EDITORIAL - Just solve them

The Armed Forces of the Philippines, according to a United Nations rapporteur, is in denial about the involvement of its personnel in extrajudicial killings. AFP officials promptly disputed this and said Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, was biased from the start in his investigation.

Alston, in his carefully worded press briefing yesterday, did say that while AFP personnel appeared to be responsible for several of the killings, the cases did not seem to be state-sanctioned. Leftist groups, whose ranks have suffered from the killings, have pointed to military officers particularly Jovito Palparan, now retired, as the ones behind the executions. The AFP, which is conducting an internal probe of some of the cases, insists that several of the killings were the handiwork of communist rebels carrying out their periodic bloody purges.

The only way to establish the truth is to get the killers and declare the cases closed. The only way to discourage executions is by punishing the perpetrators and showing that the state does not sanction murder. These things have been said often enough. Alston stayed in the country for only a few days and did not have law enforcement powers; he could not have provided the complete picture about the killings. Neither could the special commission headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo, which had broader powers and conducted its own investigation much longer than Alston, but which was snubbed by leftist militants.

That complete picture, seen from a broad perspective, can be possible only if authorities start catching and punishing those behind the continuing murders of leftist militants, journalists and members of the legal profession. It is not enough for the AFP to accuse communists of carrying out an internal purge; it must prove its claim and present the evidence to the public for judgment. Leftist militants may point an accusing finger at individuals like Palparan, but they must cooperate with investigators and present evidence to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

These killings aren’t going to be solved and will not end by exchanging accusations uncorroborated by evidence, or even by disputing the results of a speedy investigation by a UN official. The only way to know the truth is to arrest and punish murderers — both the triggermen and the brains — and solve the killings.