EDITORIAL - A challenge to do more

Philip Alston was not the first this year to make an unfavorable assessment of the state of human rights in the Philippines. In a 16-page report last month, Alston, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, said the Philippine government had made some progress in stopping the killings targeting mostly militant activists and journalists, but had failed to institutionalize reforms he had recommended following his first visit two years ago.

Last March the European Parliament had reached a similar conclusion and issued a resolution calling on the Arroyo administration to act decisively in stopping extrajudicial killings and human rights violations. During the debate before the resolution was passed, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, commissioner for external relations and European neighborhood policy of the European Union, acknowledged that the Philippines had made “considerable progress” in upholding human rights, including the ratification of 12 international treaties on human rights as well as the abolition of the death penalty. Ferrero-Waldner also noted that the number of assassinations of militant activists and journalists “decreased significantly” in the past two years, but she said there has been a “flare-up” in recent months.

Instead of griping that Alston has prejudged the Philippine situation and the European Parliament is off the mark, the government should consider the assessments as a challenge to do more in protecting human rights. Both the UN and the Europeans have expressed particular concern over the human rights situation in Davao City, where people have been turning up dead or have disappeared.

The most notorious case was the abduction and brutal murder last March of Rebelyn Pitao, a 20-year-old teacher who happened to be the daughter of the New People’s Army’s commander for Southern Mindanao, Leoncio Pitao. The father linked 11 military intelligence agents to his daughter’s killing. There is no way this murder can be justified as a legitimate counter-insurgency operation, as the military has tried to justify a number of the cases classified by militants as extrajudicial killings. Unless this case is resolved and measures put in place to deter similar attacks, the government cannot expect a favorable report from international human rights monitoring bodies.