PHILIPPINES: Action required to address ongoing abuse
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Nineteenth session, Agenda Item
3, Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on human
rights defenders
A written statement
submitted by the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC), a
non-governmental organisation with general consultative
status
PHILIPPINES: Action required to address ongoing abuses of the legal system used to target human rights defenders
The Asian Legal Resource
Centre (ALRC) submitted a written statement to the tenth
session of the Human Rights Council in March 20091
concerning a growing pattern of the abusive use of
prosecutorial powers and the country’s judicial process in
order to detain human rights and political activists, and
prevent their work in favour of the rights of the
disenfranchised. The Philippines' government and military
have been repeatedly condemned for the widespread
extra-judicial killings that had targeted such actors over
the previous decade, leading to hundreds of deaths. As such
pressure led to a reduction in these killings, abusive use
of the legal system has grown to continue this
repression.
Despite some welcome approaches and actions
taken by the current government to bolster human rights in
the country, these have remained superficial and do not
address the fundamental flaws in the systemic and
institutional rule of law mechanisms that are needed in
order to put an end to the deeply insecure climate for human
rights defenders and victims of human rights violations in
the country, or to tackle the entrenched systems of impunity
that prevail in relation to these abuses. The ALRC therefore
wishes to again highlight this ongoing problem, providing
key examples to illustrate how it operates, and calls on the
Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders and Human
Rights Council members and observer States to intervene with
the government of the Philippines to ensure the necessary
reforms required to ensure an end to abusive prosecutions of
human rights defenders.
The ALRC previously highlighted
the case of labour lawyer Remigio Saladero Jr. and 20 other
activists, who had been arbitrarily charged with multiple
murder and multiple frustrated murder in Calapan City, with
six of them (including Remigio Saladero Jr.) having been
arrested and the others having been forced into hiding as a
result. While a Calapan City Regional Trial Court ruled to
release those detained and drop the charges against them on
February 5, 2009, a few days later, on February 11, 2009,
Remigio and his fellow respondents, were once again informed
of another murder charge arbitrarily being laid against
them. This concerned the killing of Ricky Garmino, 37, a
member of a government paramilitary group, the Civilian
Auxiliary Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU), on July 29,
2008. Witness accounts however point to the Narciso Antazo
Aramil Command of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New
People Army (CPP-NPA) operating in Rizal province as the
perpetrators of this killing.
It is worth noting that
attorney Remigio Saladero Jr. was working to defend the
rights of 19 workers and members of the local chapter of the
Congress Labor Organization (CLO), who have faced prolonged
arbitrary detention and false charges in relation to a
strike that they held on May 2, 2007, concerning a pay
dispute and to protest against the illegal dismissal of
fellow workers.2
In its previous statement, the ALRC
highlighted the role of the country’s Inter-Agency Legal
Assistance Group (IALAG) in distorting the criminal justice
system and enabling the arbitrary prosecution of activists,
as seen in the case above. In April 2008, Philip Alston, the
Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary
executions, had recommended the abolition of the IALAG. In a
welcome move, the government has since abolished the IALAG
in May 15, 2009, however, as will be seen below, such
abusive prosecutions continue to take place, pointing to a
need for further action by the government to address more
deep-seated systemic failings.
The current prosecution of
human rights defender Temogen "Cocoy" Tulawie and four
co-accused on charges of multiple frustrated murder and
multiple attempted murder for allegedly 'masterminding' and
'plotting' to assassinate Abdusakur Tan, the present
governor of Sulu, in a bomb attack on May 13, 2009, in
Patikul, Sulu, is particularly illustrative of the ongoing
problem of abusive legal targeting of activists. The
evidence against them in this case is based on forced
confessions by two of the accused, which they have since
recanted. Tulawie was forced into hiding out of concern that
he would not receive a fair trial in Sulu, but was arrested
on January 13, 2012 in Davao City.
On May 26, 2009, the
police in Patikul, Sulu, arrested two persons - Sulayman
Muhammad Muin and Juhan Alihuddin - who were allegedly
involved in the bomb attack. Under interrogation, Muin
implicated Tulawie as the "mastermind and who provided the
single motorcycle planted with (an) Improvised Explosive
Device (IED) used in their plan to assassinate the
governor". Muin also implicated three others, Alihuddin,
Muammar Askali and a certain Abs, supposedly as his
accomplices. Alihuddin was also forced to implicate Tulawie,
Muammar and Sulayman. However, they both later recanted
these confessions and claimed they had been forced to make
"extrajudicial statements." Three witnesses have confirmed
Tulawie's alibi, and four others have confirmed the alibi of
co-accused Askali.
Despite this, Prosecutor Cabaron
arbitrarily decided on July 22, 2009, that there was
probable cause in filing murder charges in court against the
five accused and that the recanted statements obtained under
duress were credible and admissible as evidence.
Prior to
his arrest, on June 13, 2011, the Supreme Court (SC) had
granted Tulawie's petition to transfer the trial of his case
from Jolo, Sulu to Davao City, due to concerns about the
prospect for a fair trial in Sulu. The SC acknowledged the
severity of insecurity and threats in Sulu, stating that:
"…there is an indication of actual and imminent threat to
the life of the petitioner and his family, as well as his
witnesses, as found by the Court of Appeals..." For seven
months, the Clerk of Court (CoC) of the Regional Trial Court
(RTC), Branch 3, Jolo, Sulu, ignored the SC's order, while
the court’s Judge Betlee-Ian Barraquias has taken action,
in defiance of the SC’s order, to have Tulawie transferred
to his jurisdiction and threatened administrative action for
obstruction of justice and contempt of court against those
refusing to do so.
This case is an evident situation of
baseless and flawed legal reprisals against a human rights
defender by the authorities and the ALRC therefore calls for
the Department of Justice (DoJ) to withdraw without delay
the murder charges against Tulawie and his co-accused.
Beyond this, the case sheds light on the lack of
accountability of local prosecutors and courts with regard
to the Supreme Court and points to deep flaws within the
institutions of the rule of law.
The ALRC has documented
a number of other cases showing the arbitrary and abusive
use of prosecutions that speak to a pattern of repression
against human rights defenders and activists. This is
enabled by systemic flaws and a lack of effective
accountability systems within the Philippines’ State
machinery.
Further examples include the case of eleven
activists who were arbitrarily charged in relation to an
attack on the military. On August 16, 2010, Mr. Esperidion
R. Solano, assistant provincial prosecutor in Camarines Sur
province, sent subpoenas to eleven activists and several
others to respond to a murder complaint by the military
concerning their alleged involvement in an attack by the New
People's Army (NPA) rebel group on the 9th Infantry Division
of the Philippine Army’s Camp Elias Angeles, Caboclodan,
San Jose, Pili.
The complaint, which comprised two counts
of murder, four counts of frustrated murder, three counts of
'carnapping' (stealing a vehicle) and a special case of
malicious mischief, relied heavily on the testimony of one
witness, Edwin Nazarionda, who claimed that the eleven
activists took part in the executive meeting of political
party Bayan Muna on April 28, 2006, during which the attack
was allegedly planned. Two former members of the NPA also
provided sworn statements claiming the involvement of the
activists.
There are major doubts as to the credibility
of the witnesses, on whose statements alone the case is
based, and the ALRC believes that they are in fact false
witnesses being used by the military to concoct these
charges against the activists in question. Attempting to
charge persons involved in the defence of human rights or
political activism that runs contrary to the interests of
those in power, by implicating them in acts of violence or
terrorism by armed groups, has been a typical tactic used by
the authorities, including in order to justify the many
extra-judicial killings that have taken place over the last
decade. In this case, serious flaws in their sworn
testimonies that led to the persons being charged include
the fact that none of these witnesses identified all the
respondents as being involved and physically present during
the attack.
Furthermore, valid alibis have been
discounted in the process, all of which point to an effort
to arbitrarily persecute these activists. For example, one
of the human rights defenders in question, Mr. Leo
Caballero, a correspondent for the Center for Trade Union
and Human Rights in Bicol region and head of the Human
Rights Department of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU)-Bicol, was not
present during the meeting that Nazarionda cites in his
testimony. He was participating in a regional fact-finding
mission investigating a case of extrajudicial killing and
was performing documented radio and other media interviews.
Furthermore, when the attack took place he was at the
regional council meeting of NGO KARAPATAN in Legazpi City,
Albay from May 25 to 27, 2006.
Given all of the above,
the ALRC calls on the government of the Philippines to take
all steps necessary to ensure effective oversight of the
prosecutorial services, notably by ensuring that the
Department of Justice launches an effective inquiry into the
problem of false prosecutions, in order to establish
systemic lacuna as well as individual responsibility
concerning such cases, and recommend and implement measures
to address these. This is required in order to deter and
punish arbitrary and legally flawed actions being taken by
officials with impunity, and ensure a halt to the pattern of
abusive prosecutions and the use of false charges against
human rights defenders and activists in particular.
Similarly, the Supreme Court of the Philippines is urged to
launch an inquiry into the role of the judiciary in allowing
false and arbitrary prosecutions to proceed, in order to
halt this practice and punish all those who participate in
these travesties of justice.
The ALRC also calls upon the
Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders to intervene
with the government of the Philippines in order to express
concern at the use of such arbitrary prosecutions and other
forms of repression against human rights defenders through
abusive use of the legal system, and to request a visit to
the country in order to monitor this situation and assist
the government in halting such practices.
Furthermore,
the ALRC calls on the members of the Human Rights Council to
intervene with the government of the Philippines to ensure
that it takes all steps necessary to halt the phenomenon of
arbitrary legal attacks against human rights defenders, as
this is creating a climate of fear and repression that is
seriously undermining efforts to uphold and protect human
rights across the country.
Finally, the ALRC calls on all
members of the Universal Periodic Review Working Group to
recommend that the government of the Philippines take all
the necessary steps cited above to ensure effective
oversight of the prosecution services, to deter further
false prosecutions of activists and to punish those involved
in such acts of injustice with appropriate sanctions that
reflect the gravity of their
actions.
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Notes:
1 PHILIPPINES:
Court rules subverted in filing criminal charges against
activists - http://wwwalrc.net/doc/mainfile.php/alrc_st2009/541/
2 For case details please see an urgent appeal issued by
the ALRC’s sister-organisation, the Asian Human Rights
Commission: http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-102-2009
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About the ALRC: The Asian Legal Resource
Centre is an independent regional non-governmental
organisation holding general consultative status with the
Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. It is the
sister organisation of the Asian Human Rights Commission.
The Hong Kong-based group seeks to strengthen and encourage
positive action on legal and human rights issues at the
local and national levels throughout Asia.
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