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The Philippines

As of 2007, there is an increasing international awareness of the extra-judicial harassment, torture, disappearances and murder of Philippino civilian non-combatants by the Philippine's military and police.

The Philippines has been considered a United States protectorate and/or colony since the late 1890's, playing a central role in the U.S. Navy's global strategic presence. Since the advent of the "War on Terrorism" in 2001, the people of the Philippines have witnessed the assassinations of more than 850 mainstream journalists and other public figures and the harassment, detention, or torture of untold more. The human rights watchdog KARAPATAN has documented the brutalization of 169,530 individual victims, 18,515 families, 71 communities, and 196 households. There have been increasing condemnations made of U.S. influence upon the Philippine military, many of which charge the U.S. with the sponsorship of state terrorism through the policies implemented by the military advisers and military aid it has delivered as part of its War on Terror.

Estimates of killings vary on the precise number, with the Government appointed Task Force Usig estimating only 114 while the independent activist party KARAPATAN placing the number much higher, at something over 874. The government's specially convened Task Force Usig has notably failed to gain any convictions, and as of February 2007 had only arrested 3 suspects in the over 100 cases of assassination Moreover:

“ [A]ccording to a recent international fact-finding mission of Dutch and Belgian judges and lawyers, [Task Force Usig] 'has not proven to be an independent body…the PNP has a poor record as far as the effective investigation of the killings is concerned and is mistrusted by the Philippine people.' ”

The Political Nature of the Arrests, Disappearances, Torture, and Killings

Amnesty International reports that the more than 860 confirmed murders are clearly political in nature because of "the methodology of the attacks, including prior death threats and patterns of surveillance by persons reportedly linked to the security forces, the leftist profile of the victims and climate of impunity which, in practice, shields the perpetrators from prosecution." The AI report continues:

“ the arrest and threatened arrest of leftist Congress Representatives and others on charges of rebellion, and intensifying counter-insurgency operations in the context of a declaration by officials in June of 'all-out-war' against the New People's Army . . . [and] the parallel public labeling by officials of a broad range of legal leftist groups as communist 'front organizations'...has created an environment in which there is heightened concern that further political killings of civilians are likely to take place. ”

Similarly, The Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace reports that most of the human rights violations were committed by the AFP, the Philippine National Police, and the CAFGU (Civilian Armed Forces Government Units) under the mantle of the anti-insurgency campaign initially created as one arm of the U.S. War on Terror.

Dr. E. San Juan, Jr. has noted that:

“ Most of those killed or "disappeared" were peasant or worker activists belonging to progressive groups such as Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, GABRIELA, Anakbayan, Karapatan, KMU, and others (Petras and Abaya 2006). They were protesting Arroyo's repressive taxation, collusion with foreign capital tied to oil and mining companies that destroy people's livelihood and environment, fraudulent use of public funds, and other anti-people measures. Such groups and individuals have been tagged as "communist fronts" by Arroyo's National Security Advisers, the military, and police; the latter agencies have been implicated in perpetrating or tolerating those ruthless atrocities. ”

U.S. and Philippine Military Cooperation

In the period from 2000 to 2003, military loans and grants to the Philippines from the U.S. grew by 1,776 percent. As of 2005, according to President Arroyo the Philippines were the largest recipient of U.S. military aid in Asia and fourth worldwide; aid since then has continued to increase. US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to the Philippines almost trebled from $30 million in 2004 to $80 million in 2005, with the bulk of that money used to upgrade Philippine marine and counter-terrorism capabilities; by late 2006 Washington had given roughly US$300 million of aid to the AFP and delivered hundreds of American soldiers to organize and execute extended training exercises with the Filipino police and military apparatus. The United States -- through the person of National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley -- has broadly "congratulated the government of the Philippines...for [its] achievements [in anti-terror military actions] while at the same time acknowledging the valuable role of [its] partnership with the United States".

Fulbright Scholar, Rockefeller Foundation Research Fellow, and director of the Philippines Forum in New York City Dr. E. San Juan, Jr. writes:

“ President Arroyo invited thousands of U.S. Special Forces to engage in police actions together with the AFP, thus violating an explicit Constitutional provision against the intervention of foreign troops in local affairs. She followed Fidel Ramos in implementing the Visiting Forces Agreement, together with other onerous treaties, thus maintaining U.S. control of the Philippine military via training of officers, logistics, and dictation of punitive measures against the Moro insurgents as well as the New People's Army guerrillas. The Philippines became the "second front in the war on terror," with Bush visiting the Philippines in October 2004 and citing the neocolony as a model for the rebuilding of devastated Iraq. ”

and that:

“ [The] U.S....fashioned..."low-intensity warfare" to deal with upheavals in the post-Vietnam period. Its military field manuals endorsed tactical tools of...psychological warfare, forced mass evacuations or "hamletting," imprisonment of whole communities in military garrisons, militarization of villages, selective assassinations, disappearances, mass executions, etc. Tried in Indochina, Korea, Central America, it continues to be implemented in Colombia, Iraq, and the Philippines....With U.S. help, the AFP mobilized vigilante and paramilitary death squads with license to kill revolutionary militants, immune from prosecution. U.S. military force midwived the restoration of U.S.-backed oligarchic oppression of the Filipino masses. ”

From the beginning -- as early as 2001 -- the U.S. State Department knew that "Members of the [Philippines'] security services were responsible for extra-judicial killings, disappearances, torture, and arbitrary arrest and detention." In the same report, the State Department admitted that the presence of U.S. Special Forces and other military advisers had "helped create an environment in which human rights abuses increased", commenting that 'there were allegations by human rights groups that these problems worsened as the Government sought to intensify its campaign against the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).'" Further, in 2003 the U.S. government -- in anticipation that its military personnel would be charged with human rights abuses -- offered the Philippines' government an extra US $30 million of military aid in exchange for "an agreement that would exempt U.S. soldiers operating in the Philippines from the International Criminal Court".

In May of 2006 the Philippines and the US approved an agreement to establish a formal board to "determine and discuss the possibility of holding joint US-Philippine military exercises against terrorism and other non-traditional security concerns."(emphasis added)

Arroyo, the U.S., and General Jovito Palparan

According to commentators James Petras and Robin Eastman-Abaya, "Human rights groups provide evidence that [Philippino] death squads operate under the protective umbrella of regional military commands, especially the US-trained Special Forces.

Notorious as the 'Butcher of Mindoro", General Jovito Palparan is considered responsible for an extensively documented, long list of gross human rights abuses. For instance, "[w]hen Palparan was assigned to Central Luzon in September 2005, the number of political assassinations in that region alone jumped to 52 in four months. Prior to his promotion, the regions with the largest number of summary executions like Eastern Visayas and Central Luzon were under then-Colonel Palparan." Palparan has become infamous for his comments on the killings:

“ The killings are being attributed to me but I did not kill them. I just inspire the triggermen...Their disappearance is good for us but as to who abducted them, we don’t know....I encourage people victimized by communist rebels to get even. ”

In addition to working under the U.S. military command in Iraq, Palparan himself has received advanced military training in the United States and in the Philippines has worked closely with Unites States military advisers; President Arroyo's promotion of him to one-star general has been widely condemned as a gesture of support for military-backed state terrorism. Human rights watchdog groups assert that the U.S.-supplied military aid directed to Palparan's command has been used "to intensify [military] attack[s]...against unarmed civilians including the leaders and members of legal people's organizations." The human rights watchdog group Reality of Aid specifically cites General Palaparan when it writes:

“ While development aid may be used for livelihood projects, infrastructure, or social services, we fear that the AFP will only use such projects to gather intelligence or launch special operations in communities that they believe are NPA bases. ”

The Response of the Arroyo Government and Investigative Findings

“ Right from the beginning, Arroyo's ascendancy was characterized by rampant human rights violations. Based on the reports of numerous fact-finding missions, Arroyo has presided over an unprecedented series of harassments, warrantless arrests, and assassinations of journalists, lawyers, church people, peasant leaders, legislators, doctors, women activists, youthful students, indigenous leaders, and workers. ”

With 185 dead, 2006 is so far (2007) the highest annual mark for extra-judicial government murders. Of the 2006 killings, the dead were "mostly left-leaning activists, murdered without trial or punishment for the perpetrators." 2006 is also the year President Arroyo issued Presidential Proclamation 1017. According to Asia Times Online, this proclamation "grants exceptional unchecked powers to the executive branch", placing the country in a state of emergency and permitting the police and security forces to "conduct warrantless arrests against enemies of the state, including...members of the political opposition and journalists from critical media outlets." As Asia Times Online and several other independent observers have noted, the issuance of the proclamation conspicuously coincided with a dramatic increase in political violence and extra-judicial killings. The Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace, a non-denominational Christian network of Filipino churches, stated in their regular Promotion of Church People's Response (PCPR, Feb 24, 2007) that "[Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's] record of political killings and violations of civil liberties, especially with her Calibrated Preemptive Response scheme, is now the worst since the downfall of Marcos. . . . President Arroyo's Proclamation 1017 constitutes a flagrant violation of the Philippine Constitution via the pretext of a 'National Emergency.'"

The Arroyo government initially made no response to the dramatic increase in violence and killings; as Dr. E. San Juan, Jr, writes, "Arroyo has been tellingly silent over the killing and abduction of countless members of opposition parties and popular organizations." In 2007, however, Arroyo was forced by popular outcry to appointed an independent commission led by the Philippine's former Supreme Court Chief Justice Jose Melo. The Melo commission found that the military was responsible for the "majority" of the killings and that the superior officers of the perpetrators could be held accountable for the crimes. Later, in February 2007, UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston implicated the Philippine police and military as responsible for the crimes. Alston charged in his report that Arroyo’s propaganda and counter-insurgency strategy “encourage or facilitate the extra-judicial killings of activists and other enemies” of the state.

In March 2007, the Permanent People’s Tribunal at The Hague, Belgium, rendered a judgment of guilty for “crimes against humanity” against the Philippine government and its chief backer, the Bush administration.

References

Additional Information (rough material for brainstorming)

1. In his essay American Doctrine and State Terror, Amnesty International researcher Michael McClintock remarked that U.S. Army instructions manuals of the 1960's concerning 'counterterrorism' often referred to "the particular experiences of the Philippines and Vietnam." He noted that tactics similar to those used during the Huk Rebellion (from 1946-54) in the Philippines were cited. He elaborated that the "Department of the Army's 1976 psywar publication, DA Pamphlet 525-7-1, refers to some of the classic counterterror techniques and account of the practical application of terror. These include the capture and murder of suspected guerillas in a manner suggesting the deed was done by legendary vampires (the 'asuang'); and a prototypical "Eye of God" technique in which a stylized eye would be painted opposite the house of a suspect." (McClintock, Michael. American Doctrine and State Terror in Western State Terrorism. Alexander George, ed., 134)

2. "In the Philippines, the metamorphosis of the CHDF [Civilian Home Defence Forces] system since the fall of Marcos has included the reinforcement of an elaborate military command and control structure, and the mobilization and deployment of vast new forces as so-called "vigilantes." The Philippines system has recently moved toward the model of de facto obligatory participation, where refusal to join military-controlled paramilitary organizations may result in reprisals on the "with us or against us" principle." (McClintock, Michael. American Doctrine and State Terror in Western State Terrorism. Alexander George, ed., 141)

3. [Madrigal- Legislating Insecurity Through State Terrorism]

4. "Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the recent counterinsurgency campaigns in the Philippines was the peculiarly spectacular role played by so-called anticommunist vigilantes. Officially designated "civilian volunteer organizations," such vigilantes also included paramilitary groups of reportedly ill-trained, machete-equipped, and sometimes even ex-convict recruits. As a result, some of the most notorious human rights abuses reported from this recent campaign have been linked to vigilante groups. Based on statistics compiled from local and national coverage of vigilante groups in the print media, for example, one study show that "[t]he most serious violation, killing, was also the most frequently recorded in the period between June 1987 and March 1988. Moreover, carefully documented reports by human rights organizations underscore the extent to which vigilantism revolved around terrifying violence such as dismemberment and, especially, beheading." (Hedman, Eva-Lotta. State of Siege: Political Violence and Vigilante Mobilization in the Philippines in Death Squad in Global Perspective, Brenner,ed., 128)

5. "The most common causes of arrest noted in fact-finding mission reports were suspicion of the detainee's membership in the New People's Army or his knowledge of or support for the rebels.

From January to June this year, 2,351 were confirmed arrested. A total of 547 persons remain in various prisons in the country, excluding those held in secret military safehouses, at the end of last June.

Torture: In two separate reports issued in 1976 and 1982, Amnesty International focused on the Philippines and came out with strong indictments of the Marcos government for employing torture and other forms of maltreatment on political detainees.

In 1983, at least 644 cases of torture were confirmed. There were 449 other torture cases reported in 1984. In the first half of this year, partial reports (no figures for Luzon, the Philippines' biggest island), TFD listed 341 cases of torture.

A TFD report described several favorite and common methods of torture used by the Philippine military: the "water cure," the "telephone" in which the ears of the victim or detainee are simultaneously hit with the hands thus causing the rupture of eardrums in some cases; the "wet submarine" in which the victim's head is submerged in water, often in a toilet bowl with feces; Russian roulette in which a single dud bullet is placed in a revolver and then pointed at the victim's head to scare him; and electrocution, usually applied on the victim's private parts and genitals. Other forms oftorture are sexual abuse, beatings, the use of handcuffs and manacles on political prisoners, and other actions causing indignities and mental and emotional dislocation....

Extra-judicial Killings: This is often called "salvaging" in the Philippine media, quite contrary to the literal meaning of the word which is to save or to rescue. The term now refers to the secret liquidation or execution of a person without any judicial sanction whatsoever. The "salvaged" victim disappears after being arrested by security and military forces, and is later found dead some days later, his body bearing evidence of torture.

TFDP has documented a total of 2,255 cases of extra-judicial killings from 1973 to June 1985. Of this total, 321 cases were reported in 1981; 210 cases in 1982; 369 cases in 1983; 557 cases in 1984; and 219 cases for the first half of this year....

Disappearances: TFDP has noted a big number of cases of involuntary disappearances in the last several years. This may be an indication that with the growing strength of the anti-dictatorship movement, the government has been finding it more difficult to justify political arrests and detentions. In typical cases of disappearances, the victims are arrested without witnesses and never found again. Those arrested are sometimes held "incommunicado" in military "safehouses" and may later reappear in detention centers. In other instances, the victims are summarily executed in secret and their bodies never found.

TFDP has documented 334 disappearances from 1977 to 1983. Our reports listed 42 cases in 1982; 145 cases in 1983; 137 cases (partial and with incomplete figures for Mindanao) in 1984 [see Table 3 for more complete data—eds.]. For the first six months of 1985, we have already documented 110 cases of disappearances." (Daniel B. Schirmer, and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, eds., A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance (Boston: South End Press, 1987) 320)

7. "In the years following World War II, the Philippine Government and landlords conducted a reign of terror against the peasantry of Central Luzon in an attempt to restore the pre-war class relations in the countryside. The left-wing wartime guerilla organization, the Hukbalahap (Huks) and their affiliated peasant union, the PKM, had no intentions of trying to overthrow the government, but they were increasingly forced to take up weapons to defend themselves. The administration of President Manuel Roxas had passed legislation that it claimed guaranteed tenant farmers seventy percent of the rice crop. In reality, however, the law allowed landlords to take half of the crop, which, of course, they did. The response to the resultant peasant discontent was government-organized "anti-dissident" operations, led by such men as Napoleon Valeriano, who had earlier led armed men with skull and cross bones on their shirt sleeves against peasants. In March 1948, Roxas declared the Huks and the PKM to be illegal organizations. This was used as justification for further indiscriminate terror against the rural population. " (Shalom, Stephen R. Counter-Insurgency in the Philippines in Daniel B. Schirmer, and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, eds., A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship, and Resistance (Boston: South End Press, 1987)