Slaughter of Innocents

Though it took several months, but it nevertheless was never too late for the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) of the Philippines to investigate and to take appropriate action into the continuing vigilante killings is Davao City.

In these reports, CHR chairperson Leila De Lima, act on appeals from the AHRC for her to investigate the vigilante killings in Davao. She also relayed to the media that similar type of killings targeting alleged criminals are occurring in Cebu and in Manila.

While the AHRC appreciates the action the CHR has been taken so far, it also urges the persons and groups concerned to closely monitor the progress of these investigation.

Note: Apology to our readers. There has not been update on this blog for few months due to constraints in human resources. Will try our best to regularly update this blog in the future.

In June 11, we reported the murder of two crime suspects supposedly by a vigilante group, Cotabato Death Squad (CDS). Although the existence of this group has remained in question, there were allegations the security forces, in some way, could have had involved—directly or otherwise.

These allegations may have been affirmed by the shooting to death of this police officer, Senior Police Officer (SPO1) Bonifacio Sales Jr., who is based in Davao City, in Cotabato City on October 6. This news report described Bonifacio as ” reportedly (having) links to several cases of summary executions of suspected criminals in Cotabato City”.
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CASE DETAILS: Nine persons, one of whom a boy, have been killed, while another person has survived in attack in separate incidents in the cities of Cagayan de Oro, Davao, General Santos, Tagum and a municipality in Davao del Sur. One of those dead though was a witness who killed himself due to fear after witnessing another killing.

As described in Case No. 4, the 16-year-old boy was repeatedly stabbed while in his sleep while another person in Case No. 6 was a self-proclaimed vigilante. The latter was reported to have been mulcting money from those whom he had considered to have criminal records purposely for their “protection”.

As mentioned earlier, in Case No. 5, a man who had witness the shooting of another person sometime in April of this year in General Santos City has killed himself. His mother said that his son’s paranoia that someone is out to kill him and that he could have been the next target began after he had witnessed the murder of his neighbor.

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PROTECTION URGENTLY NEEDED: The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has written to Pedro Acharon Jr., mayor of General Santos City; and to Commissioner Leila de Lima, chairperson of the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), seeking for their adequate and prompt intervention to ensure witnesses to vigilante killings are given protection.

The AHRC renewed its appeal over concerns that the lack of protection to witnesses resulted to cases not progressing in court. This was similarly claimed by Sr. Supt. Ramon Apolinario, city director of the Davao City Police Office (DCPO), in defending his failure and his men’s to solve the vigilante killings in Davao. The AHRC is asking the authorities concerned to take effective action on this matter.

In his letter to Commissioner de Lima, Moon Jeong Ho, programme officer of the AHRC’s urgent appeals programme, express concern to the continued failure by government agencies to ensure protection to witnesses; and to address the phenomenon of vigilante killings, in particular by implementing the recommendations made by Professor Philip Alston, special rapporteur of the United Nation’s Extra-judicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions.

“Though he has made recommendations for the authorities to address this, the unabated murders are a stark reality that none of his recommendations have so far been implemented,” an excerpt of Moon’s letter said.

Apart from appealing to Commissioner de Lima, Moon also express disappointments in his letter to Mayor Acharon’s over the latter’s continued inaction to respond to appeals calling for him to take action; and of his local police, into effectively stopping and subsequently solving the unsolved vigilante killings in his city.

Moon was also disappointed of Mayor Acharon for not responding to letters of appeals sent to his office. The AHRC, according to Moon, has since never received any response from his office informing of any action that has been taken, if there are any, to the deteriorating condition of security there.

STATEMENT: Below is the full text of the statement from three lawyers groups in Mindanao–Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), the Union of Peoples’ Lawyers in Mindanao (UPLM), and the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG)–calling for a stop to vigilante killings there .

This was their response to the continuing vigilante killings in Southern Mindanao, particularly in the city of Davao in recent times. The day their statement came out, another four persons, one of whom female, were reported to have been wounded in separate shooting incidents.

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AT GLANCE: From July 11 to 14, vigilante yet again murdered ten persons in separate incidents in three cities and in a municipality. These deaths took place, once again, in cities of Davao, General Santos and Cebu/Sugbu. One was reported in the municipality of Bansalan, Davao del Sur, a place close to Digos City, where murders perpetrated by vigilante groups has also since been taking place.

Apart from having no qualms of killing their targets in a crowded places and broad daylight, in Case No. 7 mentioned below, even themselves had called for a police assistance for the latter to take a man whom they shot to the hospital. The victim, however, died on his way to the hospital.

Also, these scenarios wherein unknown corpses obviously victims of extrajudicial executions—some of the corpses have had traces of torture injuries, their feet were tied with wires, shot at close range—have also become an ordinary occurrence in some villages in the city of Davao, as mentioned in Cases Nos. 4 and 6.

Also in the same place, as described in Case No. 2, gunmen finished off a man in front of his pregnant wife despite the latter’s pleas to spare her husband’s wife. The victim, in attempt to spare his wife’s life as well, pushed her away before the gunmen repeatedly shot him dead to finished him off.

Meanwhile, Case No. 5 mentions the shooting of an armed militia of a villager over claims the victim was caught red handed stealing. However, the victim said he though he admitted to have tried to steal a sack of rubber, he had already yield himself in to the militiamen who had caught him, yet he was shot.

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CASE BRIEFS: From July 7 to 9, six persons, one of whom a foreign national, were reported to have been murdered in separate incidents. Two crime suspects were murdered over revenge rendering courts useless; three others were killed by “vigilantes” and one over continuing unsolved robbery cases.

In Cases No. 2 and 5, these murders explain the loss of faith by aggrieved parties of crimes as they themselves takes the laws into their own hands. Even though the perpetrators of these murders could not be ascertain whether or not they are relatives of the victims, but these deaths often impliedly endorsed or well receive.

The lack of faith to administration of justice has in fact breeds the notion of an alternative justice—”the vigilantes”. Vigilantes could carry on killing their targets because they knew they would not be held to account anyway and that they have had the implied acquiescence of the public; and the victim losses faith to any notion of justice as they themselves could not obtain any sort.

This killing proves true to Cases 3, 4 and 6. The police digs into the victim’s background instead of investigating who the murderers were, the victim’s deaths was prematurely concluded as perpetrated supposedly by vigilantes; and the other one had his corpse found in a bush which has traces of torture.

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MURDER OF CRIME SUSPECTS: In September 2007, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has issued a statement regarding the pattern of murders wherein the victims of extra-judicial executions, most of them are crime suspects, are killed with banner/placards hung on their necks, saying they are criminals, or had committed a crime in justifying their deaths.

This nature of murders though, as it is reported in this report, is common not only in Metro Manila, but also in other places in the Philippines.

The report above had claimed that the dead body could be that of a person who had criminal record charged for robbery. The paper recovered from the victim’s body, which contains a certificate of discharge (from a detention facility), had a name Luis Canafuego, 35 years of age and a resident of Tondo, Manila, on it.

It could not be immediately known however whether the name on the paper and the dead man are the same. The dead body has had placards on its neck, which says “Holdaper ‘to wag pamarisan (He was a robber, do not be like him), imputing that he was a person of bad character.

When the dead body was found by a passers by, his entire face has had adhesive tape wrapped around it, his neck strangled with metal wires, his hands had handcuffs on behind his back and had skulls and snake tattoo marks on his right arm. It is reported that he could of died from strangulation.

CASE BRIEF: On July 2, two separate shooting incidents took place; one was done similar to vigilante style attacks in General Santos City while the other victim was shot dead by a village policeman as the former tries to attack his wife with a bladed weapon. These two incidents demonstrate the lack of effective implementation on the regulations regarding carrying of firearms which has already undermined the security and safety of the people there.

In these places, not only vigilante groups had been able to carry firearms and shots their targets in open public, even those who have no authority to enforce laws at all, in this case the village policemen, had been able to carry firearms and performs duties similar to those of regular police officers.

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DEPRIVE ANY CHANCE TO REFORM: On June 30, three persons had been attacked on vigilante pretext; one of them was killed, in separate incidents in Cagayan de Oro City and Davao City. In the former, the victim had been announced as a member of a gang while the former had been attacked supposedly by Davao vigilantes. In the latter’s case though, even victims’ relatives have already resigned to these continuing killings that they themselves had expressed defeat and acquiescence as the victims had somehow committed wrongdoings in the past.

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