of the Philippines the criminal justice system is - Article 2

“
they want us to
solve the cases
but did not
cooperate;
they are
”
hypocrites....
—Justice Secretary
Raul Gonzalez
programme, it is obvious that this will be pointless if the police
and justice department persistently fail in their obligations. The
police, including senior officers, fail to give immediate security
to at-risk witnesses and get them admitted to witness protection
arranged by the department. They call for witnesses to come
forward but fail to guarantee protection and then blame them for
failed cases.
The failure of the witness protection programme must be
attributed squarely to the rotten condition of its implementing
agency, the Department of Justice. Public prosecutors, who are
its officers, have also failed in their duty to refer witnesses for
inclusion in the protection programme. Even in the most serious
cases of extrajudicial killing, torture and disappearance, they
are not known to have made recommendations and applications
for protection. This failure is all the more glaring since October
2006, when Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez ordered public
prosecutors and witness protection agents “to proactively search,
secure and protect material witnesses” in a bombing incident in
Mindanao. While the department went out of its way to see the
bombing witnesses brought into the programme, it has made no
such effort for the witnesses to the hundreds of extrajudicial
killings and other serious crimes in recent times.
The justice secretary is directly responsible for the witness
protection programme, as recommendations on protection must
obtain his endorsement, and as the programme operates under
his oversight. Yet instead of ensuring that his department works
effectively for all witnesses in need of protection, Justice
Secretary Gonzalez has on several occasions blamed witnesses
and families of the dead for not cooperating. On 3 August 2006
Gonzalez was quoted by an online newsgroup People’s Journal as
saying that the failure to prosecute cases was the fault of victims’
relatives, adding that, “They want us to solve the cases. But they
did not cooperate. They are hypocrites.” Needless to say, the
making of such remarks by the senior bureaucrat responsible
both for witness protection and prosecutions does little to raise
confidence in his rotten department among the persons whom
he has admonished. Rather, he has succeeded only in further
isolating them from the offices of the state.
Attempts by the Asian Human Rights Commission and others
to have Secretary Gonzalez acknowledge his department’s
responsibility in these cases have been unsuccessful. He and
his department have in reply offered only generic assurances
that they have “given safe havens to scores of witnesses who
fears reprisals”, without any evidence of the same or explanations
as to why persons such as Norman Bocar and Dario Oresca, or
the families of Joel Reyes, Ernesto Bang and Porferio Maglasang
Sr. have never received such services. The fact that extrajudicial
killings and abductions are going on unabated and unaddressed
in the Philippines speaks to the abject failure of the justice
department to offer witness protection as it is mandated, despite
its claims to the contrary.
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article 2 • February 2007 Vol. 6, No. 1