[News] Karapatan: Report on Philippine human rights

[News at freedomarchives.org]

2004 REPORT ON THE PHILIPPINE HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION

KARAPATAN- Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights
December 10, 2004

Two words summarize the state of human rights in the Philippines 
today:  Hacienda Luisita.

When the state used its armed force to violently disperse the hacienda farm 
workers’ legitimate actions to press for just wages and authentic land 
reform, it defended the monopoly of one of the richest and most politically 
entrenched clans in the country – the Cojuangco family.

The carnage wrought on 5,000 striking farm workers, their families and 
supporters in Hacienda Luisita on 16 November 2004 killed 14 people (seven 
of which were identified) injured 114, unlawfully detained 110 and caused 
the disappearance of 39 others.

As in many cases in the past, the struggle for human rights­in this case 
economic and political rights­ was answered by a hail of bullets from the 
state.  Immediately government blamed the massacre on “outsiders,” 
“agitators” and the New People’s Army even before it could absolve the 
armed policemen and soldiers who broke up the strike.  The Hacienda Luisita 
massacre merely highlights the prevalent and intensifying human rights 
violations in the country.

State Terrorism
As a state policy, the Arroyo administration’s so-called war against 
terrorism­patterned after and directly linked to the US-led war on terror­ 
has led to gruesome and deplorable human rights violations all over the 
country. It has led to an alarming rate of summary executions and 
massacres, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary and unlawful 
arrests, arbitrary and unlawful detentions, curtailment or open violations 
of basic democratic rights as well as indiscriminate aerial bombings, 
artillery and mortar fire, shelling, strafing, forced mass evacuations, and 
harassment.

 From January to November 30, 2004, KARAPATAN documented 570 cases of human 
rights violations affecting 9924 people, or approximately 52 cases a 
month.  This year alone, there were 68 victims of enforced disappearance. 
An average of 6 persons a month are abducted and made to disappear.   From 
2001 to 2004, a total of 3,488 cases of human rights violations were 
reported and documented under the Macapagal-Arroyo government.

Open terror reigns despite the absence of an open declaration of martial 
law. For the human rights community, state terrorism is the worse thing 
that can happen in the country. State security forces and paramilitary 
troops make no distinction between civilians and combatants. Furthermore, 
political beliefs and actions are labeled as “terrorism” to undermine 
forces opposed to or critical to the government.
Militarization has intensified with more troops being deployed nationwide, 
especially in Southern Tagalog (39 battalions, most especially Mindoro with 
9 battalions), Bicol (4 batallions 1 brigade and 1 division), Cagayan 
Valley (5 battalions and 1 brigade), Western Mindanao (10 battalions), 
Socsargen (10 battalions), Eastern Visayas (9 battalions), Southern 
Mindanao (3 brigades), North Central Mindanao (3 brigades), Central Luzon 
(6 battalions), Bohol (5 battalions) and Cebu (2 battalions).

More and more communities are being held hostage by the military. 
Detachments are built in their midst, curfews are imposed, their movements 
are strictly monitored.  Public thinking is manipulated as well by various 
psy-war operations. Local government officials such as mayors and barangay 
captains lose control over the community as de facto martial rule reigns.

Legal democratic organizations have become targets of atrocities.  From 
2001 to 2004, suspected state agents killed 48 members, officials, 
candidates and volunteers of political parties identified with the Left, 
such as Bayan Muna and AnakPawis.

Leaders of people’s organizations are either killed or slapped with 
harassment cases as in the case of BAYAN Southern Mindanao leader, Alvin 
Luque, human rights activist and martial law survivor Marie Hilao-Enriquez, 
and KARAPATAN Southern Tagalog’s Irein Cuasay.  Enriquez along with some 20 
others was charged with alleged violations of BP 880 (Marcos’ no permit, no 
rally edict) for holding a rally on Human Rights Day on December 10, 2003.

Union leader Samuel Bandilla and community leader Melita Carvajal were 
recently gunned down in Leyte and Laguna respectively.

Joel Baclao, a church worker and volunteer of the Promotion of Church 
People’s Response (PCPR) was shot dead in front of his house in Albay on 10 
November 2004. Two months prior to his death, government soldiers attempted 
to search his home without a warrant. On 30 October 2004, a certain Butch 
Javier warned him that he should be careful because he was already included 
in the military’s Order of Battle (OB).

Violent dispersals by “crowd management teams” of the PNP and AFP mar 
peaceful protests.  A gathering in support of hostaged OFW Angelo dela Cruz 
in Iraq was dispersed violently in Plaza Miranda no less, the traditional 
venue for airing people’s grievances.

Enforced disappearances and torture

On September this year, soldiers belonging to the 16th Infantry Batallion 
in Mindoro Occidental ransacked the home of farmer Jomar Torreliza in the 
middle of the night.  He was abducted and tortured in captivity but managed 
to escape. The Torrelizas are now unable to go back home for fear that 
soldiers would go back and kill them.
Torreliza is one of the 40 victims of torture documented in 2004.

This year, some 68 persons have been victimized by enforced disappearance. 
The brazenness by which this crime has been committed by state agents is 
appalling. On August 17, three members of Bayan-Manila were abducted in 
front of the twin churches in Bustillos, Sampaloc, Manila at 4:30 in the 
afternoon in full-view of a few hundred churchgoers, market vendors and 
bystanders. Nobody has dared to implicate the real perpetrators of the 
crime for fear of their own safety. The police initially said ISAFP 
(Intellligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines) coordinated 
the operation with them. ISAFP denies having the three in their custody.

The latest case of enforced disappearance is the case of 10 persons from 
Mindoro Island who were abducted all at the same time on 6 November 2004 on 
board a jeep in Batangas City.  Out of the ten, nine (Danilo Mayo, Analiza 
Espiritu, Mary Ann Babit, Ronnie Ferrer, Marichu Cataquis, Precy Balmes, 
Christopher Malabanan, Lijan Gumnay, Rufino Tabares and Paterno Atienza) 
were presented at a press conference by the MIMAROPA Police in Fort 
Bonifacio on 8 November 2004 but when their relatives and counsel sought 
the arrested persons, they were nowhere to be found and the military and 
police personnel manning the different camp detention centers denied 
holding the nine missing persons.


Human rights work and journalism - dangerous jobs
On 23 November 2004, soldiers and goons in Mindoro Occidental assaulted 58 
members of a fact-finding and medical mission.  At least 10 were hurt. The 
team was composed of doctors, human rights workers, priests, and lawyers 
who went to Mindoro to probe reports of human rights violations allegedly 
perpetrated by the AFP.

It is also in Mindoro where human rights lawyer and Naujan vice Mayor Juvy 
Magsino, teacher and human rights worker Leima Fortu, and Isaias Manano, a 
pastor’s son and successor to Leima Fortu as secretary general of KARAPATAN 
Mindoro, were murdered by suspected elements of the 204th Brigade.  Magsino 
and Fortu were killed on 13 February 2004.  Manano on 28 April 2004.

Three of the 14 human rights workers killed under the Macapagal-Arroyo 
administration were slain in 2004.

Human rights workers and journalists share the same plight.  This year 
alone, there were 12 journalists killed, bringing to 25 the total number of 
journalists killed under the Macapagal-Arroyo regime.

Still no justice for martial law victims
The Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestya 
(SELDA), the group of political prisoners that won the class suit against 
Marcos in the US Federal Court, expressed outrage and alarm over the 
surreptitious transfer of the $684 million Marcos ill-gotten funds from the 
Philippine National Bank to the General Fund.  The fund transfer was done 
at the height of the election campaign, raising fears that money was spent 
for Mrs. Arroyo’s presidential bid.

The 12th Congress failed to pass the law that would have facilitated the 
use of Marcos ill-gotten account to indemnify the martial law victims.  The 
13th Congress is currently pushing for a bill which SELDA members say is a 
mangled version that destroys the intent and spirit of the proposed law.

Behind the walls of repression
The act of criminalizing political offenses has not ceased with the 
continued arrest and detention of activists, community organizers, 
peasants, workers, women and even minors.

To date, there are still 233 political prisoners languishing in jail, among 
them Donato Continente, suspect in the 1989 killing of a US military 
official and the Mamburao 7, farmers on framed-up murder charges by their 
landlord.   Four political prisoners have been sentenced to death. They 
have been charged with common crimes to hide the political nature of their 
continued detention.

Despite the acquittal and release of 14 Moro prisoners last year, a dim 
future still face the more than 100 Muslims in detention wrongfully accused 
as members of the bandit group Abu Sayyaf and allegedly perpetrating the 
kidnapping and murder of foreign nationals in 1999.

Intervention and action for human rights
KARAPATAN helped work for the release of 17 political prisoners in 2004, 
among them Zenaida Llesis and her ailing baby Gabriela, Irene Plagtiosa and 
her daughter and 13-year old Levy Mabanan who was in the custody of the 
military since he was nine years old.

As confidence-building measure in its talks with the National Democratic 
Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the Government of the Republic of the 
Philippines (GRP) made a commitment to release 32 prisoners.  Only 10 were 
actually released.  Seven won their cases in court while the remaining 15 
are still incarcerated.

KARAPATAN joined peace advocates in calling on the government to establish 
the Joint Monitoring Committee in compliance with the Comprehensive 
Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian 
Law (CARHRIHL), a major peace agreement between the GRP and NDFP

In the peace talks and in the joint human rights monitoring body, KARAPATAN 
took the opportunity to bring pressing human rights issues for action of 
both parties.  Survivors and families of human rights violations victims 
were assisted in filing cases.

In the past year, KARAPATAN sounded the alarm at the pre-session meeting of 
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of the 
United Nations Human Rights Committee.  The UN body acknowledged the report 
and expressed concern “at reports of intimidation and threats of 
retaliation impeding the right to an effective remedy for persons whose 
rights and freedoms have been violated.”

Human rights cases have been filed against perpetrators in various 
courts.  The same cases have also been brought to the court of public 
opinion.  One major setback to the improvement of the human rights 
situation in the country is the culture of impunity engendered by no less 
than the AFP Commander-In-Chief with the promotion of military officials 
notorious for their human rights violations.  Col. Jovito Palparan of the 
204th brigade and his successor Col. Fernando Mesa were even promoted to 
two-star and one-star General, respectively.

To date, those displaced by intensive military operations in Mindoro 
Oriental and in Mindanao have been unable to return to their domicile for 
Mindoro is still heavily militarized.

Another hindrance to the respect and promotion of human rights in the 
country is the campaign and incitement to violence of state security forces 
against Muslim communities and dissenters.

Prospects and Recommended action
Will the situation improve or worsen under the Macapagal-Arroyo 
administration?

If at present the Macapagal-Arroyo government uses force and intimidation 
to quell the people’s legitimate dissent, we can expect more of the same, 
especially with the harsh economic policies it intends to implement and its 
continued submission to the US government’s war on terror.

Human rights advocates protest, condemn and seek justice for various human 
rights violations committed against the people by state security 
forces.   A swift and impartial investigation of the vicious incidents is 
in order and punishment meted out on the guilty.

Government must avert its repressive measures and its continued support for 
the US-led wars of aggression in other countries.  It must decisively 
prosecute and convict, not reward, perpetrators of rights violation.

It is also imperative that the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for 
Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law be seriously implemented.

A concrete step to alleviate the terrible human rights situation is to 
immediately pull out the 204th brigade in Mindoro and in other highly 
militarized areas to put a stop to human rights abuses there.

The public is strongly encouraged to know more about their rights and find 
ways to individually and collectively assert these rights.


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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