Undistinguished human rights record

The news that Davao City Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte forced an alleged con artist to swallow the fake land title he used to swindle his victims casts an interesting incidental to a report by the New York-based human rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the American State Department.

HRW’s “No Justice Adds to the Pain,” cited 10 cases of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances since President Benigno Aquino III took office. No one, however, has been arrested for these cases, according to the report.

The State Department, meanwhile, pointed to leading human rights problems in the Philippines as stemming from “continued arbitrary, unlawful and extrajudicial killings by national, provincial and local government agents and by anti-government insurgents; an under-resourced and understaffed justice system that resulted in limited investigations, few prosecutions and lengthy trials of human rights abuse cases; and widespread official corruption and abuse of power.”

The Philippine government virtually adopted the report when Commission on Human Rights chairperson Etta Rosales confirmed this in a talk with the Inquirer.  She cited irresolute governance and weak criminal justice system as the stumbling blocks in solving the problem. Rosales stressed that systemic ills explain why law enforcement agencies have a hard time arresting fugitives, like former major general Jovito Palparan.

Palparan is facing two charges of kidnapping and serious illegal detention for allegedly masterminding the 2006 abduction of University of the Philippines students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan. The students were last seen assessing the situation of peasants in Bulacan when military men kidnapped them allegedly on orders of Palparan.

Palparan continues to elude the law despite the warrant of arrest issued against him last year. The case is just one of a string of accusations linking the former military official to extrajudicial killings committed during his active military service which ended in 2007.

To Palparan goes the credit of having been mentioned in a State of the Nation Address (Sona) by then president Gloria Arroyo in 2006 in which she praised him for “successful military offenses against the New People’s Army.” With that kind of endorsement, Palparan entered Congress using the backdoor in 2009, as lead nominee of the party list Bantay.

The HRW article was published to highlight the performance of President Aquino in key government strategies like anti-corruption, poverty reduction and human rights. He is scheduled to deliver his Sona in seven days and if the Department of Interior and Local Government has nothing to show in terms of police efforts to snare not just Palparan, but also Palawan Gov. Joel Reyes, Coron Mayor Mario Reyes and convicted former Dinagat Island congressman Ruben Ecleo Jr.,  I believe P-Noy will counterbalance the pressure by replacing Secretary Jesse Robredo and other key Philippine National Police officials or even officials of the CHR if the leadership does not begin to think out of the box.

Despite the ascent of an Aquino to Malacañang, a situation that augurs well supposedly for human rights protection, Davao City Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte continues to take pride in the role that he likes most: kicking butts of suspected criminals.

Manolito Gayas was arrested last week for allegedly selling fake documents to squatters in Davao City. Duterte confronted Gayas in jail and forced the latter to eat the fake documents, prompting human rights advocates like Rosales and Tagbilaran Bishop Leonardo Medroso to raise a howl. The controversy sent Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo to immediately create a fact-finding team saying that Duterte should be given due process, never mind if he is a due process hater.

Duterte is no stranger to investigations of human rights violations committed in his turf by the so-called Davao Death Squad (DDS).

In 2009, the Commission on Human Rights then led by current Justice Secretary Leila de Lima went to Davao to probe reports of extra-judicial killings after a witness, said to be a former squad member, pointed to a site where bodies of salvaging victims were dumped.  The CHR team found a human skull with a bullet hole and human bones, some believed to belong to young boys buried in three caves.

I don’t know if De Lima was able to conclude the probe but one thing is sure.  CHR chairman Rosales is well aware of the report because she served as chairman of the House committee on human rights when her predecessor initiated the Davao probe in July 2009.  In fact, Rosales tried to open an investigation in aid of legislation, but was scuttled by a revamp in the House standing committees during the Speakership of then Davao Congressman Prospero Nograles.

When P-Noy appointed Rosales to lead the CHR, the thinking population must have thought her being a stalwart of the militant Akbayan party-list would signify the beginning of a breakthrough in systemic ills that undermine the protection of human rights.

CHR figures show that from July 2010 to June 2012, the agency has resolved 37 out of 96 complaints filed against the military, 108 of 261 complaints filed against the police and 33 out of 91 complaints against armed groups. Sure, Rosales is working hard, but to the public at large, it remains an undistinguished record given the fact that the commission managed to prosecute only the small fry.