Noy bares group interested in P10-billion HR fund

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino yesterday bared that a group wants to control the P10-billion fund for martial law human rights victims even as he defended his appointment of a retired female police general as head of the human rights claims board. He did not name the group or identify the people behind it.

In an interview in Cebu City, where the 28th EDSA anniversary rites were held, the President said another group also refuses to acknowledge that human rights abuses were committed during the 20-year reign of the Marcoses.

“I’m sure that there are at least two camps that do not want this board to succeed,” he said.

In defending the designation of former police general Lina Castillo-Sarmiento as head of the Human Rights Violations Claims Board, the President said she has the necessary “skill and physical energy” to see the claims board through.

He said Commission on Human Rights chairperson Etta Rosales and Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, who was also former CHR head, support Sarmiento’s appointment.

“All of us, all of three of us, have had experience with Lina Sarmiento tackling human rights issues, which I think is the essential skill necessary,” he said in an interview at Cebu Provincial Capitol in Cebu City.

“She has the skill, she has the physical energy, she has the drive, she has the right direction to be able to accomplish the job in two years or less,” the President added.

Among those who questioned Sarmiento’s appointment were former senators Joker Arroyo and Rene Saguisag, who fought the Marcos dictatorship.

Arroyo called Sarmiento’s appointment as a “brazen travesty of the legacy of the human rights movement.”

Arroyo and Saguisag served as members of the Cabinet of Aquino’s late mother Cory – Arroyo as executive secretary and Saguisag as press secretary.  They were also very close friends of Aquino’s father, slain senator Ninoy Aquino.

“Now why Lina? Number one, she is approaching age of 56, which I think will give her enough maturity and time for the experience and the necessary physical ability to be able to complete the job in two years,” the President said.

The Chief Executive said Sarmiento is also tasked “to fend off those who would want to sabotage” Republic Act 10368 or the Human Rights Victims’ Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013.

Aquino said a candidate actually “begged off” from heading the quasi-judicial body due to his “advanced age” – in his mid-70s or 80s, thus could no longer perform the “physical requirements” of the job.

“Half of the job is to vet or verify the victims of human rights and complete the whole process in two years’ time, and we are not just talking of 10,000 people. Each individual case should be proven, and entered in our official record,” he said.

TRO petition

Meanwhile, militant groups led by Bayan Muna marched to the Supreme Court yesterday to assail Sarmiento’s appointment to the claims board.

In a 20-page petition, they also asked the high court to issue a status quo ante order, a temporary restraining order, or a writ of preliminary injunction enjoining Sarmiento to vacate her post pending resolution of the legal question on her appointment.

They said the President committed grave abuse of discretion in appointing Sarmiento.

Bayan Muna said Sarmiento is not qualified for the post since she used to head the human rights affairs office of the Philippine National Police and “became part of the machinery which attempted to deodorize the stench of the internationally condemned cases of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances.”

They said Sarmiento was also a member of Task Force Usig, a body created supposedly to investigate cases of unexplained killings and enforced disappearances during the Arroyo administration.

“(Task Force Usig) failed in its mandate to prosecute the perpetrators of these heinous human rights abuses because it passed on the blame to the victims and their supposed organizations rather than investigate internally into the complicity of members and officers of the police, military and paramilitary,” the militants said.

They also questioned Sarmiento’s qualification, saying the law requires the chairman to have “deep and thorough understanding and knowledge of human rights violations committed during the regime of former President Ferdinand Marcos.”

“There is nothing on public record that respondent Sarmiento ever got involved in any effort against such atrocities during the dictatorship. If at all, she was a silent, passive, if not acquiescent cog in the security apparatus of the repressive dictatorship,” they told the SC through counsels from the National Union of People’s Lawyers.

“It is not only a question of whether respondent Sarmiento is qualified under the law but is also a question as to whether respondent Aquino’s act of appointing respondent Sarmiento contravenes the very essence of the law he is supposed to implement,” added the petition.

On the Palace’s claim that Sarmiento’s track record made her qualified for the post, the group said “it cannot be denied that she lacks the mandated qualifications set forth under the law and the institution she represents lacks the credibility and integrity to deliver justice to human right victims.”

Bayan Muna also cited a report from the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission that Sarmiento had dismissed calls for investigation on the case of 32-year-old farmer Renante Romagus.

Romagus survived after being kidnapped, tortured and repeatedly stabbed on Dec. 12, 2007 in Compostela Valley. – With Edu Punay