Torture, killings, illegal arrests continue with more impunity– Karapatan

MANILA, Philippines — Extra-judicial killings and disappearances continue under the Aquino administration with more impunity, a human rights group said Friday.

While it projects itself as the exact opposite of the Arroyo administration, under which an unprecedented number of rights abuses were reported, the Aquino administration is treading the same path, Karapatan [the Filipino acronym for Alliance for the Enhancement of People’s Rights] said in its 2011 report.

The administration, apart from displacing more people through military operations, was responsible for continuing extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, arrests and detention, harassment and intimidation of people, the group said.

From July 2010 to October 2011, Karapatan recorded 64 victims of extra-judicial killings, nine victims of enforced disappearance, 51 victims of torture, 27 victims of frustrated extra-judicial killing, 208 victims of illegal arrest without detention, 120 victims of illegal search and seizure, 62 victims of physical injury, among others.

“Human rights violations continue under the US-Aquino regime,’’ Karapatan secretary general Roneo Clamor said in a presentation of the report at the UP Balay Kalinaw.

Proof of the “gross case of impunity’’ was  the October 17 killing of Italian priest Fausto Tentorio in Arakan Valley, North Cotabato, Karapatan said.

“It’s obvious impunity exists,’’ Edre Olalia, secretary general of the National Union of People’s Laywers, said later in a panel discussion, attributing this to the “lack of honest-to-goodness’’ police investigation of the abuses.