MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / June 26, 2013) – A Filipino human rights group has condemned the widespread use of torture and human rights violation perpetrated by state forces in the Philippines.
“No matter how the Aquino government denies the use of torture, state security forces in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police resort to and apply it to their victims, inside and outside prison,” Marie Enriquez, chairperson of the group called Karapatan, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
She said for the first three years of the Aquino government, Karapatan has documented at least 76 cases of torture, more than half of the 128 cases under the nine years of the Arroyo administraion.
“The Anti-Torture Law, enacted in 2009, has not prevented the government to use torture to extract information from detainees or abducted persons. The government violates its own laws,” Enriquez said.
She said foremost among these cases is the torture of security guard Rolly Panesa, who was mistaken to be a top-ranking leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Panesa was badly beaten during interrogation inside a military camp, according to Enriquez, adding photos of the man’s bruised and swollen face, including medical certificates, proved what he went through. She said Panesa is still in jail for nearly eight months now.
She said in Samar in central Philippines, soldiers from the 87th Infantry Battalion, also tortured Richard Oblino, 25, and his teenage nephew on February 28 after they were ordered to surrender their guns.
Richard had a bolo with him which he used for farm work and soldiers forced him to the ground and took off his shirt and used it to blindfold him. Then they stomped on his legs and stomach; they poured water in his mouth, Enriquez said.
She said another group of soldiers also tortured Richard’s nephew – they wrapped his head with a plastic bag as they kicked him on the legs and punched him.
She said the soldiers inserted bullets between his fingers and pressed hard. A soldier fired his gun near the teenager’s head and shouted “Surender n’yo armas n’yo! (Surrender your gun!)” to which Orlan replied, “Waray ako armas, sir (I have no gun, sir.)”
On May 29, 2012, Cesar Graganta and his two friends were walking in Villa Hermosa village in Macalelon town in Quezon province when he and his two companions passed by a group of soldiers who are members of the 85th Infantry Battalion. The soldiers fired a shot prompting Cesar’s companions to run.
The soldiers took Cesar and tied him to a tree for one and-a-half hours while they interrogated him. Soldiers punched and kicked him, put a bolo against his neck, hit him with a piece of bamboo, put sharp sticks into his ears, tied a rope around his neck and pulled at it, pinched his nose with pliers and poured ants on his body, Enriquez said.
“The government cannot fool the people by simply dishing out pro-human rights hype in media. What happens on the ground will humiliate the Aquino government. Aquino cannot dismiss the torture victims as isolated cases, and not a government policy, because torture is resorted to all over the country as a component of its Oplan Bayanihan,” she said.
Enriquez feared the next three years of President Benigno Aquino will be marked by continuing, if not worsening human rights violations like his predecessors resort to the continuing use of Oplan Bayanihan, the code name of the government’s anti-insurgency campaign.
“The people must remain ever vigilant of the intensification of fascist attacks by this government just like the struggle the people waged against the fascist attacks of the former dictator Marcos,” she said.
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