House urged to speed up probe of police, military abuses

MANILA, Philippines - Human rights advocates urged the House of Representatives to fast-track its probe on the alleged abuses made by police and military personnel.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Congress must initiate the proceedings before it adjourns in June 2016, otherwise “it will have to re-file the resolutions and start all over again.”

“The House of Representatives can and should send a powerful message against impunity by making this week’s inquiry in Mindanao an opportunity to jumpstart long-overdue congressional scrutiny of serious human rights abuses,” said Phelim Kine, HRW deputy Asia director.

“Congress needs to demonstrate that it’s on the side of the rule of law and the victims of human rights violations by supporting thorough and transparent investigations into such abuses,” Kine said.

Congress is convening an “initial omnibus legislative inquiry” into human rights abuses on Aug. 13 and 14.

According to HRW, the inquiry would interview victims and witnesses in Mindanao, where “many of the alleged human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture, have occurred.”

The group said the inquiry would result in a report detailing its findings and recommendations that it will then submit to Congress.

“It can recommend the filing of cases before the courts or the Office of the Ombudsman, which is empowered to pursue separate investigations and prosecutions of human rights-related cases,” it said.

Since 2013, 22 congressional resolutions calling for investigations on specific allegations of human rights violations, have been filed. But HRW said Congress is only acting on them now.

Separate resolutions called for a probe into the reported torture of detainees at a police facility in Laguna; the supposed harassment of members of grassroots groups, such as Pamalakaya, which represents small-scale fishermen; the alleged cases of child soldiers; and the so-called Tagum Death Squad, whose summary killings were purportedly financed and controlled by police and local government officials.

Martial law abuses

Vicente Millora, Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) president, yesterday distanced himself from the move to reopen cases of human rights violations during the martial law period.

KBL-Partido ng Magsasaka at Manggagawa (PMM) coalition spokesman Oliver Lozano earlier said that the alliance proposes to create a fact-finding body to revisit martial law abuses.

“The proposal did not come from me,” Millora told The STAR.

Lozano also clarified that it was PMM president Jose Malvar Villegas who made the proposal and that he was merely articulating it as coalition spokesman.

Villegas said there is a need to revisit the human rights cases “to clear the name of former President Marcos,” whose son, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is being eyed to run for higher office in next year’s polls. Villegas – whose younger brother was a torture victim during martial law – said perpetrators continue to serve in the police and military and have become untouchable because they are occupying top posts in the government.– With Perseus Echeminada