UN report: RP strategy to blame for spate of killings

11/02/2007 02:07:00 AM

A United Nations official has blamed the Philippine government’s counterinsurgency strategy, and a distorted criminal justice system, for the continuing spate of extrajudicial killings in the country. In a 21-page report to the UN General Assembly on Friday, Professor Philip Alston, the Commission of Human Rights’ Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions stuck to his findings earlier this year that leftist leaders in some parts of the Philippines were “systematically hunted down.”
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    Democracy, according to the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, is "a question of human dignity, [a]nd human dignity is political freedom, the right to freely express opinion and the right to be allowed to criticise and form opinions."

    But exercising political freedom in the Philippines, which purports itself to be a democracy, can lead to death. Since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency of the country in 2001, more than 800 Filipinos murdered in politically-motivated, extra-judicial, targeted killings. Since the 4th quarter of July 2005, one person has been killed every two days. The victims of these brazen acts of violence were all unarmed citizens: lawyers, judges, journalists, medical practitioners, members of cause-oriented groups, priests, church-workers, human rights advocates, laborers and farmers.

    It is widely believed—and the United Nations support this belief—that state security forces are complicit in these crimes.