Aquino lies on rights abuses to get $13M US aid, says Karapatan

President Benigno Aquino III. AP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—A human rights group on Friday assailed President Benigno Aquino III for lying on the continuing human rights violations in the Philippines in a bid to get the $13 million in US military aid.

Cristina Palabay, Karapatan Secretary General, said in a statement that the government told “lies on the human rights situation [of the Philippines to] the international community, through the Universal Periodic Review process at the United Nations.”

She said that the government was telling a different story in order to “justify the release of the more than $13 million in US military assistance to the [Philippines], which was blocked since 2008, when international solidarity groups brought to fore the issues of extrajudicial killings and other rights violations in the Philippines.”

“While [government] officials claimed at the UN and, among US parliamentarians, that the Aquino government is taking concrete steps to address extrajudicial killings … indigenous peoples’ leader Genesis Ambason was shot and tortured to death by paramilitary groups in Agusan del Sur last week,” Palabay said.

“Human rights defenders, victims and their relatives, and communities under military attack can attest to the prevailing, if not more emboldened, climate of impunity under Aquino,” she added.

Karapatan said that under the Aquino administration, Ambason is already the 112th victim of political killings. “The 112 cases of extrajudicial killings under Aquino remain pending either at the prosecutorial or court levels,” Palabay said.

Those who were responsible for the extrajudicial killings and disappearances have yet to be brought to justice, she said. Among those blamed by Karapatan were former President and now Pampanga representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, retired General Jovito Palparan, and former Palawan Governor Joel Reyes.

The Cybercrime Prevention Law of 2012 nwas also hit by Karapatan as illustrating the climate of impunity under Aquino.

“Instead of enacting the Anti-enforced disappearance bill and the Marcos Victims Compensation bill, Aquino has expedited and signed into law the Cybercrime Prevention Law which infringes on the right to freedom of expression. All of these illustrate the state of impunity under Aquino,” she concluded.