MANILA, Philippines--“STRIKINGLY UNCONVINCING” IS HOW A United Nations special rapporteur has dismissed the claim of Philippine authorities that the extrajudicial killings of leftist activists were a result of internal purges in the communist ranks.

Philip Alston, an Australian academic assigned by the UN Human Rights Council to look into the executions that have drawn international outrage, said in his final report released on Monday that the Armed Forces of the Philippines had killed leftist activists as part of a campaign against communist insurgents.

“In some parts of the country, the Armed Forces have followed a deliberate strategy of systematically hunting down the leaders of leftist organizations,” said Alston, a professor of law at New York University.

He said the executions had “eliminated civil society leaders, including human rights defenders, trade unionists and land reform advocates, intimidated a vast number of civil society actors, and narrowed the country’s political discourse.”

Alston visited the Philippines in February and issued a preliminary report in which he said the military was in a state of denial about its role in the deaths of about 800 activists and journalists over the past six years.

In his final report, Alston dismissed theories that the killings were carried out by communist groups to weed out spies and discredit the government.

While acknowledging that the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, “does commit extrajudicial executions, sometimes dressing them up as ‘revolutionary justice,’” Alston pointed out that “the evidence that [the NPA] is currently engaged in a large-scale purge is strikingly unconvincing.”

He added: “The military’s insistence that the ‘purge theory’ is correct can only be viewed as a cynical attempt to displace responsibility.”

Impunity

Alston also said “impunity” had made the executions of journalists and leftist activists possible.

He observed that “no one has been convicted in the cases involving leftist activists, and only six cases involving journalists have resulted in convictions.”

He also said “the priorities of the criminal justice system had been “distorted,” and had “increasingly focused on prosecuting civil society leaders rather than their killers.”

Alston said the measures instituted by the government to address the problem—such as the formation of special courts to try cases involving extrajudicial killings, as well as the Melo Commission and the Philippine National Police’s Task Force Usig to conduct specific investigations—were “encouraging.”

“However,” he said, “they have yet to succeed, and the extrajudicial executions continue.”

Alston said no one he spoke with in the course of his investigation had questioned the PNP’s duty and authority to look into crimes allegedly committed by the military.

“However, in practice, it does so only in a perfunctory manner,” he said, adding:

“Plausible explanations for this reticence include fear, a tacit understanding that crimes by the [Armed Forces of the Philippines] should not be investigated, the personal bonds felt among senior AFP and PNP officers, and the solidarity fostered by current cooperation in counterinsurgency operations.”

No policy ‘like that’

Malacañang countered the news of the Alston report with its official line that the administration of President Macapagal-Arroyo did not tolerate extrajudicial killings.

“We don’t have a policy like that,” Lorelie Fajardo, the deputy spokesperson of the President, said on the phone.

“The President will not tolerate this kind of killings,” she said. “Of course, the President values human rights.”

Fajardo said Ms Arroyo had early on instructed Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita to be “on top of all of these,” meaning all cases involving political and other unexplained killings.

Ermita, who faced the UN General Assembly late last month on Ms Arroyo’s behest to defend the country’s human rights record, earlier said that the “country has nothing to hide.”

He said human rights violation was “not an official policy” of the Arroyo administration, and that the Philippines was one of only five countries in the world which had “enshrined” the creation of a human rights commission in their Constitutions.

Fajardo said the Palace could not as yet answer Alston’s report point by point: “We are still verifying the report. Is it a new one, or the previous report?”

But “off-hand,” she said, “there are now pending cases regarding this.”

“The stand of the [AFP] as a whole is that if they know that there are personnel or any officials involved in such killings, they refer them to court or file appropriate cases,” she said.

According to Fajardo, there are six pending cases in civilian and military courts involving 13 military personnel.

She said that last month, Ermita made public the steps taken by Ms Arroyo in response to Alston’s earlier report to the United Nations.

“Precisely, we are acting on the recommendations already,” she said.

In the courts

In a text message, Chief Supt. Samuel Pagdilao, spokesperson of the PNP, said that according to its own findings, “as supported by evidence, some of the killings had been attributed to military personnel, some to PNP personnel, some to the CPP-NPA, and some are not connected at all with these groups.”

Pagdilao said the cases resulting from PNP investigations had been lodged in various courts. He said warrants of arrest had been issued, “signifying that the courts acknowledge the existence of probable cause and that the evidence of guilt is strong against those charged by the PNP.”

It’s his opinion

“We respect Alston’s findings as his opinion, but whether or not these are supported by evidence that can stand judicial scrutiny in any court of law, domestic or foreign, is another matter,” Pagdilao said.

“If [Alston] has evidence to help the PNP in its quest for justice, we ask him to provide us. In this way, he can truly be an instrument of justice,” the officer said.

The military’s Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said that while he had yet to read the Alston report, the killing of leftist leaders was “not the policy of the AFP.”

According to the text message Bacarro sent to reporters, the AFP “recognizes and respects” human rights accorded to people in a democracy.

Critics’ rights also respected

“The AFP, as an organization, will not trample on the rights of others, including those who are critical of the AFP or of the government,” said Bacarro, the chief of the military’s Public Information Office.

He stressed that “in the pursuit of justice,” the military had been transparent and cooperative with any investigation body.

“Individuals belonging to the [AFP] who are suspected of having perpetrated human rights violations are made available to any investigation,” Bacarro said. Reports from AP, Michael Lim Ubac, Alcuin Papa and Nikko Dizon