Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita himself admitted that the police and the military – the very agencies accused of perpetrating most of the abductions and killings of activists – stood to receive the lion’s share of the P25-million fund. This isn’t just an unfortunate instance of mixed signals from the Executive. It amounts to the cynical use of human rights atrocities such as extra-judicial killings in order to further line the pockets of Mrs. Arroyo’s loyal generals and keep them focused on wiping out as many of the regime’s purported political enemies.

The reported PNP reward money has elicited scornful laughter from human rights advocates in many quarters. The police bounty on Professor Sison is more of a propaganda tool designed to deflect growing public criticism of the brutality, incompetence, nefarious practices and utter lawlessness of the police. Prof. Sison recently achieved a major legal victory against the efforts of the Philippine, US and Dutch governments to pin him down on murder charges and further demonize him as a “terrorist” when such charges where thrown out by the Dutch court as completely groundless.

We stopped to wonder why the Arroyo regime suddenly came up with the not-so-bright-idea of the reward fund apart from the usual efforts to cover up its sordid human rights record. It was only when we received a copy of United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Prof. Philip Alston’s 29 April 09 follow-up report, on the status of the recommendations he made after his official visit to the Philippines in February 2007, that we found part of the answer.

Professor Alston concluded that the Arroyo regime deserved credit “for having sent a message to the military which resulted in a significant decrease in the number of killings.” What this implies is that the sudden drop in the number of EJKs after the UN report came out indirectly confirms that state forces are truly involved in them. Mr. Alston also pointed out that “(a)lthough the number of extrajudicial executions of members of civil society organizations has greatly diminished, too many cases continue to be reported and far too little accountability has been achieved for the perpetrators.”

The Arroyo regime’s reward money is nothing but a crude attempt to whitewash its bloody human rights record and appear innocent and diligent in going after the perpetrators in light of continuing international criticism and denunciation. The Arroyos are destined to exit from the Philippine political scene in disgrace, perhaps even worse than the dictator Marcos. (Business World / Posted by (Bulatlat.com))

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