MANILA, Philippines—A P25-million fund to end political killings has been ordered put up by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who also called on lawmakers to use part of their pork barrel to help raise the amount.

In a statement issued Tuesday from abroad, the President said the fund would finance a reward system for informants who could foil such killings or lead to the arrest of masterminds, in order to achieve a “violence-free political culture” once and for all.

“Political violence has been a scourge of Philippine politics long before our administration. We want to erase the legacy of political violence that has haunted our nation for generations,” Ms Arroyo said.

“I invite lawmakers to contribute P250,000 each from their CDF (Countrywide Development Fund) to build this fund,” she said.

The President is expected to fly back to Manila Wednesday from her working visit to Egypt and state visit to Syria.

For the past few years, the Arroyo administration has been under fire from local and international rights watchdogs over the killing of activists and journalists.

In a final report on the human rights situation in late 2007, UN special rapporteur Philip Alston concluded that the military had killed leftist activists as part of an intensified campaign against communist rebels.

Guns for hire

But quick money amid widespread layoffs and the economic downturn also appears to be drawing more and more people to gun-for-hire gangs, according to Supt. Jonnel Estomo, deputy chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in the National Capital Region.

“[Killing] has become a means of livelihood,” Estomo told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Monday, noting a recent spike in the number of ambush incidents nationwide. “It’s already catching attention because of unemployment. Because the money’s good, many are joining the gangs.”

At least seven high-profile assassinations were reported between March and April, among them the March 11 shooting of Public Works Undersecretary Ramon Aquino in Manila, the April 14 slay of Agriculture regional director Gumersindo Lasam, and the April 26 attack on a barangay (village) captain in Tanauan, Batangas. Most of the attacks were pulled off by two men riding tandem on a motorcycle, their faces hidden under helmets.

The same tactic was observed in extrajudicial killings reported last year, including the deaths of four members of the media and two members of militant groups, according to data from Task Force Usig, the Philippine National Police’s special investigative unit for high-profile slays.

Recruitment of unemployed

The figures showed an 85-percent decline from those recorded in two consecutive years (47 in 2007 and 41 in 2006).

Task Force Usig counted a total of 146 killings starting from 2001. Of the number, 115 were activists and 31 were members of the media.

Guns for hire do not require much training, just a certain degree of nerve to aim a gun at a target and pull the trigger, according to Estomo.

“Mostly ex-military, ex-policemen who know how to fire guns recruit men from far-flung areas who are unemployed,” he said, adding that the demand was coming from those seeking hitmen to get rid of political or business rivals, or even personal enemies.

Price tag

A recruit may act as a “spotter,” or one who identifies and validates the location of a mark, one who does the “casing” or surveillance of the location, or a trigger man.

Citing interviews with suspected guns for hire, Estomo said the price tag for hits depended on who the target was and who was paying.

The price for killing a high-profile target runs “in the millions,” and for a low-profile mark, about P10,000, Estomo said.

He said an operation could require two gang members, as in the familiar modus operandi, or as many as “six or seven.”

On April 30, Estomo’s team had a shooting match with purported members of a hijack and gun-for-hire gang in Caloocan City. The CIDG is validating information that among the three killed in the predawn encounter was involved in the attack on Undersecretary Aquino.

Seriousness

CIDG investigators identified the gang as part of the so-called Herrera hijack and gun-for hire gang, known to be operating in Central Luzon and Metro Manila. Police stopped the gang members as they were driving a 10-wheel truck earlier reported seized by armed men on C3 Road.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who arrived last week from a mission to the United Nations, said he had “no personal knowledge” of Ms Arroyo’s announcement but was not surprised by it.

He said putting up the P25-million fund was Ms Arroyo’s “way of expressing seriousness” in putting a stop to political killings.

Ermita pointed out that “the President also caused the release of P25 million” to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) last year.

He said that even before he left for Geneva, Switzerland, on April 25, “there was already talk that political killings under this administration are going high in spite of the fact that we have Task Force Usig, the Melo Commission, and most recently, Task Force 11—all intended to put a stop to these unexplained killings.”

“I can just imagine that the President, conscious of the need to really put a stop to all this, decided that maybe we need more money ... for the witness protection program, for prosecution, [and] for follow-up investigation by the police, so nobody can complain that the reason they can’t pursue this is that we lack resources,” Ermita said.

Torture

According to Ermita, the government partnered with the CHR, Congress, the judiciary and other sectors in presenting the Philippines’ compliance with the Convention against Torture on April 24-29 in Geneva.

Ermita, who headed a 25-member Philippine delegation, said he submitted a consolidated periodic report of the Philippines as well as a response to the presentation by Karapatan and other Manila-based human rights groups of 1,016 purported cases of torture.

“These are all alleged cases,” Ermita said, adding:

“In my remarks, I highlighted that our friends from the Philippines are very fond of giving the United Nations figures that are unverified. I [said], for example, that Karapatan in 2007 submitted 836 cases, but we validated only 146 through Task Force Usig.”