Security Overkill in Philippines : Human-Rights Offenses Corrode Aquino’s Golden Promise

Some say that it was the ideal revolution. On that eventful day in February, 1986, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos physically blocked the army tanks of the Marcos military as it attempted to prevent the widow of Benigno Aquino from taking office as president.

Corazon Aquino, with support from key elements of the country’s military, immediately began implementing her campaign promise to respect human rights. Within a month of taking charge, Aquino released more than 500 political prisoners. She reinstated the right to habeas corpus, suspended for all detainees during the era of Ferdinand Marcos. She repealed many presidential decrees, including one that allowed indefinite detention without charge or trial.

A new Philippine constitution was ratified in February, 1987. A legal bulwark against human-rights abuse, it prohibits torture and detention based on “political beliefs and aspirations,� and does away with “secret detention places.� In a series of sweeping moves the Aquino government abolished the death penalty and endorsed two key international instruments of human rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Convention Against Torture. In addition, reforms were initiated to improve the human-rights record of the armed forces; now, human rights-related guidelines would be part of military training.

Ushering in a new era by legal and constitutional fiat would prove to be comparatively easy. Transferring those legal words into action would be the real battle.

The battleground is a country inheriting from the Marcos era staggering economic problems and political violence committed by both military and paramilitary groups and by armed insurgent groups. The Aquino administration sought to unite Philippine society by pressuring the military to end excessive abuses against citizens, by releasing underground leaders and by offering amnesty to members of the New People’s Army--the armed wing of the Communist Party.

However, the NPA increased its campaign of violence; assassination squads stepped up attacks on military and police personnel as well as civilians.

In response, the government of the Philippines has both authorized and encouraged civilians to form self-defense organizations. These groups, in conjunction with paramilitary vigilantes that had been formed under the Marcos government, have been responsible for approximately 40% of the illegal killings documented by Amnesty International. The remaining 60% are primarily the responsibility of the military forces. Military and government-backed forces have justified abuses against unarmed civilians in the name of counterinsurgency; consequently, killings outside or beyond the jurisdiction of the courts have increased markedly since 1987.

It is impossible, however, to justify the security forces’ killing of 17 villagers--including women and elderly people--in February of last year in Nueva Ecija. Or the shooting and beheading of Noberto Gallines, a Christian lay worker, by a paramilitary group in Negros Occidental. Or the gunning down, outside his home, of David Bueno, the only active human-rights lawyer in Ilocos Norte. Unlawful killings by government forces and government-supported groups have become the most serious human-rights problem in the Philippines today. Incidents of torture, on the other hand, have dramatically declined from the Marcos days.

To be sure, many of these killings followed on the heels of violence by guerrilla NPA and other opposition forces. But if security forces are drawn into this deteriorating cycle of killings and reprisals, they relinquish their role as the guardian of law and order and the protector of Filipino citizens.

“There are many ways to run a country, but there is only one way to treat people--with decency and respect for their uniqueness as individuals,� Aquino said before the United Nations seven months after taking office. This stated commitment on the part of the government to respect human rights is reflected in the revamping of the Philippine legal structure.

But the legal words have fallen limp in the face of their implementation. Sadly, the government of the Philippines seems to be either unwilling or unable to persuade its security forces and government-supported “vigilante� groups to end the abuses of human rights. By the beginning of this year, not a single military or police officer had been convicted and sentenced for political killings--or for any other human-rights offense, for that matter. “To heck with human rights,� concluded armed forces spokesman Col. Honesto Isleta last year during an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp. The colonel since then has been promoted to brigadier general.

A reaffirmation and demonstration of the Aquino government’s commitment to human rights is urgently needed. The dream that accompanied the “ideal� revolution cannot be allowed to die.