The directives issued by President Arroyo, in response to the report of the Melo Commission, were not meant to get to the bottom of the killings but to continue with the cover-up. Only the recommendation to seek the involvement of foreign investigators is worth noting. But then again, under what framework will these investigators work?
BY BENJIE OLIVEROS
Bulatlat
Once again, the government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has been called to task for the spate of political killings, which up to now has remained unabated. Last week, the Melo Commission submitted its report to President Arroyo. The supposed crux of the findings, as revealed by retired Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo to the media, is that it found retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan and other unnamed commanding officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) guilty of command responsibility for the extrajudicial killings which have claimed the lives of so many activists.
As of the last count of Karapatan, the Philippines’ leading human rights watchdog, the victims of political killings have numbered 830 including members of militant organizations who were assassinated and ordinary peasants who have been killed in the course of military operations. Contrary to the report of a major TV station, Karapatan’s data does not include those who were killed in armed encounters or those who were rendered hors d’ combat but were killed anyway. The latter case is recorded as a violation of international humanitarian law.
The commission’s finding is nothing new, however. The responsibility of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration and the AFP on the spate of political killings has already been pointed out last year by Amnesty International (AI) and by the constitutionally-mandated Commission on Human Rights (CHR). Both groups concluded that the circumstances surrounding the political killings point to the involvement of state agents and hence, at the very least, the government should be held accountable for its failure to protect the rights of the Filipino people.
Double talk
Once again, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration has engaged in double talk. President Arroyo declared that it had “no tolerance for human rights violations.” She issued a six-point directive for:
The Melo Commission to continue with its work and “submit supplemental reports from time to time”;
The Department of National Defense (DND) and the AFP to come up with an updated document on command responsibility;
The DND and the Department of Justice (DoJ) to link up with the CHR in forming a fact-finding body to “delve deeper into the matter of involvement of military personnel in unexplained killings, file the corresponding charges against, and prosecute culpable parties”;
The DoJ to broaden and enhance its Witness Protection Program to cover all witnesses to the killings;
The presidential chief legal counsel, Sergio Apostol, to draft a letter to the Supreme Court (SC) seeking the creation of special courts for the trial of cases involving extrajudicial killings; and,
The Department of Foreign Affairs to submit a formal proposal to the European Union (EU) to send investigators to assist the commission in its work.
While appearing determined to get to the bottom of the killings, Mrs. Arroyo immediately absolved the AFP by declaring that 99.9 percent of the military as “good, hardworking, and patriotic Filipinos.” Does she mean that less than one percent of the military is able to systematically kill 830 people nationwide, without the knowledge of their superiors? Her statements, of course, are consistent: that the killings were done mostly by New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas and by a few soldiers.
