FINAL REPORT - Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism

Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) requests the United Nations
Human Rights Committee to consider, among others, the following
recommendations in its Concluding Observations on the Philippines for
effective implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights (ICCPR):
• Take effective measures for implementation of the UN Principles on the
Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extrajudicial, Arbitrary and
Summary Executions;
• Disband Vigilante groups supported by the armed forces;
• Make necessary amendments in the law to broaden the definition of
torture to include all forms of torture;
• Ban hamleting of indigenous peoples.
3. Report prepared by KARAPATAN, entitled “The Current Human Rights
Situation in the Philippines vis-à-vis the Government’s Obligations under
the 1966 International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)” and
submitted to the 79 th Meeting of the United Nations Human Rights
Committee in Geneva, Switzerland on 5 October 2003, which states in
quite strong terms:
[P]erpetrators of all these violations have remained unaccountable to the
crimes they have committed. Their actions have been tacitly recognized,
condoned or tolerated by the government. Some have just been
reassigned, some remained in their positions or worse even promoted to a
higher rank or given “rewards” such as foreign scholarships. Quite a
number have been politically rehabilitated, occupying powerful positions in
the legislative and executive branches of government.
The military commander of the army brigade in Mindoro Oriental who has
been consistently implicated in the deaths of civilians and progressive
leaders has been promoted to general. Despite being by-passed by the
legislative Commission on Appointments, he enjoys the benefits of a
general and has been recently appointed to head a higher military unit.
The former general and Defense Secretary under whose watch violations
of human rights thrived was forced to resign this year after being tagged
as one of the corrupt military officials by the soldiers who staged a mutiny
in July. General Victor Corpus of the Intelligence Services of the AFP
(ISAFP) resigned earlier after being implicated in the bombing of airports
and wharfs in Mindanao. Both were just recently promoted to new
government positions by President Arroyo as the Ambassador-at-large for
Counter-Terrorism and as head of the Armed Forces Civil Relations
Services, respectively.
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