The X-Files approach to the killings
There are days when I think that the Macapagal-Arroyo government is hoping that Filipinos will think in terms of the X-Files when analyzing the issue of the relentless political and extra-judicial killings — that Filipinos will think that the killings ra being perpetrated by aliens.
Human rights organizations keep pressing that the investigations into the killings be conducted scientifically, like what the Las Vegas crime lab CSI unit under Gil Grissom does with their cases; but hell, the government insists on the X-Files-type of approach: the killings as supposedly unexplained phenomenon.
How do you explain away 830 people brutally shot and killed? All of them either human rights advocates, members of progressive partylists, or members of militant mass oragnizations? Aliens dropped out of the sky, freezed time, shot the activists, then left and went back to their spaceships? Like what’s happening in the Philippines is an intergalactix experiment of some higher form of life?
And what about the hundreds of those still missing — the desaparecidos? Are they now being considered alien abductees and can their families hope that they wil return one of these days, with strange markings on their lower backs, wrists and abdomens, with no recollection of what happened to them or where they’ve been?
It’s simply frustrating how lives do not mean jackshit to this government.
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For all of Malacanang spokesperson Ignacio Bunye’s statements to the press that his boss respects human rights and that she is giving ful attnetion to the issue of the killings, Malacanang is now refusing to release the results of the Melo Commission’s investigations. The European Union Commission and visiting United Nations Commission on Human Rights special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings have requested copies of tyhe report, but Malacanang has been less than cooperative and is stalling the report’s release. The document, it’s been said, will not be made available to the media.
What’s the logic behind Malacanang’s decision to keep the report under close wraps? Does the document pose a threat to national security? Will its release cause an immediate impact of further weakening the economy? Why is the media – and hence, the general public – being kept in the dark regarding the full contents of the Melo Report? The more Malacanang tries to keep the report under close wraps, the more we will push for the report to be made public. As guardian of the fourth estate, the media has the right to know and the responsibility to report what is contained in the Melo Commission’s official findings. The commission’s report has not been classified as top secret, so why is it being treated as such? Has Malacanang embarked on a copy-reading, editing, and re-writing campaign and is in the process of revising the report?
Some 57 Anakpawis political party members, coordinators and leaders have been killed since Anakpawis was first established in 2003. The rest are members and leaders of Bayan Muna, and members of people’s organizations under the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN). All in all, 831 activists have been killed since Arroyo came to power in 2001 Most of the killed come from the peasant and labor sectors. Just the other day, a member of the League of Filipino Students and Kabataan Party-list was gunned down in Sorsogon. All these should have been documented by the Melo Commission and noted by Malacanang (after all, Macapagal-Arroyo herself has said that the issue of the killings is important to her, right?)
Malacanang’s the one making such a big deal out of the report by keeping it from the media and the rest of the public. The controversy surrounding the Melo Commission’s findings and recommendations will not quit and go away so long as human rights organizations and other concerned parties are made aware of its full contents. The Commission’s credibility has been under fire from day one because it was Pres. Arroyo who ordered its creation as an obvious attempt to show the international commnity that she’s doing something to address the killings. Then, when the commission said that it’s b was done, it essentially absolved Macapagal-Arroyo from blame and responsibility for the killings by oh-so-carefully implying that the problem lies with the military. Now, the report is being kept under Malacnanag’s lock and key.
It’s difficult to not suspect that Malacanang and its various spin doctors are keeping the report close to their chests as yet because they want to make its contents more favorable to the administration. Otherwise, the report would have been made public as soon as it came out. It’s not exactly a document that has severe implications on national security, but perhaps Malacanang is afraid that its content is damning enough to verify and confirm the assertions of human rights groups that the Arroyo government is implementing a state policy on extrajudicial killings against activists and human rights advocates.
If Malacanang will only release the report to the European Union Commission and the United Nations Human Rights Committee, then it will only confirm the allegation that the Melo Commission was only formed to satisfy the demands of the international community. The families of the victims interviewed by the Melo Commission, for instance, also have the right to know what the commission’s conclusions are. They should not be kept in the dark. Let the members of the media read and interpret the contents of the said document. Let there be an objective reading of the report, and let the public decide.
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