Human Rights Volunteers are Also Victims of Summary Killings
260 Persons Died in Extra-Judicial Executions Under Macapagal-Arroyo

Seventeen years after the Marcos dictatorship was brought down by people power, one would think violations of the right to life are things of the past. On the contrary, summary killings are still very much with us. In fact the right to life is one of the most violated rights under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration and the previous governments before it, human rights groups say.

By Alexander Martin Remollino
Bulatlat.com

"No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor shall anyone be denied the equal protection of the laws." Thus goes the first article under the Bill of Rights section, or Section III, of the Philippine Constitution.

With such a constitution, and 17 years after the Marcos dictatorship was brought down by people power, one would tend to think violations of the right to life are things of the past. But no, summary killings are still very much around.

In fact the right to life is one of the most violated rights under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration, human rights groups say.

Human rights workers as victims

Among the victims of atrocities against the right to life, under this administration, are legal and legitimate activists involved in investigations into - and protests against - violations of the right to life as well as other basic human rights provided for by the Philippine Constitution and the United Nations International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Two of them, Benjaline "Beng" Hernandez and Eden Marcellana, have fallen victims to the most brutal summary killings under this government.

In April 2002, Beng Hernandez, then deputy secretary-general of Karapatan-Southern Mindanao and vice president for Mindanao of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), was in Arakan Valley, North Cotabato with four other companions. She was heading a fact-finding mission that was researching on the situation of peasants in Sitio Bukatol, Arakan Valley, and was also following up on research work she had started a year before on a massacre in Tababa.

On April 5, as she and her companions were preparing to have lunch in a hut, elements of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) fired at them. Hernandez tried to run, but was caught by the CAFGU paramilitary men. Her body and those of three of her companions were later found several meters away. Her corpse bore bruises and bullet wounds all over, and her face was crushed. Villagers said her hands were raised - showing that she had begged for her life but was killed anyway.

The military insists the incident was "a legitimate encounter with the New People's Army," and even told media that they had evidence that she was indeed a member of the armed group. The National Bureau of Investigation in Region XII, however, found her hands to be negative of powder burns.

Like Hernandez, Eden Marcellana, secretary-general of Karapatan-Southern Tagalog, was heading a fact-finding mission in April this year when she was killed. She was leading an 11-man team that was investigating a series of human rights violations in Oriental Mindoro.

On April 22 around 20 military men, their faces covered with ski masks, stopped their van in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro. One of the men looked for Marcellana, who immediately offered to go with them. Peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy, who was with Marcellana's group, volunteered to accompany her.

Their bodies were found the following day. Marcellana's face was mutilated - one of her eyes was missing.

Karapatan report

In a report it submitted to the 79th Meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland last Oct. 21, the human rights alliance Karapatan stated that 254 persons had, as of then, been summarily killed under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration. Most of them were activists of legal progressive organizations and other persons critical of government policies. As of this writing, the number of persons summarily executed has reached 260.

In the Geneva meeting, UNHRC members castigated the Macapagal-Arroyo government’s official delegation for submitting biased reports.

Of the 254 killed under Macapagal-Arroyo, ten were volunteers of Karapatan itself. The most brutal were the killings of Hernandez and Marcellana - both of whom were human rights leaders in their respective localities.

Thirty-eight of the victims of summary killings were members and organizers of Bayan Muna, a progressive and unarmed political party engaged in legal activism and electoral/parliamentary work.

Even for members of the media, the Macapagal-Arroyo administration has been some kind of a graveyard. The Macapagal-Arroyo administration registered a total of 13 media killings in its first two and a half years, with six of these slain this year alone. The figure of 13 is higher than those registered by the Aquino, Ramos, and Estrada administrations in their respective first two and a half years. Many of the journalists were critical of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration; no one has been brought to court for their deaths. Bulatlat.com

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