Philippines is tied with mutual defense treaty. The government is fighting with the communist insurgency, the Moro separatist and the Abu Sayaff Muslim radicals. The United States is involved in counterinsurgency war after the end of Pacific war. The cancellation or decrease in military aid to the Philippines may hamper counterinsurgency campaign. The bankrupt Arroyo regime cannot afford to lose US military aid.




US pulls out of Balikatan, RP mercy missions

By Michaela P. del Callar

Daily Tribune 12/23/2006

The American PR game is finished. Kaput.

The United States government yesterday announced its cancellation of all military exercises and humanitarian operations in the Philippines following the custody dispute over American Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, who was convicted of rape this month.

In what seemed to be a retaliatory move against the Philippine government for denying twice its request for American custody of Smith, the US Embassy in Manila said all the scheduled military exercises with the Philippines next year will be cancelled.

“The reason is the current custody issue. The US wants protection of US military personnel. It wouldn’t be prudent to bring in US

troops if the Philippines can not assure their protection,” said Embassy spokesman Matthew Lussenhop.

The joint military exercises would involve about 4,700 American troops and 3,000 from the Philippines.

Reporters tried to get a comment from Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, but he declined to issue a statement.

Presidential Commission on the Visiting Forces (VFAcom) Executive Director Zosimo Paredes said he is “not aware of such a thing.”

The US government has accused the Philippines of not complying with the terms of the VFA when it thumbed down its request for the immediate transfer of Smith to its embassy in Manila.

American authorities asserted its right to have custody over Smith until after all judicial proceedings are over, as stated under the military agreement.

Makati judge Benjamin Pozon sentenced Smith to life imprisonment last Dec. 4 after declaring him guilty of raping a 23-year-old woman in Subic last year.

Pozon also rejected bids by the US embassy and the Philippine government to have Smith turned over to US custody. Smith remains at the Makati City Jail.

Both the Philippine and US governments “agree” that Smith, as a member of the US military governed by the VFA, should be in US custody.

The Philippine government and US embassy both argued the VFA provides for US custody of its soldiers facing criminal charges during the judicial process, including an appeal.

“No doubt both governments are in agreement. However, the question is still the custody and to get him back to US custody,” Lussenhop said.

“The VFA provides the legal framework. But since the Philippine government is not complying, it is not prudent for additional forces to come until the custody issue is resolved,” he added.

A report from the New York Times quoted US Forces in the Pacific, Adm. William J. Fallon, as saying that “he would halt aid and reconstruction programs carried out by the American military in the Philippines until he was confident that the troops’ legal rights would be protected under bilateral agreements governing visiting United States forces.”

Aside from this, millions worth of US military aid and counter-terrorism assistance to the Philippines may also be in jeopardy.

But Lussenhop said he is not sure if the US government is also planning to curtail any ongoing activity on humanitarian assistance.

“I’m not sure. We’re not talking about civilian aid. What we’re talking about is Balikatan. I don’t have the transcript of Admiral Fallon’s interview,” he said.

Malacañang tried to downplay the US government’s cancellation of the Balikatan and humanitarian missions n the country.

In a phone interview, Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol said what happened yesterday was merely a “temporary setback” and the Palace is still hopeful that Smith will be brought back to the custody of the US authorities.

Apostol added that the Philippine government is doing its best and has dispatched the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to file a legal action before the Court of Appeals (CA), with the great possibility of the CA ruling in favor of the VFA provision.

“We already filed the necessary action before the CA and we are totally confident that within the next few days, the CA will rule in favor of the international treaty,” Apostol said .

A highly reliable security official yesterday also expressed belief that the decision of the US government to cancel the war games will have a negative impact on the country’s security but he refused to elaborate.

“What can we do if our allies cannot understand us? Definitely, there’ll be some security implications but the extent of which I don’t know yet,” the official said.

The security official also promised to talk to his counterpart in the US government to discuss the matter.

Smith, along with three other US servicemen, were charged with raping a Filipino woman, known as Nicole in Nov. 1 at the former American base in Subic Bay, Olongapo City.

Smith was found guilty by a lower court while his three co-accused Staff Sergeant Chad Carpentier, Lance Corporals Dominic Duplantis and Keith Silkwood were acquitted by the court.

The assault on the woman has stirred anti-American emotions in the former American colony, with several militant groups and legislators calling for the abrogation of the VFA.

After Manila terminated the bases agreement with the US in 1991, the two countries signed in 1998 the VFA, which allows bilateral military exercises between US and Filipino troops.

For his part, Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez yesterday said Judge Pozon’s decision on the controversial Subic Rape case prompted the US government to cancel next year’s Balikatan military exercises with the Filipino troops.

Gonzalez confirmed the US government has also pulled out its troops assisting the thousands of people displaced by the recent calamity in Bicol and received information that the US would no longer push through with its plan to conduct joint exercises with the members of the Philippine National Police (PNP).

The US actions indicate the relations between the two countries has gone sour due to the failure of the Philippines to perform its obligations under the VFA, the DoJ chief, who appears to be lawyering for Smith and the US, stressed.

“We cannot blame the US for its actions because we don’t seem to know how to respect our treaty with them. That is unfortunate because the government has always been willing to comply with its treaty obligations. Unfortunately, we cannot avoid the processes of the court” Gonzalez said, in an interview.

“But I have to thank Judge Pozon. He should be given a medal of honor. I will recommend him to Speaker Jose de Venecia to give him a congressional medal of distinction,” Gonzalez said, sacrcastically.

Gonzalez said the cancellation of the Balikatan is a “big deal” for the Philippine government because our military troops are getting a lot of good inputs and trainings from these exercises.

Nonetheless, he said, the US should understand that the government cannot dictate on the courts.

“Maybe this is just an early reaction but what is to me the point is that we have no control over the courts. If we have courts decided by judges with certain agenda there is nothing we can do about it,” the DoJ chief stated.

Nicole’s lawyer Evalyn Ursua said the government has nothing to lose with the cancellation of the Balikatan exercises.

“We should not be worried because there is no need for that kind of exercise. We are not at war and we don’t have enemies. If the US feels that the issue on VFA should be resolved first before the Balikatan exercises then so be it,” Ursua said.

On the senators’ part, it is all pressure tactics that are being employed by the US.

Senators made the accusation yesterday in the light of the cancellation by the US government of the joint military Balikatan exercises, a matter which they viewed could only be related to the Smith case.

Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan urged members of the judiciary not to allow the pressure to prevail.

“The decision to cancel the Balikatan exercises is for them (US) to make. It is of interest to note, however, that the rape case arose as a consequence of a past Balikatan exercise and so this should be a welcome development for anti-VFA groups.

“This should not in any way pressure the judiciary to rule in their (US government) favor in the Smith custody case,” Pangilinan said.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, who defended the VFA during the ratification process at the Senate, said it can easily be deduced that the Smith case is the only reason behind the cancellation of the joint military exercises.

“What could be the more logical reason for this except that Smith case because there is no other prevailing condition here in the country that would warrant such a cancellation.

“We can afford not to have the military component of the Balikatan but it surely will create a major impact when the matter of assistance we have been receiving in terms of logistical needs and the humanitarian aspect of the joint military exercises because they have been helping us reconstruct Mindanao and Bicol,” he said.

Biazon, former Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff, also said it’s high time that the government considers calling for a review of the Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT), the basis for having the VFA.

“We need to ascertain whether we still need the VFA or not,” he said.

For Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, she said said most of the members of the bicameral Legislative Oversight Committee on the Visiting Forces Agreement (LOVFA) favor custody by US authorities on the ground that under the joint military agreement, custody should be transferred to Philippine authorities only after the Supreme Court appeal has become final and executory.

Santiago, Lovfa chair, said that the custody issue depends on the interpretation of the phrase “completion of all judicial proceedings.”

“It is part of the law of our land that contract obligations should be carried out in good faith. This is the generally accepted principle of international law known as pacta sunt servanda. The trial judge disregarded this particular principle in his decision,” she said. With Sherwin C. Olaes, Angie M. Rosales and AFP

Visiting Forces Agreement
Materials on the Visiting Forces Agreement
Manila Accuses U.S. of ‘Pressure’ Over Jailed Marine
Southeast Asia and the Philippines:The Second Front in the U.S. ‘War on Terror’
Smith returned to custody of US embassy

Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVOs) Against the New People's Army (NPA)

Is the Arroyo government really winning in the all-out war against the communists?

AFP recruits 9,000 militias to end insurgency
PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
EO 465 to form Arroyo's fascist armed vigilantes -- CPP
October 14, 2006
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today urged the Filipino people to oppose the Arroyo government's Executive Order No. 465 to form a new Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVOs) that will be used as Gloria Arroyo's fascist armed vigilantes. The CPP anticipates the intensification of human rights abuses as these CVOs will be used to suppress legitimate opposition to the ruling regime.
A brainchild of Interior and Local Goverments Secretary Ronaldo Puno, EO 465 was signed recently by Gloria Arroyo for the mobilization, training and arming of CVOs as local armed auxiliary units working under the supervision and command of the Philippine National Police (PNP) "to counter terrorist threats." The CVOs will be in addition to the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGUs) under the supervision and command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
CPP spokesperson Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal said Malacañang's formation of a new armed CVO "has the actual objective of building Gloria Arroyo's fascist armed vigilantes at the 'grassroots' livel to support its military, police and other state apparatuses. It aims to terrorize and lord over barangays and local governments, consolidate and perpetuate its hold on power and fight people's revolutionary and democratic resistance and other legitimate opposition to her regime."
"Arroyo's CVOs will only add to the fascist atrocities of the AFP's CAFGUs, death squads and other fascist paramilitary forces and will raise human rights violations to unprecendented levels of intensity," Rosal said.
Rosal said that Puno's planned nationwide barangay and town-based CVO setup is no different from Marcos' notorious Barrio Self-Defense Units (BSDUs) and Civilian Home Defense Forces (CHDFs); Fidel Ramos' CVOs, CAFGUs and other armed anti-communist and anti-Muslim "vigilante" groups initiated since the Aquino regime; and the Davao and Cebu-based "death squads" which have heartened Gloria Arroyo. "Like these notorious vigilante groups, Arroyo's CVOs will be used as instruments of violent suppression in the vain effort to perpetuate itself in power."
Rosal recalled that it was also Puno who originally conceived and initiated the Barangay Tanod under Marcos' martial law dictatorship. "Inspired by Hitler's Brown Shirts Stormtroopers, he planned to transform the barangay tanods into a loose local fascist force." Rosal said that Puno had already set up a number of secret training schools to train local goons to put up a barangay-based Marcos army, but this was frustrated by the downfall of the Marcos dictatorship.
shocking effect at first, but it will not take long before their political and military weaknesses begin to show and disintegrate them.
"These CVOs are viable targets of political work or military operations by the New People's Army. The more arms the government supply to these auxillary groups of theirs, the more arms will eventually be available to the NPA either in the course of battle or in the course of neutralizing or winning them over to the side of the revolution."

Reference:
Marco Valbuena
Media Officer
Cellphone Numbers: 09179776392 :: 09282242061
E-mail:cppmedia@gmail.com

The Philippines' Unending Guerrilla War