Lack of political will to stop extrajudicial killings demonstrates drift from democracy

A Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission
August 16, 2006

The Amnesty International report on the political killings, human rights violations and peace process in the Philippines published in August 2006 points to the need for the political will to investigate and stop political killings and the legacy of impunity in the country:

"Unearthing the evidence establishing responsibility for the current pattern of political killings will take political will. It will require political determination and persistent practical efforts to undo the legacy of impunity, which has the potential to undermine efforts to hold perpetrators of political killings accountable and is aided by the assumption that such killings are to some degree an acceptable by-product of continuing armed conflict."

What has become obvious is that, despite massive protests against extrajudicial killings in the Philippines, the government has shown no political will to stop these killings. No clear command has been given to the armed forces to stop these killings, and no clear command has been given to any authority to investigate all of these killings. What the government has resorted to, as many observers have rightly pointed out, is to engage in a multitude of public stunts to show some expression of concern but to announce or pursue no real action of any significance.

The government's unwillingness to address an issue of such enormous national concern, and one on which much international pressure has been exerted, raises serious questions about who has political control over the elimination of extrajudicial killings. Is President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo willing to stop these killings, or is she really supporting such action by the military? Or is she not capable of stopping these killings? If the latter is the case, a serious issue exists in which the government has no control over a military enterprise that is now affecting, not only a large number of lives in the country, but also the security of the people as a whole.

Given the fact that the killings are continuing despite expressions of massive public concern, the failure of the government to respond to these extrajudicial killings needs to be probed much deeper by all concerned people. If the government is afraid of creating friction with the military or some of its leaders, then the issue of greater concern that arises is whether the democratic form of government as envisaged by the Philippine Constitution is intact or not. The question is relevant to several other countries as well in which the effective command of many issues has shifted to the military while a formal, democratic form of government is presented as the public face of the political system.

Observing the nature of extrajudicial killings that are taking place in the country for quite some time, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is of the view that such a serious transformation has, in fact, taken place in the Philippines. Externally visible manifestations of democracy coexisting with internal transformation into an authoritarian system expresses itself in the sharpest possible way through these extrajudicial killings. The issue of political will therefore does not have the same meaning as it does in the context of a democracy where people still have the possibility to assert their will through their government. As authoritarianism takes root, there is a political inevitability of silencing dissent. What seems to be taking place in the Philippines is the shift of will of the actual power holders to silence dissent by drastic means.

The AHRC once again calls upon all concerned people in the Philippines as well as in the international community to treat the matter of stopping extrajudicial killings as an issue related to the very survival of democracy in the Philippines. The people of the Philippines have a long history of resistance to authoritarianism, and perhaps one more moment in their history has arrived for them to save their values and democratic system through open resistance. At this moment, the people of the Philippines deserve the complete support of all democratically minded people throughout the world.