AFP human rights abuses to rise in ‘all-out’ war, says lawyer
LUCENA CITY – A human rights lawyer in Quezon province sees the rise of human rights violations of state security forces in the renewed all-out war against communist insurgents.
“Since the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) considers this as an armed conflict and they have to win this war, human rights violations would be rampant,” lawyer and Lucena Councilor Rey Olivier Alejandrino said in an online interview Thursday.
“History tells us that the state forces could not fight the New People’s Army (and defeat them) without employing tactics violating International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law,” he added.
Lt. Gen. Ferdinand Quidilla, chief of the AFP Southern Luzon Command, vowed that the military offensives would be “within the bounds of the AFP rules of engagement, respect human rights and (international humanitarian law) at all times, meaning there should be no collateral damage.”
Alejandrino appealed to President Duterte, the Department of National Defense (DND), and the military leadership to immediately stop the resumption of the massive counter-insurgency operations.
Citing his experience as a former Army soldier who witnessed the atrocities of war in Mindanao during the martial law period, Alejandrino said: “This nonsense loss of lives must stop!”
“Who (would) suffer? The government? The AFP? No! It’s the people who suffer and even the soldiers themselves are people. Their families are civilians. The NPAs are people,” he said.
Alejandrino refuted the allegations that the communist guerrillas also commit human rights violations. “Because what they do is part of their struggle for self-determination. What the state forces do is preservation of the status quo,” he argued.
“Range against the all-powerful government, the NPAs appear to be of no-match to the government (forces),” he said. JE
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