Political persecution and the killings and disappearances in the Philippines*

By Rep. Teodoro Casiño
Bayan Muna (People First) Party
Philippine House of Representatives

I speak to you today as a member of Congress, a representative of my political party that has borne the brunt of the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in my country, and a victim of my government's brazen and systematic human rights atrocities against its critics and perceived enemies.

I was elected as party list representative in the Philippine House of Representatives in May 2004 and again in 2007. My party is called Bayan Muna or People First, a national political party that, under the Philippine party list law, is mandated to represent the marginalized and underepresented sectors in Philippine society – meaning the workers, peasants, urban poor, indigenous peoples, youth, women and children and others whose voices are hardly heard in Congress.

Being a party of the poor and the oppressed, we are naturally critical of many government policies and programs that have, for so many decades, served the interests of big landowners, big corporate monopolies, politicians and bureaucrats at the expense of the vast majority. It is no surprise that my party is a Left party whose platform is based on the principles of social justice, human rights and peace, people empowerment, new politics and good governance, sustainable development and environmental protection, and national sovereignty and independence. It is also no surprise that my party is one of the most persistent critics of the incumbent administration. We have supported every attempt to impeach Pres. Gloria Arroyo and have openly called for her resignation in the light of serious evidences of electoral fraud, corruption and bribery, human rights violations, her brazen abuse of power, her support for the US-led war on terror and rabid adherence to neoliberal globalization.

Because of what we stand for, Bayan Muna topped the party list elections on its first try in 2001 and got the maximum three seats allowed for each party list in Congress. That feat was repeated in 2004. In the 2007 elections, however, the Commission on Elections suddenly changed the rules and prevented my party from claiming its third seat in Congress. We have questioned this in the Supreme Court, where the case is currently pending.

Our dramatic victory in 2001 was met with incredulity by the Arroyo government, especially by its armed forces. A 2002 paper published in the journal of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) called our victory a “national security problem.” Since then, the government has done everything, and I mean everything, to disenfranchise our constituents, annihilate our parties and allied organizations, and kick us out of the political mainstream.

Since 2001, at least 132 of our party leaders and members have been killed extrajudicially by suspected state security forces. Fourteen of our leaders have been involuntarily disappeared and are still missing till this day. Moreover, our leaders and members have been continually subjected to threats, harassments, intimidation, frustrated killings, arbitrary arrests, illegal detention, and torture at the hands of state security forces.

In the 2004 and 2007 elections, the AFP and other government entities openly campaigned against Bayan Muna and other progressive parties, labeling us as destabilizers and terrorists.

In order to justify the attacks against my party, the government and the AFP accuse us of being “front organizations” of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People's Army and the National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF). This doctrine of “front organizations” has been incorporated in the government's National Internal Security Plan (NISP) and its counter-insurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya (Operation Guard Freedom), leading to the alarming rise in the number of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. Worse, many of our party members have been forced to admit to being communist rebels and then asked to surrender under pain of torture or death.

Let me quote UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Prof. Philip Alston, who visited the Philippines last year:

“Two policy initiatives are of special importance to understanding why the killings continue. First, the military’s counterinsurgency strategy against the CPP/NPA/NDF increasingly focuses on dismantling civil society organizations that are purported to be “CPP front groups”. Second... the criminal justice system has failed to arrest, convict, and imprison those responsible for extrajudicial executions.... partly due to a distortion of priorities that has law enforcement officials focused on prosecuting civil society leaders rather than their killers.”

Prof. Alston made two case studies of how the counter-insurgency program was being implemented on the ground and came up with the conclusion that, and I quote:

“These case studies demonstrate the concrete ways in which a counterinsurgency focus on civil society leads to extrajudicial executions and tempts commanders to make such abuses routine and systematic.”

The Batasan 6 case and the “legal offensive”

On February 24, 2006, a massive demonstration commemorating the 1986 ouster of Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos called for Pres. Arroyo's removal from power. In response, the President declared the presence of a “Left-Right conspiracy,” imposed a “State of National Emergency” and sent out her troops. On the next day, armed teams were sent to arrest me and my colleagues from the progressive party list bloc in Congress – Representatives Satur Ocampo, Joel Virador, Liza Maza, Crispin Beltran and Rafael Mariano.

Rep. Beltran was illegally arrested, arbitrarily detained and later charged with inciting to sedition and rebellion. The rest of us were able to evade arrest and were given protection by the Congress. Thus, for 71 days, the five of us were forced to live in our offices in Congress under threat of being arrested once we left the premises. The courts subsequently ruled that we could not be arrested without due process and so we were able to get out of our de-facto detention after more than two months.

Rep. Beltran was not as lucky. Because they got to him first, state prosecutors used every trick in the book to keep him detained for more than a year despite his ailing health. In the end, the Supreme Court ruled that the government did not even have probable cause against us and our co-accussed, thus resulting in the dismissal of the rebellion charges and the release of Rep. Beltran.

The rebellion case filed against us and 45 others in February 2006 was just the start of what the President's National Security Adviser called a “legal offensive” against us courtesy of a body tasked for this purpose called the Inter-Agency Legal Action Group (IALAG). UN Special Rapporteur Alston specifically recommended the abolition of this instrument of political persecution in his report.

In March 2007, two months before the congressional elections, Rep. Ocampo was arrested on the basis of a multiple murder case that allegedly happened 23 years ago. The Supreme Court stepped in and ordered Rep. Ocampo released on bail.

During the campaign period for the May 2007 elections, I was accused of obstructing justice for demanding a proper warrant from soldiers who arrested one of my campaigners. The case is still pending before the prosecutors office.

Also at this time, a disqualification case was brought against progressive party lists Bayan Muna, Gabriela and Anakpawis. These frivolous charges were later dismissed by the Commission on Elections.

In November 2007, government prosecutors submitted for resolution another multiple murder case, this time involving Reps. Ocampo, Maza, Mariano and myself. The prosecutors denied a request for a clarificatory hearing which was necessary in light of the complaints refusal to reveal their identities by concealing their faces during the investigation.

What are we to make of this? In its report on its mission to the Philippines last April 2007, the Inter-Parliamentary Union's Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians concluded that such cases were politically motivated and that “The sequence and tenacity of the authorities in the filing of sedition, rebellion and murder charges and, more recently disqualification cases against (politial parties) Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and Gabriela lends the impression that everything is being done to remove the parliamentarians concerned and their parties from the political process.”

Concern over the UPR

Despite the attacks against my party, its constituents and on myself and my colleagues as elected members of Congress, the Arroyo government has the gall to proclaim, in paragraph 119 of its national report for the UN Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR), that:

“The Philippines repealed several years ago the Anti-Subversion Law and legitimized the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Organizations of all political persuasions and sectoral interest groups have the opportunity to secure congressional representation and participation in mainstream elections through the party list system.”

While this is true on paper, it is sheer hypocrisy for the government to say this considering that the government itself, especially its armed forces, has taken every opportunity to villify, malign, harass, disenfranchise, disempower, disqualify and annihilate the progressive party list organizations and their members. In fact, we are still alive and in Congress inspite, not because of, the government.

Honestly, I am appalled at how easy it is for the Arroyo government to dish out lies and half-truths about the human rights situation in the Philippines. It is an insult to the UNHRC and the UPR process that a government can so easily present barefaced lies and self-serving reports and expect other countries to just swallow it all up. I hope that the UNHRC does not turn out to be just another old boys club and the latest tool for my government's cover up of its crimes against its people.

I hope that other critical voices will be heard and considered in the UPR. With your help, let us bring justice and peace to my country and my people.

Thank you very much. #


*Speech delivered at the Philippine UPR Watch Forum on April 10, 2008 at the World Council of Churches conference hall in Geneva, Switzerland.