Aside from the charges against the lawmakers, the government has been accused of persecuting progressive groups by deploying the military in urban and rural areas where they are strong.
The military has also been accused of being behind the series of extrajudicial killings targetting members and officers of Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and its allied organizations.
The killings and the persecution of the lawmakers have embarrassed the Arroyo administration in the international community, despite its avowals that it was not behind these killings and that it was doing something to stop the violence.
But the killings and the abductions of activists never stopped. Just last Sunday, a Protestant pastor identified with Bayan Muna was abducted by armed men in a plateless vehicle — they later turned out to be police officers — in Laguna. In April, Jonas Burgos, the son of press freedom icon Jose Burgos and an activist himself, was snatched while inside a mall in Quezon City. He has not been found.
Although the police have filed charges against one or two police officers in relation to one of the killings, no one has been convicted or tried for any of these murders. Aside from leftists, the victims in the killings were human rights workers, lawyers, progressive members of the religious sector, unionists, hard-hitting journalists and members of youth organizations. All in all, the human-rights group Karapatan has documented more than 900 victims of these killings, including peasants and workers victimized by the military in the countryside
International human-rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have expressed alarm over the spate of killings, as well as the constriction of democratic space in the Philippines.
Much of the opposition to the Arroyo regime, in which the Left has figured prominently, stems from the allegation that she cheated in the 2004 elections. She did that by conniving with officials from the Commission on Elections, most notably Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, and the armed forces.
Some military officials, among them generals, were mentioned in the infamous “Hello Garci” tapes as having participated in the 2004 cheating. In that recording, a voice that sounded like Arroyo discussed with Garcillano details in the alleged cheating. The military officials have since been promoted; one of them, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, is now Arroyo’s chief of staff.
Garcillano ran for congressman in the first district of Bukidnon but lost. He later complained that he lost because the country’s politics was dirty. (Carlos H. Conde/davaotoday.com)
Extrajudicial Killings
