MANILA — The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan warned that the Arroyo government may face international sanctions in the face of its inability to decisively stop to the extrajudicial killings in the country. The warning came in the wake of the recently concluded United States Congressional hearings on the killings in the Philippines.
MANILA — The umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan today slammed the Armed Forces of the Philippines for the ?barefaced and shameless lying it has done to cover up the murder of another activist.?
Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr. said that claim of the AFP spokesman that the latest casualty, Siche Gandinao of Bayan Muna, was a victim of a communist purge is ?patently stupid.?
In its testimony to the US Senate yesterday, Amnesty International cited the Philippine government’s weak responses to the political killings, the ineffective investigations, the McCarthyist mentality in the military and the government, the abuses of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan. It made several recommendations, among them that the human rights laws and agreements, among them the Comprehensive Agreement for the Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law that the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front signed, be respected. It also asked Washington to send a “strong and clear message” to Manila that U.S.?Philippines relations “will suffer if the current trend in political killings continues and if Philippine authorities fail to bring past abusers to justice.”
IPU to ask UN bodies on “continuing crime” doctrine
The prestigious Inter-Parliamentary Union, the organization of the
world’s national legislatures, will send a team of senators to Manila
to investigate first-hand the legal persecution of the Batasan 6,
specifically the arbitrary detention of Anakpawis Rep. Crispin Beltran
and the short-circuited issuance of the arrest warrant on Bayan Muna
Rep. Satur Ocampo.