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UN Human Rights Committee finds the Arroyo government guilty of human rights violations

November 24, 2008 By Isabel Esterman

More than two years after the families of two murdered human rights activists filed a complaint against the Philippine government, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled the Arroyo government is guilty of violating the activists’ right to life, and was negligent in providing remedy after they were killed.

Eden Marcellana, photo courtesy Karapatan

On April 21, 2003, human rights workers Eden Marcellana and Eddie Gumanoy were salvaged* under the watch of Arroyo’s pet General Jovito Palparan, well known in the Philippines as “The Butcher of Mindoro” because of the appalling number of activists murdered in areas under his command.

Despite eyewitnesses testimony that the two activists were kidnapped by former rebels now working with the military, the Department of Justice dismissed a complaint filed by the activists’ families. More than 5 years later, the case in the Philippines has not progressed. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Human Rights, Philippines, politics Tagged With: , , , ,

Human bone found in Bataan Camp

October 15, 2008 By Isabel Esterman Leave a Comment

From the Philippine Daily Inquirer:

Human bone in Bataan camp
by Nikko Dizon
 LIMAY, BATAAN—Braving rains, a fact-finding team Tuesday dug up a yellow rubber slipper, a laced shirt and burned fragments of what they suspected was a human bone in an area where a former detainee said he saw people being tortured by soldiers. [more]

and more

and more

I don’t even know what to say. So I’ll quote UP Professor Roland Simbulan, from an interview I did in Summer 2007:

“There were human rights abuses before. Illegal arrests, torture, detention. But what is different now under Arroyo is the extent of killings of political activists. In fact, there’s an ugly joke going around that they don’t anymore have to feed them. Because during the Marcos time, and Ramos and other administrations, they would arrest an activist, or torture him at the most. But at least they were alive, they kept them in detention later to be released. But now, they’re not arresting them anymore. They just kill them. There’s not even a formal charge against them. They just abduct them, and perhaps they would try to extract as much information from them, and then they kill them. Some of their bodies or corpses are not even found. So that’s the difference, the gravity or the volume of people who are being killed. It’s very alarming.”

It’s not completely impossible this is some sort of elaborate hoax. Not completely.
And I’d very much like to think so, and that Karen Empeño and Manuel Merino are still safe and alive somewhere in the mountains.
But it doesn’t seem likely. By the most ridiculously conservative numbers, there have been at least 200 extrajudicial executions since Arroyo came to power. By the greatest estimate, over 1000. And I personally know multiple people who have been kidnapped by paramilitaries, taken to camps in isolated areas and subjected to brutal torture.
So there’s no real doubt in my mind that Manalo is telling the truth. I just hope that this time, this one time, some of the blood sticks on somebody’s hands.

Filed Under: Human Rights, Philippines Tagged With: , , ,

Philippines uli

May 13, 2008 By Isabel Esterman 3 Comments

Rice Terrace

Mountain Province, Luzon, Summer 2006

I finally have a confirmed ticket to and from the Philippines this summer. Philippine Airlines certainly made me sweat a bit (I didn’t know until this morning whether I had to be ready to leave on Sunday) but in the end, I got exactly the itinerary I wanted — not bad for an (almost) free ticket.

I should be in Mindanao for June — Davao, Cagayan de Oro, and maybe a brief visit to Zamboanga. Early July in Jakarta, Bandung and maybe Jogjya, back to Manila for the International Conference on Philippine Studies, and then two weeks to do whatever seems most useful/interesting (probably archival research. sigh. I remember when I had other definitions for ‘interesting’). And then…back to grad school.

Get in touch if you’re going to be in or near any of these places! (Except grad school, which I don’t want to hear about.)

In tangentially related news, Philippine human rights monitor Karapatan has just released their human rights report for the first quarter of this year, documenting 96 reported cases of severe human rights violations between January and March, including 13 extrajudicial executions. The report, unfortunately, does not seem to be available online, though I have a pdf I’m happy to pass on. The Inquirer has a summary here, but note they count violations by number of ‘incidents’ rather than number of victims.

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Arroyo receives human rights award. Seriously.

December 7, 2007 By Isabel Esterman 2 Comments

President Arroyo was just awarded the “Medalla de Oro” from Universidad de Alcala in Spain, in recognition of her work to improve the human rights situation in the Philippines.

This makes me, quite literally, feel sick.
Yes, she abolished the death penalty. But to me, that seems a little irrelevant when she has condoned hundreds of extrajudicial executions.
This is the woman who has presided over the worst resurgence of torture, illegal detainment and extrajudicial murder the Philippines has seen since the Marcos dictatorship. The woman who is so bad she almost makes you miss Estrada, who was disgusting and corrupt but at least not on a campaign to murder the entire left.  The woman who is currently facing censure from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN SR on extrajudicial executions for her absolutely appalling human rights record. The woman whose regime is so obviously complicit in human rights abuses that even the US Senate has felt the need to make (a little tiny portion of) aid contingent on her cleaning up her act. 
As for Arroyo’s claim that there are 100 cases involving extrajudicial killings being prosecuted, that is, to the best of my knowledge which is pretty damned good on this subject, a bald-faced lie.
And I can’t believe she had the nerve to take credit for constituting the Melo Comission and “following its recommendations” when she has absolutely failed to take responsibility for the fairly damning conclusions of the Commission’s initial report, and continues to block release of the final version.
I have yet to read anything that gives any clue as to what the people who chose to give Arroyo this award were thinking. It is either shockingly ignorant or shockingly sinister. I’m not sure which is worse.
This would make me absolutely livid on any day. The fact that it comes just as I’ve finished revisions on my paper on impunity in the post-Marcos Philippines — a process in which  I’ve been consumed with rereading my own work, interviews I conducted over the last 2 years, and countless reports like the ones I’ve provided links for above — is pushing me over the edge.
Did I mention that this makes me sick?
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