I-TEAM REPORT
Rights workers' lament: We're treated like enemies of state
By Jocelyn Uy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:41:00 05/10/2008
(Second of three parts. Read part 1.)
MANILA, Philippines--They are not criminals. BUT their mug shots are on police and military files.
Some of them have been killed and their offices burned or raided and documents on political killings and disappearances stolen or destroyed.
Since the Armed Forces of the Philippines mounted in 2002 its latest campaign--dubbed "Oplan Bantay Laya," or operation plan freedom watch--against the 39-year-old communist insurgency, human rights workers have been treated as "enemies of state."
"We really don't understand why the military has trained their guns on us," says Marie Hilao-Enriquez, secretary general of Karapatan, an alliance of individuals and organizations working for the promotion and protection of human rights in the Philippines.
"All we do is investigate and expose suspected killings and violations that are generated by their antiinsurgency campaign," says Enriquez, whose involvement in the initiative dates back to the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, which she blamed for the torture and killing of her sister at the outset of martial rule in 1972.
Karapatan says 31 of its workers have been murdered while documenting human rights abuses under the Arroyo administration.
Since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took office on Jan. 21, 2001, Karapatan has recorded 882 extrajudicial killings and 185 enforced disappearances--a figure fiercely disputed by the military. The Philippine Daily Inquirer tally of the killings stands at 301.
The Philippine National Police says there were only 114 cases of murder of activists that occurred in the last six years.
But Karapatan says its count includes civilians--farmers, students and indigenous people--who were killed, whether "targeted or not," in the course of a military operation.
The group also did not rejoice when AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. announced recently that violence against activists went down by 83 percent last year.
67% drop in killings
Although Karapatan records would show a 67-percent drop in political killings from 209 cases in 2006 to 68 from January to October last year, the group maintained that the figures were still alarming.
"It only means that the violence against us has not completely stopped," says Enriquez.
"It must be recalled that in 2001, when Esperon was still the commander of the 103rd Brigade of the Philippine Army in Basilan, the CHR (Commission on Human Rights) filed 32 cases of torture against him at the Ombudsman for the Military," she notes.
Although the Ombudsman dismissed the charges, the cases were evidence of his disturbing performance, she says.
Missions blocked
Enriquez says the number of executions may be higher but because Karapatan has been harassed by the military, its workers are having difficulty investigating incidents and reports of abuses.
"There have been others that we have failed to investigate because of the violence being inflicted on us," she lamented. In several instances, Karapatan staff members have been physically barred from entering barrios during their factfinding missions.
To illustrate the extent of "harassment," Enriquez says some of their members have been openly lambasted and humiliated on the radio by military officials that even their grades in high school or college were publicized.
A few years back, she recalls, state security forces broke into a Karapatan office in Central Luzon, locked up women in the toilet and stole files. In Cagayan de Oro, office files were doused with paint. Photos of workers in Cagayan Valley have been posted in military camps as though they are crooks, says Enriquez.
Leftist political groups
The military is also zeroing in on the leftist party-list group Bayan Muna, which has lost 131 members to summary executions and 13 to abductions in the last six years, Karapatan says.
The group says 49 killings and eight abductions were documented from the Anakpawis party-list group, two murders from Gabriella and Kabataan, one killing and two disappearances from the Suara Bangsa Moro group.
"It has minimal impact on our legislative work. The problem really is with our consultations with the grassroots, which are not as much as we want to because our members are preoccupied with the military's harassment," Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño says.
Since the first wave of attacks in 2002 againts political activists that led to 118 killings, Bayan Muna has become "very cautious" with its party work, which dwelt mostly on consultations, meetings and engaging in campaigns about local issues.
Consultations with constituents, Casiño points out , are the lifeblood of any legislator, allowing him to address people's needs and craft legislation.
Surviving in mainstream politics
Organizing and mobilizing members in the countryside, especially in places identified by AFP as "priority areas" in its counterinsurgency campaign, have been difficult but Bayan Muna has managed to overcome problems.
The war that the military seemingly waged against the legal Left has also failed to stifle Bayan Muna, as the recent elections showed, Casiño points out.
Casiño says that the military has trained its sights on leftist politicians because they are making the government uncomfortable.
He says the Left has shown it can survive in mainstream politics after the movement was allowed to participate in the political process in the aftermath of People Power I that ousted Marcos and led to general amnesty for jailed communist guerrillas.
"I think it stems from that. They are scared that the Left is making big strides in the mainstream political arena," he says, accusing the military and the government of trying to ease out the presence of Bayan Muna in the government since 2001.
Legal Left, armed Left
But Casiño says the core of the problem in the AFP's counterinsurgency program is its ideology and philosophy anchored on the National Internal Security Plan (NISP) supposedly formulated by National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales.
Referred to as the foundation of Oplan Bantay Laya, the NISP has blurred the lines that separated these legal political groups from the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People's Army.
NISP has rationalized the legal Left as "part and parcel" of the political structure of the armed Left, according to Casiño.
"When this [philosophy] reaches the soldiers in the field and they operationalize this in the barangay level, that's when the lines get blurred, resulting in human rights violations," he explains.
Leftist in Senate by 2010
He also says that the legal Left is an easy target in the AFP's counterinsurgency program because its cadres work openly and can be easily identified, unlike the underground rebels, who continue the struggle in the jungle recesses.
But Bayan Muna is apparently unperturbed and has plans of taking the people's movement to a higher political arena--the Senate.
"We intend to make our presence felt in the Senate by 2010," Casiño says.
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