CHR spearheads protest vs summary killings

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—A government-sponsored protest rally against summary killings here on Wednesday was not just for show, the head of the regional office of the Commission on Human Rights  in Southern Mindanao, said.

On Wednesday, the CHR mobilized some 5,000 people from the academe, the religious sector and other groups, to call for a stop to summary killings in the city.

The number of those killed continues to grow by the day so much that militant groups said they have lost track of how many people have actually been killed since the current wave of killings started in the 1990s.

Based on the police’s figure, however, at least 52  attacks targeting suspected criminals occurred in the city since January alone.

The killings were mainly attributed to the shadowy Davao Death Squad (DDS), the same group that the CHR investigated for more than 1,000 deaths of suspected criminals – mostly drug personalities – from 1998 to 2009.

Alberto Sipaco, CHR director, said the protest was “principally aimed at stirring public vigilance.”

“We have known that these incidents of summary killings have been rising all this time and for almost two decades now, these killings have not been solved,” he said.

Fr. Daniel MacNamara of the Ateneo de Davao University has defended the CHR-sponsored rally.

He said the rally did not only aim to promote awareness but also encouraged “people to come forward” and be part of the fight to deter the atrocious act of killing.

The church will always be pro-life, he said.

Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, who was being linked to the killings, earlier maintained that the DDS was a myth and did not exist.

Duterte, who has repeatedly said that criminals have no place in the city, said the killings could be the handiwork of rival gangs.

When he learned the CHR was planning to launch a protest against summary killings last month, Duterte questioned the agency’s fairness.

“Where is fairness there? It should not have been sponsored by a government agency—there goes the problem,” he said.

Duterte said he was worried the CHR-led rally would be used by other human rights groups to attack the government. Instead of conducting the rally, Duterte said, it would be better to first come up with measures to control the killings.

“Instead of going into that rigmarole, why don’t you go with a neutral mind because all killings are summary killings. To whom are you addressing the indignation rally? Time is better spent in coming up with worthy measures to control summary killings,” he said.

Franchie Buhayan, secretary general of Bayan in Southern Mindanao, said while her group welcomed the CHR-led protest, it wanted to remind agency officials that “the state of impunity emanates not merely on the lack of public awareness.”

“Rather because the perpetrators are virtually scot-free, freely abetted by the failure of government bodies to hold the perpetrators accountable,” she said in an e-mailed statement.

Buhayan  said the CHR should equally be blamed because it fell short on cases of extra-judicial killings in the region, and other human rights violations filed in its office.

“It is partly to blame for the reigning culture of impunity which permeates our society,” she said.

“As long as CHR remains inutile over these cases of human rights violations, we can expect a further delay of justice,” Buhayan added.

She said unless the CHR “rolls up its sleeves and shows some real work,” Wednesday’s rally “would merely be an empty display of human rights rhetoric and hollow advocacy.”