Germans to light candles vs extrajudicial killings in the Philippines

Written by Dateline Philippines

Wednesday, 20 May 2009 09:33

MANILA, Philippines – Members of Protestant churches in Germany will light more than 1000 candles in the city of Bremen on May 22 to call attention to the continued political killings in the Philippines. The activity, dubbed “Sumabay Tayo! Walking together – for justice!” is part of the “Kirchentag,” a biennial gathering of German Protestant churches that is based on a theme and draws thousands of people from all faiths, Hannah Wolf, spokeprson for the activity, said in an emailed statement. The candles will commemorate each of the more than 1,000 activists and political dissenters murdered since 2001, when President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came to power. Among the victims of extrajudicial killings are church people, lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders, farmers, workers, students and trade unionists. The protesters will also launch a signature campaign meant to pressure the Philippine government to “investigate the killings, compensate survivors and relatives of the victims, and to end not only the political killings, but all human rights violations in the Philippines.” Wolf, in the statement, said the activity’s organizers fear a deterioration of the “existing climate of impunity” with retired general Jovito Palparan’s assumption of a congressional seat representing the party-list Bantay. Palparan is accused by human rights groups of responsibility for hundreds of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in areas he was assigned to as a military commander. “Palparan is known beyond Philippine borders as a notorious human rights violator who, like others, must be prosecuted and brought to justice,” Wolf said. Philipp Bück, coordinator of the German-based Action Network Human Rights-Philippines, said in the same statement: “More cases need to be prosecuted and perpetrators punished, particularly with regards to command responsibility within the police and military.” In March, the network conducted a mission in the Philippines to look into the implementation of recommendations by various international human rights experts and groups on how to end the killings and disappearances. Recently, United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston, in a follow-up report to his fact-finding mission in 2007, said the government has failed to implement any of his recommendations and, thus, failed to quell the impunity that encouraged the commission of extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses. In his original findings, Alston blamed most of the murders on a government counterinsurgency strategy that deliberately targeted members and leaders of legal organizations that authorities openly tagged legal fronts of the communist rebel movement.

Duterte Revisited - Mayor under Siege (At Last...)

Some time ago I posted an interview on this blog with Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte: http://pieterthys.blogspot.com/2008/11/rodrigo-duterte-mayor-of-davao-city.html

Since then, the case of the vigilante killings in Davao City has snowballed. In February 2009, Davao City set a sad record. 80 people were murdered. The highest death toll in the shortest month of the year... The Commission on Human Rights headed by Attorney Leila De Lima came to Davao City to investigate a presumed connection between Mayor Duterte and the so-called Davao Death Squad. Duterte, as usual, denied the existence of the Davao Death Squad as well as any connections between the city government and the vigilante killings. Something doesn't quite add up, of course. Duterte prides himself in having rid his city of drug-pushers, rapists and murderers, but a gang of killers going about executing those very same criminals without taking the pains of disguising themselves somehow escaped his attention...


Attorney De Lima - who heads the commisision - rightly emphasized that Mayor Duterte is responsible for the killings any which way. Either he orchestrates the killings, in which case he should be put to trial and sent to prison. Or he merely tolerates it, which would make him a felony to serial killing. Or he really is powerless in stopping the Davao Death Squad, which would make him a highly inept mayor. His city, after all, is the murder capital of Mindanao. Not quite the haven of safety he advertises it to be.

Yet, in my personal opinion, there is someting even more disturbing about the whole case. Even if it were true that Duterte has nothing to do with the killings and that his only responsibility lies in his unwillingness or ineptness to stop them, then there is still that one startling fact: the vast majority of the people in Davao City assume that Duterte is behind the Davao Death Squad, and they applaud him for it. You will be hard-pressed to find anyone genuinely shocked about the killings. Even among local NGO people, it is not uncommon to hear people sanction the killings because 'it has made Davao City a safer place for ordinary citizens'. Although I can understand the people, I do think that there is something terribly wrong with an electorate that massively tolerates extra-judicial killings...

Final Presentation

So there I was... After months of visiting projects, talking to people and documenting snippets of their lives in pictures, the time had come for me to present my writings to the people I had been writing about: the Bagobo-Tagabawa of Mount Apo. I was pretty nervous, as you can imagine. It was also time to let go of scribbled notes in Cebuano and just speak from the top of my head (with a trembling voice, I admit, hehe). It was nice to see all the tribal leaders gathered and a real privelege for me to present my work to them. It must be odd to see yourself in print, but the stories were well received by the leaders. If all goes well, the stories will soon be published...