It’s a marshMelo Commission!

Victims’ kin mull boycott of Melo Commission

Press Release
By HUSTISYA
October 3, 2006

QUEZON CITY, Philippines  – HUSTISYA! a broad formation of human rights victims under the Arroyo government, held a press conference Monday to express its disappointment over the Melo Commission, hinting that an imminent boycott of the investigation was in the offing.

“After a month of observing how the Melo Commission functions, we have become more skeptical of it. We are unimpressed and greatly bothered by the Commission’s actions that tend to exonerate the AFP and the state even before gathering evidence and listening to the victims,” Evangeline Hernandez, HUSTISYA! head convener and mother of slain human rights worker Benjaline “Beng” Hernandez said.

She accused the Commission of allowing AFP Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon and Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan to clear their names and impute ill-motives to the aggrieved parties even before establishing the facts of the case.

“The Commission has yet to inform us and the public of its procedures for investigation but it has already issued statements that virtually clear Palparan and Esperon. How can they expect us to participate in this kind of a process?” she asked.

Hernandez said they would only participate in the Commission’s investigations if the minimum requirements as outlined in the Amnesty International memorandum to President Arroyo were followed.

HUSTISYA! also said they were more confident in presenting their complaints to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings and Summary Execution or other international bodies “that, unlike the Melo Commission, are not beholden to President Arroyo and can be truly independent.”