We are all vulnerable

If you are an ordinary citizen who doesn’t belong to any organization deemed “Left-leaning” or “activist”; if you are not a journalist, judge, prosecutor, or human rights lawyer; if you don’t get involved in politics, whether of the partisan or ideological sort, then chances are you have nothing to fear about being “salvaged.”

No one knows how “salvaging” became the local term used for extrajudicial killings. During the martial law years, “salvage” became a familiar term, referring to bodies found, often with hands tied behind the back, in empty fields or fished out of rivers. (My own thinking is that the term “salvage” is derived from the salvaging operations of shipwrecks.)

But even if you are a common, law-abiding, tax-paying citizen, salvaging is still a risk. You may still be arbitrarily executed or get caught in the crossfire of an assassination. You may be the victim of mistaken identity. Or armed men or their sponsors may mistake your outspoken ways for activism, or your work as a journalist for challenging the powers-that-be. You never know when something you said or did will tick off the wrong people. Or if it should be your bad luck to drive by the scene of a massacre or walk into an ambush.

So long as extrajudicial killings—and forced disappearances and torture—take place with few or none charged and convicted of these crimes, we all remain vulnerable. It is everybody’s concern, but especially so for law enforcers and government officials. So long as the police refuse to go after the perpetrators, so long as witnesses refuse to testify to what they saw (or are intimidated or are themselves killed), so long as the courts take their own sweet time in resolving cases, and so long as the military leadership and the political leadership remain indifferent, so will extrajudicial killings remain a blot on our national conscience and a fear at the back of our minds.

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IN HIS study of extrajudicial killings in the decade from 2001-2010, lawyer Al Parreño produced a set of recommendations, what he calls “six pillars of success,” that he says are “essential for a holistic solution to this problem.”

The first, he says, is to turn the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) into a real independent watchdog. Parreño suggests that the CHR release official monthly bulletins on the state of extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations, with “determining measures … standardized—free from political advertisements.” To be credible, he adds, the CHR “must report nothing but numbers and cold analysis.”

Pillar No. 2 is “aggressive government,” what otherwise is known as “political will.” “It all starts with the President,” writes Parreño, who, “with the mighty arsenal of the executive arm at his disposal” can avail of “a great array of resources and technological know-how.” P-Noy, as the commander in chief of the Armed Forces, for starters, could issue an all-out directive, that expresses “in clear and unambiguous terms,” his condemnation of extrajudicial killings. From this should stem the institutionalization of human rights awareness among the military and police, making human rights compliance a success factor in the police and military, and operationalizing command responsibility, among others.

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PUBLIC AWARENESS is likewise necessary, says Parreño. This includes creating “an easily accessible system which reports and generates feedback from and to the public,” as well as tapping both public and private media, and traditional and new media, for support.

The fourth pillar of success is improving the way in which law enforcers gather evidence, going beyond witness testimony, which can be manipulated or thrown into doubt. Instead, Parreño suggests the use of “discovery procedures” as well as improving the technological capacity of the PNP and/or the NBI in gathering (and examining) evidence. This also includes “the proper implementation of the Witness Protection Program” to restore its credibility.

Parreño also suggests strengthening “the existing DOJ body tasked with curbing extrajudicial killings.” The prosecution of cases of EKJs, “would require men and women composed of mettle that will not fold under any circumstance,” he notes, which is why the task force should be dedicated solely to the successful prosecution of EKJs. Under the Arroyo administration, Task Force 211 was formed to counter political violence, involving eight government bodies and supported by the AFP, PNP, NICA and NBI. While the conviction rate for EKJs remained low, the formation of a similar body, says Parreño, “is imperative.”

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The final pillar of success is “an impartial tribunal.”

“Make the remedy of transfer of venue to Metro Manila or Metro Cebu readily available,” writes Parreño, thereby ensuring that trials are held in places where the local military or local officials do not hold sway and cannot intimidate witnesses, lawyers or judges. The Supreme Court could be petitioned to “prioritize petitions for transfer of venue in cases of extrajudicial killings,” granting that the court would know “when a case is an extrajudicial killing or not.”

In conclusion, Parreño notes that “this human rights disaster is wrongly branded as a dispute between the right and left ideologies … military versus rebels … democracy versus communism.” The right paradigm, he writes, is “justice versus injustice … rule of law versus impunity.”

The government is not “helpless” against extrajudicial killings because in the first place, it is “state actors”—primarily military or police or their surrogates—who are suspected of perpetrating them. If the government is part of the problem, it can certainly be part of the solution.