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EU Parliament blasts GMA for rights abuses, gov’t denials

March 20, 2009





The European Parliament has blasted President Arroyo’s government for failing to stop human rights violations, which it said have decreased in recent years but have continued with officials denying any role by state forces “despite ample evidence to the contrary.”

The powerful European Parliament, in a resolution issued on March 12, called on the Philippine government to “adopt measures to end the systematic intimidation and harassment of political and human rights activists, members of civil society, journalists and witnesses in criminal prosecutions, and to ensure truly effective witness protection.”

It also reiterated a request for the Philippines to allow the UN special bodies dealing with human rights protection unrestricted access to the country and swiftly adopt and implement laws to incorporate the international human rights instruments.”


It is one of the strongest international rebukes to date of the dismal human rights record of the Arroyo government which Philippine officials contend has improved but human rights watchdogs continue to view with alarm.

The EU resolution will be a crucial part of the wealthy bloc’s mid-term review of its cooperative ties with the Philippines. It resolved that “there are good reasons to step up our efforts in the area of good governance, justice and the rule of law in the Philippines” but did not mention any cut back of aid due to its strong concern over human rights abuses in the country.

The EU is one of the country’s largest providers of development assistance and aid, particularly in Mindanao. It has provided support to alleviate the plight of tens of thousands of villagers displaced by the fighting between troops and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front starting in August last year.

The EU Parliament expressed its “grave concern at the hundreds of cases of extrajudicial killings of political activists and journalists that have occurred in recent years in the Philippines, and the role that the security forces have played in orchestrating and perpetrating those murders.”

While hundreds of activists, trade unionists, journalists and religious leaders in the Philippines have been killed or abducted since 2001, the EU Parliament said the Arroyo government continues to deny “any involvement of the security forces and the army in these political killings, despite ample evidence to the contrary.”

During the debate in the European Parliament that preceded the issuance of the strongly-worded resolution on the Philippines, EU Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy Benita Ferrero-Waldner acknowledged that “the Philippines has made considerable progress in its international obligations to ensure and to protect human rights” by ratifying 12 international human rights treaties and abolishing the death penalty, largely due to the prodding by the EU.

“But the human rights situation remains very difficult and we use the opportunity of our regular, senior official meeting to raise these issues,” Waldner said.

“These assassinations of journalists of human rights and land rights activists have certainly decreased significantly in number in the past two years,” she said. “But, from time to time, they have flared up and there has been a flare-up very recently.”

She found “most unsettling” was the fact that “the majority of the perpetrators remain at large.

“It has become a very sensitive political issue and it has eroded confidence in the government,” she said.

The EU said that several cases in 2008 “in which local courts found the arrest and detention of activists to be unlawful and ordered their release, but where those same people were subsequently rearrested and charged with rebellion or murder.”

The EU Parliament’s tirade reflects the strong concern made by U.N. Special Rapporteur Philip Alston over the human rights conditions in the country when he visited the Philippines two years ago. After a fact-finding mission, Alston issued a report that blamed members of the military for many killings and disapperances of left-wing activists.

The Arroyo government then disputed Alston’s findings, saying it did not relfect the true conditions in the country.

Meanwhile, Gabriela Women’s partylist Rep. Luzviminda Ilagan yesterday said retired military General Jovito Palparan might have had a hand in the summary execution of a mining activist based in Mindanao as the former military officer had been hired a security consultant of mining firm operating in the area where the activist was slain.

“Is Gen. Jovito Palparan involved in the latest extrajudicial killing in South Cotabato?” Ilagan asked regarding the summary execution of the anti-mining activist, Eliezer Billanes, who was shot by two unidentified men in Koronadal district, South Cotabato last March 9, 2009.

“Billanes had been known to lead the opposition to the mining liberalization policy and large-scale mining projects of the government. No one has the motive to silence him but those whose interests had been threatened by his group’s objectives,” Ilagan said.

The Gabriela solon raised the possibility that the 10th Infantry Division of Maj. Gen. Reynaldo Mapago, and Palparan through Task Force Kitaco, are responsible for the Billanes killing.

Kitaco stands for the local government units of Kiblawan, Tampakan, Columbio where there are mining operations of one of the biggest mining companies in the world, Xstrata-SMI.

Task Force Kitaco was formed by the 10th ID of AFP and composed of selected units under the 102nd Bde-PA, CAFGUs and SCAA which are presently being recruited by and trained under the AFP but funded by Xstrata-SMI.

Ilagan said that reports state that Palparan is now one of the security consultants of Xstrata-SMI and was in fact invited for a security consultation in Tampakan during the orientation of Task Force Kitaco.

“The motive behind Billanes’ death is indisputable. He was killed in the midst of his organization’s struggle to oppose the Tampakan Copper-Gold mining project of Xstrata-SMI.” Ilagan said.

“Having been the lodestone of big mining companies, Mindanao will soon be the next field of extrajudicial killings especially if someone like GeneralPalparan, who has been the top executioner of state sponsored human rights violations in other parts of the country, stamps his mark on the island.” Ilagan added.



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Written by emjoven · Filed Under Breaking News 

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