PHILIPPINES: Convergence of events turns focus to human rights

Human rights has returned to the fore in the Philippines following a month of events that have focused public attention on violations ranging from abduction to extrajudicial killings. The Supreme Court's chief justice expressed concern that the rising violence has numbed society's feelings of outrage. In addition to a national human rights summit and President Gloria Arroyo's reference to the issue in her state of the nation address, an appeals court heard a habeas corpus petition filed by the mother of an activist abducted on Apr. 28. With hearings ongoing this week, Edita Burgos has said she wants the government, the military in particular, to produce her missing son, agriculturist Jonas Burgos. She believes he was abducted by military agents. Jonas Burgos, son of the late iconic journalist Jose Burgos Jr., who was one of those who fought during the Marcos dictatorship, was abducted in broad daylight in a shopping mall in Metro Manila. The license plate of the vehicle witnesses say was used in the abduction was traced to a van that was impounded at an Army camp in Bulacan province, north of Manila. But the military denied knowledge about the abduction. Just as the appeals court was deciding whether to hear the Burgos case, there was a two-day human rights conference on extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances. Observers described the event as "unprecedented" and "historic", not just because it put people from various sectors, political beliefs and ideological leanings under one roof, but because it was convened by Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno. Magistrates have traditionally distanced themselves from pressing issues, making their legal opinions known only when cases are brought before the high tribunal. Puno said he felt compelled to organize the two-day conference because the increasing number of killings had already "anaesthetized" the public against feeling shock. "If there are compelling reasons for this summit, one of them is to prevent losing eye contact with these killings and disappearances, revive our righteous indignation, and spur our united search for the elusive solution to this festering problem" Puno said in his keynote address. Human rights groups say there have been more than 800 victims of extrajudicial killings since Arroyo assumed the presidency in 2001. These summary executions and assassinations have been blamed on government forces. A police task force created by Arroyo placed the number at 118, while the Philippine Commission on Human Rights recorded about 400 victims. Puno said the killings and disappearances "expose the frailties of our freedom," which was why the judiciary "decided to unsheathe its unused power to protect the constitutional rights of our people, the first and foremost of which is the right to life itself." Professor Bobby Tuazon of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance (Cenpeg), however, said it remains to be seen whether Puno can "steer the course of judicial activism" even if it puts the Supreme Court "on an institutional collision course with the president and the oligarchs in Congress." Still, Tuazon said, the summit was a positive development in that the judiciary had taken the first step towards the search for justice and redress. "It is a good enough move that warrants a shove by all non-state institutions and organizations struggling for a just and humane society," he said. Among the many recommendations made during the summit were to expand the definition of extrajudicial killings to include the killing of people for their advocacy efforts, and to extend the period for filing of such cases from the present 20 years to 25 years. There was also a proposal to appoint special counsels to investigate extrajudicial killings. The summit participants further suggested that courts, in habeas corpus cases, issue orders whereby investigators can search government and private premises for victims of forced disappearances. A week after the summit, President Arroyo delivered her state of the nation address in which she asked Congress to enact laws that would impose "the harshest penalties" on those responsible for extrajudicial killings, including members of the military and police. She reiterated that she wanted to "stop human rights abuses." But her critics were not convinced of her sincerity in putting a stop to the killings. Renato Reyes of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), or New Patriotic Alliance, said Arroyo "merely echoed some of the recommendations made during the human rights summit." "It remains to be seen, and we seriously doubt it, if people like [retired military general Jovito] Palparan or the abductors of Jonas Burgos will be prosecuted under existing laws, let alone Arroyo's proposed laws," Reyes told IPS. Palparan has been accused by human rights groups of perpetrating human rights abuses when he was still in active service. Some observers point out that Philippine laws already impose the "harshest penalty" for murder and what is needed is not more laws but better enforcement of existing ones. They say Arroyo should have instead given a more categorical directive to the uniformed services that she would not tolerate political killings. The Financial Times, in a July 27 editorial, saw fit to comment on Arroyo's call for the harshest penalties to stop the killings. It said her appeal to the lawmakers was "political hogwash," and that the problem was "not a lack of laws but a culture of impunity that protects almost all powerful people." "Culture of impunity" is a phrase that has been used by many international human rights and journalist groups to describe the continued freedom enjoyed by the killers and those who ordered the murders of politically engaged Filipino journalists, human rights workers, priests and pastors, lawyers, teachers, farmers and workers. The editorial was published on the same day that the appeals court heard the habeas corpus petition for Burgos, the missing agriculturist. Military officials recently stated that Burgos was a member of the New People's Army, without offering proof to back their claim or any explanation what his being a member of an underground organization, if true, had anything to do with his abduction. Top military officials who were summoned to the habeas corpus hearing failed to appear before the appeals court because, a government lawyer said, they were in a command conference in Mindanao. An earlier order by the Supreme Court to produce Burgos for the appeals court hearing was not heeded, the lawyer said, because the missing agriculturist was not in their custody.