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.
During the hearings, human rights group Amnesty International-USA asked the Arroyo government not to treat this (killings) as a public relations problem; but to take serious steps to find out who was behind these systematic killings and to make public those findings.
Amnesty also said that the U.S. should give a strong and clear message to the Government of the Philippines that U.S. – Philippine relations will suffer if the current trend in political killings continues and if Philippine authorities fail to bring past abusers to justice.
Bayan secretary-general Renato M. Reyes, Jr. said with the way the Arroyo government has addressed the issue he would not be surprised if it came to the point that the Philippines faced international sanctions and withdrawal of aid due to its inability to stop the killings.
For Arroyo, its all about repairing her image here and abroad. It was never about decisively ending the killings. In fact the murders continue despite protests from human rights bodies here and abroad, Reyes said.
Extrajudicial Killings
