of the Philippines the criminal justice system is - Article 2

The ALRC is acutely aware that these represent only a small
fraction of the total number of such incidents in the Philippines
in recent years. That these incidents are going on constantly is
also publicly known in the Philippines, and increasingly,
internationally. From the time the words in this introduction
are written to the time that this report is published, many more
will have fallen victims of gunmen’s bullets, police or military
assault, or have received messages on telephones and in letters
warning them not to continue in whatever simple things they
may be doing for the improvement of their own lives and those of
their fellow humans. By default they will also have fallen victim
to the failures and neglect of investigators, prosecutors, judges
and others duty-bound to protect their rights and uphold the notion
of justice, but unwilling or unable to do so.
Notwithstanding, taken together one hundred such cases
speak clearly to the patterns of killings by “unidentified gunmen”
on motorcycles or abductions by others in vans, and subsequent
limited and failed investigations, non-protection of terrified
witnesses and inaction or bias by the Department of Justice and
its public prosecutors, labelling of victims as “enemies” of the
state, and belated and flawed interventions by the courts. None
of the cases in this report has, to the knowledge of the ALRC,
been satisfactorily resolved. Even those where very strong
evidence of military involvement exists, no perpetrators in state
agencies are known to have been prosecuted.
The report discusses these individual cases with reference
in particular to the country’s defective policing, inept prosecution
and failed witness protection. It also discusses them with reference
to the role of the military, and in particular, the labelling of
persons extrajudicially killed as “enemies” or equivalent, in order
to create a category of citizens for whom the ordinary laws no
longer need apply and who may be killed without fear of
consequences or the prospect of effective investigation. The
manner in which this is now being done threatens the entire
criminal justice system, and more broadly, the very fabric of
government and democracy of the country.
Six suggestions are given for ways to stop the rot, including
with reference to the need for an urgent comprehensive review
of the Philippines’ criminal justice system; the rationalising of
its deficient witness protection programme and law; the
strengthening of agencies for the receipt, investigation and
prosecution of complaints against police and military officials;
the use of labelling; action on findings into extrajudicial killings;
and the enactment of domestic laws on torture, enforced
disappearance and other fundamental rights in accordance with
international law.
Neither the recommendations nor the other contents of the
report are in themselves answers to the problems afflicting the
criminal justice system of the Philippines. Rather, they are
intended as starting points for new ideas and discussion. Where
grave problems and abuses are widely known but remain
life for vast
numbers of
ordinary
Filipinos is
made a misery
by the workings
of state agencies
“
”
article 2 • February 2007 Vol. 6, No. 1 5