National

Women human rights defenders from Tanggol Bayi, Ecumenical Women’s Forum, BAI National Alliance of Indigenous Women, KAMP, International Women’s Alliance and Gabriela today trooped to the Department of Justice in Manila, in time for the global commemoration of the International Women Human Rights Defenders Day. 

With their calls expressed in indigenous woven cloth and rituals by indigenous women, they called on Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and Pres. Noynoy Aquino to stop the killings of rights defenders and expressed skepticism over the creation of a “superbody” to investigate the killings and other rights violations.  

“Women human rights defenders ask: with 15 women and girl-children killed under Aquino, what can the Aquino’s superbody do, if, by all indications, this merely looks and sounds like just another investigative body akin to former Pres. Gloria Arroyo’s parody of task forces and commissions on rights violations?” said Cristina Palabay, spokesperson of Tanggol Bayi and secretary general of Karapatan.

“Would the Aquino government finally pull off the $13M US and other foreign aid, which means money from the international community, with the creation of Aquino’s ‘superbody’ to investigate the killings, disappearances, torture and other rights violations?” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay asked wryly.  

Karapatan said that the Aquino government is “hell bent on securing the more than $13 million in US military assistance to the GPH that it does anything to deodorize its human rights record.” Since 2008, the said military aid remains unreleased due to international pressure from various Philippine solidarity groups that campaigned on the issue of extrajudicial killings and other rights violations. 

“If and when the government gets the aid, the money will only be used to oil the AFP to continue the cycle of terror and violence against the people,” Palabay added.

Prevailing impunity under Noynoy 

Another hearing is set today at the Malolos Regional Trial Court for the kidnapping and illegal detention case against Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr., with Raymond Manalo taking the witness stand again for a cross-examination by the defense counsels for Palparan’s co-accused Cols. Anotado and Osorio. 

Karapatan deplored the fact that the hearings are proceeding with the principal accused in the kidnapping of the two UP students “nowhere in sight.”   

Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general said that “in less than a month from now, it will be a year since the warrant of arrest was issued against The Butcher, Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr., but the Aquino government has not shown any decisive action to bring Palparan in court.”

“The Aquino government has left the search for Palparan in the hands of bounty hunters by increasing the reward for Palparan’s capture. The reward is not an expression of the Aquino government’s concern on the continued disappearance of Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño but an act of washing its hands from any accountability to this case. Palparan and Ampatuan symbolize impunity in this country, and look at how the cases against them are going,” continued Palabay. 

Karapatan added that the other high-profile cases such as the killing of Fr. Pops Tentorio, tribal leaders Jimmy Liguyon and Genesis Ambason, and the Capion massacre under the Aquino government are proof that the government perpetuates impunity through its own doing.  

“The problem lies with the President who is no different from his predecessor. Impunity continues under the Aquino government, however it cooks up pretensions,” she said.

Today’s commemoration of the International Day to End Impunity not only highlights the Aquino government’s failure to end impunity but more so, how the government perpetuates impunity.

Since 2009, the backhoe symbolized the Ampatuan massacre where 58 people, including 32 journalists, were felled. Three years after, the backhoe remains a sordid reminder of one of the most palpable illustration of the impunity in the Philippines. Three years after, the backhoe now stands, too, for present-day impunity of the destructive and foreign-owned mining corporations, with Pres. Noynoy Aquino as their gracious host and whose entry into the lands of the indigenous peoples and peasants caused a string of serious human rights violations, and deaths. 

As the court hearings for the Ampatuan massacre dawdles, cases of extrajudicial killings and massacres continue, and needless to say, with impunity.  

There is the Kananga 3 massacre where botanist Leonard Co and two others were killed; the Mancera massacre in Labo, Camarines Norte that killed Benjamin Mancera, 54, and his two sons, Michael, 10, and Richard, aged seven; and recently, the Capion massacre. Those who were killed in these massacres are among the 114 documented cases of extrajudicial killing under the Aquino presidency. 

The killings have even become more gruesome: Genesis Ambason, a Banwaon tribal leader in Agusan del Sur, was shot and tortured to death by CAFGU and elements of the 26th IB. His teeth were all gone and his head shrunk due to heavy beatings; Ely Oguis in Albay was shot and beheaded.