The Philippine People Are Under Attack from Washington -- and Their Own Government
The Philippine People Are Under Attack from Washington — and Their Own Government
12/03/2015 07:48 pm ET | Updated Dec 03, 2015
Azadeh Shahshahani
Legal & Advocacy Director, Project South; Past President, National Lawyers Guild
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A tribunal this year uncovered grave violations against the human, economic, and cultural rights of Filipinos by Washington and their own leaders.
By Vanessa Lucas and Azadeh Shahshahani
The Filipino people are under attack.
The Lumad, for example — an indigenous group in the southern Philippines — are being forced to leave their ancestral lands and the source of their livelihood to make way for mining operations and land conversion. Resistance is deadly.
In the month of August alone, there were two massacres that left nine dead. On August 30, the army and paramilitary forces occupied the Alternative Learning Center for Agriculture and Livelihood Development, an award winning school for indigenous youth. The director of the school, Emerito Samarca, was taken by force and was found dead in a classroom the next day. He had an ear-to-ear slit across his throat and gunshot wounds in his chest.
The same day Samarca’s body was found, Dionel Campos — the chairman of a Lumad organization campaigning against mining — and his cousin Datu Juvillo Sinzo were executed in front of hundreds of residents in Lianga. Sinzo, who was separated from the crowd, was tortured by paramilitaries. They smashed his arms and legs with a wooden stick before shooting him.
Karapatan, a Filipino human rights organization, has raised the issue of the Lumad peoples at the United Nations Human Rights Council. But given the culture of impunity in the Philippines — often exacerbated by implicit support from the U.S. government — activists are pursuing other means to hold the perpetrators of crimes like these to account.
To help give voice to the victims of human rights violations, for three intense days this summer we participated in the International People’s Tribunal on Crimes Against the Filipino People. The tribunal was convened in Washington by human rights defenders, peace and justice advocates, lawyers, jurists, academics, people of faith, and political activists. It was held at the behest of victims of human rights violations to shine a spotlight on official crimes and hold the responsible governments accountable.
Evidence supporting the allegations of rights abuses — including testimony from over 30 lay and expert witnesses — was provided to an international panel of prosecutors led by former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark and considered by an international group of jurors from a range of disciplines. The tribunal found the Aquino regime responsible for systematic violations of the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of the Filipino people. The conveners also held the U.S. government responsible on account of its military intervention, economic and environmental exploitation, and imposition of neoliberal globalization on the Philippines.
Here’s what we learned.
Violations of Civil and Political Rights
The first group of charges focused on gross violations of civil and political rights, including extrajudicial killings, disappearances, massacres, torture, and arbitrary arrests and detention, as well as other brutal and systematic attacks on the basic democratic rights of the Filipino people.
A key driver of the most egregious abuses has been the U.S.-inspired counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan. Launched in 2011 by Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, it’s supposedly a program to fight communist guerillas, but in practice doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. The reality is that Oplan Bayanihan is used to target any individuals or groups the government classifies as a threat to its agenda.
Amaryllis Hilao Enriquez, a former Marcos-era political prisoner, described Oplan Bayanihan as a “repackaging” of the U.S.-led “war on terror” for the Philippines. The operation was devised with the help of the U.S. government, which provides technical assistance, military aid, and occasionally actual U.S. military personnel.
Following Enriquez’s testimony, the jurors heard personal accounts of gross human rights violations.
Maria Aurora Santiago, for example, recounted the death of her partner, Wilhemus Geertman — a Dutch lay missionary who was targeted by the Philippine military due to his involvement in peasant organizing and advocacy. He was the executive director of Alay Bayan-Luson, a grassroots organization involved in disaster preparedness, mitigation, and victim assistance, especially to poor communities. Geertman was also involved in numerous environmental campaigns against mining, logging, and dam projects. Accused of belonging to the New People’s Army — the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines — he was shot to death in his office by military and police assets.
Attorney Maria Catherine Salucon, a founding member of the National Union of People’s Lawyers, then opened the jurors’ eyes to the fact that even lawyers working on human rights cases are subjected to open harassment and intimidation. Like Geertman, Salucon — who represents clients in cases involving violations of human rights and political prisoners — has been subjected to red tagging and vilified as a member of Communist Party.
One day, Salucon and her paralegal William Bugatti had lunch with relatives of their detained political prisoner clients. During the meal, Bugatti told Salucon that he was taking precautionary security measures and advised her to do the same. Later that night, he was gunned down by government security forces.
After learning of Bugatti’s death, Salucon was told by a client — a civilian asset for the Philippine National Police — that the PNP was investigating her to “confirm” that she was a “red lawyer.” Salucon also learned she was being secretly followed by military intelligence officers. Salucon took the matter to the courts and was granted a protective order that allowed her access to military records pertaining to her, but the military continues to deny conducting any surveillance activities against her at all.
Melissa Roxas, a Filipina-American activist, then testified concerning her May 2009 abduction and torture at the hands of Philippine military. She was captured while conducting health surveys organized by a social justice alliance.
Roxas, who has also conducted fact-finding missions into rights abuses, and two Filipino volunteers — John Edward Jamdoc and Juanito Carabeo — were abducted by approximately 15 men armed with high-powered rifles, some of them wearing ski masks or bonnets. They were handcuffed and blindfolded and forced into a van.
Roxas was held for six days at a military camp, most of which she spent in handcuffs and blindfolded, and accused of belonging to the New People’s Army. She was subjected to food deprivation, forced into stress positions, beaten, choked, suffocated with plastic bags, and repeatedly smashed headfirst against a wall. She was lectured on the evils of communism by torturers who threatened her with death and tried to force her to sign documents confessing that she was a militant. Despite her ability to describe some of her abductors and torturers in court, no one has been arrested or charged for her abduction and torture.
