Inside ‘Asia’s Killing Fields’

Carmelita Morante

I am a political activist in the Philippines, and have been for the last twenty four years, spanning five Presidents. Never did I fear for my life more than now.

Five of the leaders of my organization were dead in just five months, two of them women. I don’t know who is next. But from the look of it, we just have to be on our guard and continue counting - the dead, the orphans and the widow/ers- unless the Arroyo government decisively puts a stop to extra-judicial killings. Or unless public opinion forces her to.

Kathy et al

Twenty days before Christmas last year, a very dear friend and comrade Kathy, mom to two children, met her death in the hands of three unidentified, motorcycle-riding gunmen. That was the beginning of the nightmare for us. Four others followed, all unarmed civilians, all with undeniable record of dedicated service to the vulnerable and marginalized in Philippine society. All marked “enemies of the state.”

Ana was the latest victim. She was the tenth activist killed in the last two weeks. Same modus operandi. Unidentified motorcycle-riding gunmen arrived one late afternoon just before she was out of her workplace, pumped four bullets into her frail body, then left. I just came from her funeral.

They were just five in the more than six hundred victims of extra-judicial executions committed under the Arroyo administration (1), more than half of these recorded in the last two years.

There have been many others before. All members of the critical section of the citizenry working above-ground, within the legal framework, with established home and office addresses. Easy targets.

Absolute impunity

The killings are committed with absolute impunity. Almost everyday, sometimes even simultaneously, activists are either abducted or downright shot in broad daylight, many in front of their families. For the month of May alone, eleven have been abducted – with five already produced by the Military Intelligence Group after two days of endless search by relatives and friends. The rest are still missing. This is beside the twelve killed for the same period. Unfortunately despite the increasing number of letters of concern from many human rights groups inside and outside the country, that included a very strong statement from the painfully neutral Commission on Human Rights, the Arroyo government remains indifferent. The Task Force, belatedly established, cannot even command respect as its composition largely comes from the executioners’ ranks.

In almost all cases, the pattern is the same. Three or four men in civilian clothes on motorbike arrive, find the victim, do the job and leave without trace. Harassment and surveillance normally preceded the murder, with the victims earning the ire of the military and police forces as they go about their work, forcing them to be more cautious in their daily routine. Relatives reported that victims have raised alarm over suspicious men stalking them, following their every move. Some would even receive written notes or text messages warning them to stop their activities or disappear “or else.”

Who are these killers? And why do they prey on leaders and members of the people’s movements and civil society?

Military victory in six years

The allegation that the motorbike-riding killers are death squads trained and maintained by the Armed Forces of the Philippines to threaten, intimidate and kill leaders of the progressive people’s movement is not without basis. It is in fact the only plausible explanation there is to it.

The AFP has embarked on an ambitious US co-funded $370M Military Defence Reform Program to defeat the people’s revolution in no less than six years. The Program aims for a complete make-over of the entire military machine – from intelligence to field combat capability of foot soldiers.

This is where the recent book “Trinity of War: The Grand Design of the CPP/NPA/NDF” fits. Published by the AFP, the book has become the basis for the military’s witch-hunting spree among the Philippine left, regardless of whether they are in the armed underground or are engaged in the legal people’s organizations. The book does not distinguish. It defines the enemy wholesale.

True enough, the victims of extra-judicial killings had been members of organizations listed in the book, from which a controversial powerpoint presentation was made that became one important military guidelines for ‘knowing (their) your enemy.’

Indeed, there is enough lead that would link the extra-judicial killings to the AFP, if any serious investigation is pursued. The report of a recent Fact-Finding Mission conducted by the Citizens Council on Human Rights (CCHR) (2) in Central Luzon in April, for instance, strongly suggests a connection between the gunmen and the military commands. Some incidents in fact actually involved the military men themselves (3).

The targets, circumstances and timing surrounding extra-judicial killings clearly point to a pattern only the state’s military forces, with the huge resources at its disposal, is capable of.

War against legitimate dissent

There is undeclared war against all forms of dissent in the Philippines. At the helm of such war, it is generally believed, is no less than the President, with the aid of her security advisers and generals whose militarist mindset advocates no less than the annihilation of political opponents.

The Arroyo government’s deafening silence about, if not outright denial of, the phenomenon of extra-judicial killings, among others, gives away its culpability.

Not only did she call the trade unions and human rights workers, and by implication, all those critical of her regime, terrorists, thereby justifying attacks on their persons. She also failed to effectively address the rampant human rights violations and prosecute the perpetrators. Worse, she even signed the promotion paper of such barbaric character in the AFP as Major General Jovito Palparan under whose command sharpest increases in these violations were recorded in his areas of operation, notably Samar, Southern Tagalog and currently the Central Luzon region. Palparan’s endowment of the military’s Distinguished Service Star medal, despite the numerous complaints against him, tacitly speaks of the government’s endorsement of his dirty war against the left and progressives.

It is curious to note that most of the killings were committed at the most critical period in the Arroyo regime’s crisis of governance, when calls for its resignation or ouster are issued from across the political spectrum.

As far as the majority Filipinos are concerned, the Arroyo regime is illegitimate, as evidenced by the “Hello Garci” (4) controversy. With the widespread street protests that followed its leakage, one repressive measure after another was passed to firmly secure its hold to power while effectively limiting the people’s exercise of their civil and political rights.

Everybody has now become a target - peasants and trade unionists, urban poor dwellers, indigenous peoples, youth and students, women activists, churchpeople, progressive legislators down to local government official, human rights activists.

De facto Martial Law

The Philippines has gone back to the dark years of military rule. When AFP top brass can grin on national television after abducting helpless civilians from their homes, denying them from relatives, only to resurface them torture and all, and with no less than the Presidential Spokesman dismissing such matters as perfectly within the realm of intelligence operations, cold-blood militarism becomes the message that sends chills down people’s spine.

But extra-judicial killings is only the tip of the iceberg. Across the country, both in the provinces and the National Capital region, reports come in with alarming rate - ‘zoning’ (5), checkpoints, dispersal of peaceful assemblies, setting-up of military detachments, illegal search and arrests, many of which result to disappearances, detention and torture.

Mrs. Arroyo is fast catching up with Marcos’ notoriety in the human rights department. In fact, CHR’s records reveal her regime has already surpassed the human rights violations of her three predecessors combined.

But unlike Marcos, formal democratic institutions remain and many can still claim enjoyment of their democratic rights, so long as they do not in any way challenge state policies. Independent political analysts though believe this is yet part of the President’s game as they effectively serve as instant disclaimer to a most repressive regime.

The Arroyo government did not need formalities to declare Martial Law. It only had to ban protest actions through a “Calibrated Response Policy”, a Presidential press statement the definition of which not even the law enforcers are clear about; and prohibit Cabinet Secretaries and their subordinates to appear before Legislative investigation of corruption-related complaints against Presidential friends and relatives through Executive Order 464.

And when a few months ago, it was obvious it can’t control the people’s commemoration of the first people power that brought the Marcos dictatorship down, it declared a state of national emergency through Proclamation 1017 that gave a blanket authority to the Armed Forces of the Philippines to quell dissent, under which many illegal arrests and detention yet were committed that went beyond the usual ‘grassroots’ leaders but included respectable members of the so-called ‘middle-class’. While it has already been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, justice remains elusive for its many victims.

It does not help that the President’s national security adviser include such character as Norberto Gonzales whose credentials include recently hiring a US lobby firm, Venable, to lobby the US Congress to fund the revision of the Philippine Constitution (a contract that was fortunately thwarted as it came out in public), or a Justice Secretary that openly prosecutes people on the basis of their political beliefs.

The Anti-Terrorism Bill, though deferred, and the recently-signed security deal with the US, the details of which are yet to be made public, will complete the requirements for a thorough-going anti-terrorism program in the Philippines in the tradition of George W. Bush.

Politics of survival

The return to militarism is serving the Arroyo government well, but only in the most tactical sense. Haunted by questions of legitimacy, and by unprecedented economic crisis that threatens even its own share of the spoils, it has become increasingly dependent on the AFP for its political survival.

The undermining of the people’s civil and political rights has contributed much to further polarization of Philippine society. Slowly different groups and classes are learning to come together, not only against a repressive government, but ultimately against a social system that benefits only the traditional elites and their foreign benefactors.

That the people’s movements, despite casualties, continue to survive the military’s assault is a great disappointment to the AFP and the civilian bosses. In the end, the extra judicial killings may yet bounce back straight onto government’s face as cries against such snowballs into yet another campaign to end the Arroyo regime that is making it possible.

Meanwhile though, we continue to play hide and seek with the death squads. I can’t help looking at the window as I write this piece. In this quiet little village, darkness is multiplied many times over. Perfect cover for the perfect crime.

Footnotes

(1) Records vary. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, the leading Philippine newspaper, lists 224 (2)CCHR is a broad human rights advocacy network that was recently formed to respond to the increasing human rights violations of the Arroyo government. Its is currently at the forefront of the campaign against extra-judicial killings.
(3)One incident involved Army Major General Jovito Palparan’s show of military force and bullying civilian officials in Mexico, Pampanga, threatening to “wipe their relatives out” if someone hurt him in the are. CCHR Fact-Finding Report, April 24-26, 2006
(4) In June 2005, a recorded conversation between President Arroyo and Commission on Elections commissioner Garcillano came out and outraged the public. The ‘Hello Garci’ controversy confirmed the allegation of widespread electoral fraud committed no less by the President and sparked street protests that nearly ousted the Arroyo regime.
(5) ‘zoning’ is a term that gained notoriety during the Martial Law years as the military barged into unsuspecting urban poor communities, forced and illegally arrest people as they please, the same tactic now resorted to by Arroyo’s military forces.