843 civilians, 384 soldiers and cops killed by NPAs — Esperon

Communist rebels have murdered over 800 civilians over the past five years, Armed Forces chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon said yesterday as he denied that security forces were behind the spate of killings of left-leaning activists and journalists across the country.

Testifying before the Melo Commission created by President Arroyo to investigate the murders, Esperon sought to shift the focus to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its 7,200-member armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA).

The NPA killed 843 civilians and 384 soldiers or police officers in 1,130 attacks between January 2000 and May 2006, he told the commission headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo.

"It was listed in our records that there were 384 (military and police) and 843 civilians (who) were slain and these are victims of liquidation by the CPP-NPA," Esperon said.

He also gave the panel two books about communist rebel purges in the 1980s — "Breaking Through," authored by Joel Rocamora, containing detailed information on the internal struggle within the rebel ranks, and "To Suffer Thy Comrades" by Robert Francis Garcia.

Esperon also handed over a document found by government troops after a clash with rebels in Quezon last April. It contained details of planned "special operations" to purge the rebel ranks of military spies.

"This is to show that the purge within the communist ranks is a continuing matter that started in the ’80s," Esperon told the panel. "The NPA has even acknowledged the purging activities they have conducted."

The inquiry is principally looking into the murders of 118 members of the left-wing political party Bayan Muna since Mrs. Arroyo came to power in January 2001.

Esperon said left-leaning political parties are not among the military’s targets because they are part of the country’s democratic system. But he claimed that some of them are fronts of the NPA. Esperon did not identify them.

Mrs. Arroyo has been criticized for the series of killings, for which she has been blamed for either condoning the attacks or not doing enough to stop them. She denied that her administration has been cracking down on dissidents and had pledged to bring the killers to justice.

National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales, who had earlier pinned the killings on a communist rebel purge, conceded yesterday the only way to clear the country’s image before the international community was to put a stop to them and bring the killers to justice.

"We cannot correct our record until we have finished (work to stop extra-judicial killings). What’s important is we have shown our seriousness in meeting the problem," Gonzales said. "Who’s doing the killings? We have investigations left and right. We will find out. What we’re saying definitely is this is not government policy."

Mrs. Arroyo was hounded by the issue throughout her five-nation trip of Europe and the Pacific, with European governments expressing their concern over the situation in the Philippines.

Gonzales, one of several officials who accompanied the President, agreed that the killings have reached an alarming level that Mrs. Arroyo deemed it fit to raise the matter herself with European officials.

The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland is set to discuss today a report on the killings submitted by Philippine non-government organizations (NGOs).

Akbayan Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales, who will attend the UNHRC meeting, branded the Philippine government’s efforts to put a stop to the killings and human rights abuses have been "superficial and inutile."

Presidential Management Staff chief Arthur Yap said the complaint lacked basis and there has been no evidence that government forces were involved.

"They cannot prove their case because the President has nothing to do with all of these. She has given resources, she has brought the problem before, she is calling attention to it, she is devoting resources to it, and she has gone on record as a matter of national policy, of her government’s policy in the strongest possible terms that nobody is to be harmed, nobody is to be killed, nobody must suffer for his or her political beliefs in this country," Yap said. — With reports from Aurea Calica, Katherine Adraneda, Delon Porcalla, AFP