Issue Analysis No. 22
September 19, 2006

IS ARROYO PRE-EMPTING EUROPEAN RIGHTS MISSION 'S WORK?

It would be interesting to watch how the Arroyo government would deal with the international rights mission which the President claims to have invited to look into the politically-motivated killings in the Philippines . The monitoring mission, which will come from Europe , will look into the human rights situation in the country as well as how state investigations, like that of the Melo Commission, are held in connection with the cases.

The mission surfaced during President Gloria M. Arroyo's trip to Europe last week where she was berated by the Finnish president and hounded by protest actions over her government's failure to stop the killings and abductions which Philippine and foreign investigations reveal are perpetrated by government forces. In fact days before her trip, European governments such as Finland and France had expressed concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines . Amnesty International (AI) in its 51-page report on the Philippines pointed to the involvement of Arroyo's security forces in the crimes and criticized her inability to rein in her military and police forces.

Thus it was international pressure and the threat of possible reduction if not total loss of European ODA (Official Development Assistance) and not Mrs. Arroyo's own initiative, as claimed by National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales that prompted her to yield in favor of an international watch. Based on reports, aside from AI member-countries of the European Commission (EC) such as Finland , Belgium and Spain are joining the mission.

Aside from Nobel Peace prize-recipient AI whose credentials as a rights watchdog are often taken as beyond reproach, the proposed mission will likely represent European governments. That being so, the results of the mission may have far-reaching implications on the future of European aid to the Arroyo government. European governments, especially those from the European Union, claim to tie their aid to a country's human rights record. That, of course, can also be disputed since EU countries are involved in states and in armed conflicts, such as in Iraq and Afghanistan , where the human rights situation is as grim.

UNHRC
The proposed European mission somewhat runs parallel to or complements efforts at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to investigate the rights-related cases in the Philippines. Families of victims of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances, together with the human rights alliance Karapatan, were set to file complaints before the UN body in Geneva on Sept. 19.

The Arroyo government is also under pressure to allow five UN Rapporteurs who have been sent by the UNHRC to the Philippines but whose visit requests have been put on hold for the past two months by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

What the European mission really intends to do and how it will conduct its monitoring remains unclear. But it would be prudent to mention the objectives and parameters of an effective investigation as defined by AI in order to guide the mission's work. In a memorandum sent by AI to Mrs. Arroyo and which was reiterated in a meeting held in London late last week, the AI's secretary general, Irene Khan, urged the Philippine president to ensure that "the Melo Commission's inquiry into political killings is transparent, independently conducted, and leads to accountability and justice for the victims."

Furthermore, said Ms. Khan, "The Commission should take a victim-centered approach, with justice for the victims as paramount…and should propose reforms which would prevent the repetition of past human rights violations, whether that means reforming laws and institutional practices or strengthening the justice system."

The AI secretary general also said that the investigation should "help restore conditions for the peace process between the government and the communists to be restarted, based on respect for human rights by all sides." The success of the European rights mission will also have to factor in whether the Arroyo government – whose human rights record is the subject of international outrage – will cooperate. Arroyo, through her national security adviser, is reportedly trying to pre-empt the international group's task by asking them to look instead into the New People's Army's "killings fields" to prove that the communists are to blame for the current human rights violations as part of its "internal purge." Coincidentally, the Melo Commission has just said it would investigate "all cases of human rights violations," including complaints filed by the AFP and police against the NPA. This, according to local rights groups, only proves allegations that the commission will only be a forum for whitewashing and saving Arroyo from her possible culpability in the killings.

The prospective members of the European mission should be sensitive to any manipulation by the Arroyo government and its security authorities that will only jeopardize its mission. For the international mission to be credible, it should look closely into the investigative process of the Melo Commission observing in particular whether, as a probe body, it is independent, impartial and not beholden to the wishes of its appointing authority. Its credibility will also be measured by holding its own investigation of the given cases. As a first step, it should review the results of several fact-finding missions already done since 2001 up to the present as well as the results of the proceedings of the International People's Tribunal and the Citizens Congress for Truth and Accountability which, among others, looked into the same complaints.

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