Philippines Governments response
After almost four years of rising numbers of political killings – and after intense pressure from the international human rights organizations and the United Nations the Government of the Philippines took some steps to understand the problem, by appointing Melo Commission. It is a mystery why the Government of the Philippines failed to address this disturbing trend of political killings for all these years; despite the fact that hundreds were killed for political reasons.
On August 21, 2006 President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo announced the establishment of a special Commission of Inquiry, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo, to investigate the killings and to make recommendations for remedial action, including appropriate prosecutions and legislative proposals.
Pledging to break this cycle of violence once and for all, President Arroyo stated, I have directed [the Melo Commission] to leave no stone unturned in their pursuit of justice…the victims and their families deserve justice to be served.
After initial hesitation to release the report; the Government of the Philippines released the Melo Report on February 22, 2007. Responding to the Melo Commission report, the Government has announced a six-point action plan, the implementation of which will be crucial to ending the killings. A lack of accountability for such political killings remains a critical challenge: to date there has not been one conviction, despite the hundreds of killings, primarily of legal leftist activists, over the past six years.
In May, the authorities set up a special police investigative task force called Usig to coordinate investigations into suspected political killings. However, only a limited number of people were arrested and few cases were filed in court by the end of 2006. For example, of 114 killings recorded since 2001 by Task Force Usig, the police have arrested suspects in only three cases. No one was held accountable for cases before 2001.
Extrajudicial Killings
