In one of the harsher foreign assessments of the Philippines in recent times, a Hong Kong-based human rights group has called the Philippines a “broken and lawless nation.”

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) drew this conclusion after two more recent murders in Mindanao, where the victims were executed in front of family members, one of them in the presence of three young daughters.

But the non-government body also made an apparent reference to the eight Hong Kong tourists who died in the Manila hostage crisis last August 23 after botched police negotiations and a rescue attempt, describing the Philippines as a place where citizens “cannot hope to protect the foreigners on its soil.”

‘A broken and lawless nation’

In an article on its web site, the AHRC stated:

“In a country where an individual can no longer protect himself, he cannot protect his family; a family that cannot protect its members, cannot protect the community where they belong; and a person, a family and a community that cannot protect itself cannot protect a Nation. A Nation that cannot protect its own citizens, their families and the community where they live cannot hope to protect the foreigners on its soil. It is a broken and lawless nation.”

AHRC said it has become an “illusion” and “absurdity” for anyone to claim that there is protection and security for people in the Philippines.

The Philippine National Police and government spokesmen have a habit of assuring the foreign community that the country is safe, in the face of travel advisories to the contrary issued by foreign governments.

The human rights body said it has become ordinary for killings to be carried out by policemen, the military and the paramilitary forces working for them, and for killings to be perpetrated in broad daylight in crowded public places and in front of the victims’ families in their own homes.

Unreported cases

“Hundreds if not thousands” of stories go unreported and this has been taking place in the country for many years now, the AHRC lamented.

“A system of justice can still continue to exist on paper, structure and appearance, but its existence is meaningless once it departs from its original role of being a protector, it becomes the very opposite of what it was supposed to be; that is the protector of those within the system, protecting those who are already protected; securing those who are already secured. This is the type system that each Filipino lives in daily in their own country. Unless there is a discussion and organic realization by those who are part of the system of the need for reform to reexamine their purpose, its existence remains an object of contempt,” it said.

Mindanao murders

The AHRC cited the murders of Reynaldo Labrador of Davao City and Vicente Felisilda of Mawab, Compostela Valley, who were executed in front of their families.

Labrador, 39, was shot at 7:30 p.m. last Sept. 3 in front of wife Leonisa and daughters Reylon, 10; Raquel, 8; and Jennifer, 4, at their home in Paquibato District in Davao City.

He was a member of the Paquibato District Farmers Association (PADIFA), a local chapter of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP).

The gunmen escaped after the shooting. They left a note at the victim’s house that read: “Demonyo ka! Hiposon ka!” (You’re evil! You must be killed!)

Felisilda, 38, a farmer with four children and a member of Bayan Muna, was shot dead last September 9 at 7 p.m.

Both the KMP and Bayan Muna are leftist groups that the military has tagged as being communist front organizations. The Philippines has seen a spate of extrajudicial killings of activists committed by what international observers say are agents acting on behalf of the military, or by soldiers themselves.

What happened to Felisilda illustrates the brazenness exhibited by killers in the prevailing culture of impunity, the groups claimed.

The victim and and his elder brother Allan were resting inside a small hut in Mawab town, Compostela Valley after extracting meat from coconut shells on their farm.

While the brothers were resting, two gunmen arrived. They were wearing civilian clothes and armed with cal-.45 pistols.

“At first the two greeted the brothers and tried to make conversation with them by asking what they were doing. However, suddenly one of them shot Vicente at close range. Startled by what he saw, Allan ran for safety to a cliff nearby,” the AHRC said. – HS/TJD, GMANews.TV

Families of the victims of the massacre still live with threats
By Hazel Galang, Philippines campaigner, Amnesty International

Today many people in the Philippines are pausing to remember the Maguindanao massacre that thrust the nation into the international spotlight on 23 November last year: At least 57 people, including 32 media workers, travelling in a convoy to file a candidacy for a local politician were ambushed, brutally murdered and hastily buried on a hillside in Ampatuan, southern Philippines.

It was, and still is, the world’s largest ever single attack on journalists. Even for the Philippines, which has suffered from intermittent armed conflict, unexplained disappearances, and political killings, the scale of this tragedy is astounding.

The families of the slain are still scared, one year on. I arranged to meet with widows and mothers of those murdered at a secret safe house a few days ago. I had a password to get in, and walked into a dark compound at night – all the lights were turned off so that potential attackers would not be led to the site of the interview. At the first sign of trouble, our contact would speed-dial a number and the rest of the families gathered there would flee.

One by one, these ordinary women emerged from the dark to talk to me, seeking justice from one of the most powerful families in the Philippines, whom they suspect murdered their children and husbands. Their loved ones were all journalists killed as they travelled with a convoy of supporters of a politician who was running against a member of the Ampatuan clan.

The families of the dead are not covered by the government witness protection programme, which is why they must go to such lengths to protect themselves. I could be a researcher from Amnesty International, or I could be a hit-man. Although members of the Ampatuan family are in detention, the clan still has private armies at its disposal.

The longer the trial of the suspects drags on, the longer they will be at risk. One potential court witness was killed before the hearing even started. The families of the dead are careful not to make any statements that may anger the perpetrators. The most vocal woman is the one who receives the most threatening phone calls and messages, although she is not the only one.

But more than thinking of their own safety, they worry for their children. A widow said one of her daughters “was working for a shop in a city a few hours away from Maguindanao, when a policeman from Maguindanao came up to her and said, ‘I recognize you. I saw you on the television. Wasn’t your father one of those who was massacred?’” She told her daughter to quit her job immediately and come home. “We did not know if the policeman was working under the Ampatuans,” she said. Her children do not give interviews, conscious of the danger, but her daughter may have been seen on television when the victims were buried.

One widow tells of a threat her daughter received on her dead father’s mobile phone. Both she and her daughter sent text messages to her husband trying to locate him on 23 November last year. His mobile phone was not recovered with his body, so they called it, and someone answered but hung up on them immediately. Her daughter tried the number again, and someone answered, saying “You keep on calling me. I can kill you.”

Aside from the physical threat, there are emotional wounds that have not healed.

Families are still recovering from the trauma of exhuming the dead bodies of their loved ones from this hillside ©APGraphicsbank

Another widow tells me the harrowing story of how her adult son who carried his father’s corpse after it was unearthed still suffers from trauma. He lost more than 20kg after the murder, and instead of sleeping at night, talks to his father’s portrait. Her son told her, “Ma, I carried Daddy’s body, but it’s no longer Daddy…One of his eyes was missing from its socket, his leg had been broken, his brain matter was dripping from his head. It’s no longer the father I know.”

The families of the victims need to receive counselling, but this has not been a priority as it is too expensive. For the most part, the murders have deprived them of their family breadwinner, and flying to Manila to attend the trial hearings has drained their finances. One widow said, “My son went to Saudi Arabia [to work] because he is determined that we will have money to keep me going to the court hearings long enough to see this case through. My children could not accept the loss of their father in such a brutal killing – his face was smashed and only his chin was left intact. We identified him through the mole on his chin.”

That they have lent their voices to the case at all is a tremendous act of courage and resilience. One of the women says even her neighbours criticize her for participating in the case, telling her “You are small fry. You will only last one year and then what? You cannot take them on.” She tells me she just ignores them and draws strength from her children and the other families who, like her, fight for justice.

Another of the widows describes how she and her family coped with her husband’s death: “When I first confirmed that he was one of those murdered, my blood pressure shot up to 190/180. I told myself to calm down… I have high blood pressure and I am diabetic… What will happen if I die, too? Who will take care of my children? So I took a cold shower and it was there where I cried. I told my children to be strong and not let their anger overcome them. To help them heal, I collected photos of their father taken from the happiest moments of his life. I put it in an album so our children can look at them when they miss their father. I set up a small table near our altar and placed their father’s photo there with flowers and a vigil candle which is lit the whole day. The light in that candle will continue to burn until we find justice for my husband.” (from Livewire, Amnesty International)

by Robert Gonzaga, Central Luzon Desk, Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines—The killing of 57 civilians and media people last year made the Philippines “the most dangerous place in the world for journalists,” said Frank La Rue, UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.

La Rue spoke at the Journalism Asia Forum 2010 at the Manila Hotel Tuesday, the first anniversary of the so-called Maguindanao massacre that included 32 journalists.

The forum, organized by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) and the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (Seapa), was attended by about 100 journalists from Asia and representatives from the United Nations, Philippine National Police, Department of Justice and international human rights groups.

A Guatemalan, La Rue has worked on human rights cases for the past 25 years. He brought the first genocide case against the military dictatorship in his country.

La Rue said that countries experiencing a significant number of killings and harassment of their media workers “should first acknowledge that there is a problem” before the UN can step in to extend help.

Weak justice system

Rue said events like the Maguindanao massacre could be attributed to a weak justice system, negligence by the state to investigate and prosecute people behind such crimes, and an active policy of suppression and censorship.

But Justice Undersecretary Francisco Baraan III disagreed with La Rue’s view that the Philippines was the most dangerous place for media workers.

“The Maguindanao massacre is the deadliest attack on the media, but most definitely the Philippines is not a killing field for journalists. Iraq is number one,” Baraan, who also spoke at the forum, told the Inquirer.

A check with the website of the Committee to Protect Journalists’ impunity index placed Iraq and Somalia on the top two spots, respectively, with the Philippines coming in third.

Baraan, however, said La Rue’s observations on the Philippines’ justice system were generally accurate. He said that the Department of Justice should be actively involved in crime investigations.

“We are very interested in sitting down with Mr. La Rue and obtaining the UN’s assistance,” he said, especially in the technical aspects of crime fighting and training of investigators.

Unsolved murders

Nestor Burgos, chair of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), said the country ranked high among the most dangerous places for media workers even before the massacre in Maguindanao.

He said of the 143 murder cases of media workers that the NUJP had recorded since 1986, there had only been seven convictions.

Jose Manuel Diokno, chair of Free Legal Assistance Group, said filing suits was “not enough” to end impunity or the failure of the state to punish perpetrators of violence and human rights violations.

Diokno said Congress should craft a law and the Supreme Court should amend the rules of court to enforce a mechanism for preserving the testimony of witnesses.

With public prosecutors either bribed or intimidated and the courts and the Office of the Ombudsman “notoriously slow” in processing cases, Diokno said witnesses were unable to do their duty to testify. With a report from Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon