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MANILA, Philippines ? The administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has failed to meet three conditions set by the United States Congress for the partial release of military aid to the Philippines in 2008, 237 US-based labor, human rights, and church groups told American lawmakers Tuesday (Manila time).
The groups asked THE American lawmakers to stop funding the Philippine military until the Arroyo government met the conditions, which have to do with the protection of human rights.
They also asked the US Congress to require the State Department to be more transparent and make public its human rights certification to the Philippines.
"These steps are necessary to ensure that US military aid does not directly or indirectly promote human rights violations and undermine democracy in the Philippines. The rights and freedoms of the Filipino people depend on it," said the lobby groups in their letter to the US Congress, a copy of which was provided INQUIRER.net.
In the 2008 US budget, the Philippines was required to fully implement the 2007 recommendations of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings Philip Alston to prosecute military personnel and others responsible for human rights violations, and to stop "the vilification of legal civil society organizations by the military."
"The Philippine government did not meet any of these conditions in 2008, however, the Department of State provided the Philippines with the full FMF [foreign military financing] allocation. We are very concerned about the lack of transparency in the reporting process," the American activists said.
In their letter, the lobby groups noted that, in the 2009 US budget, the same conditions were set for the release of $30 million in military aid to the Philippines, as reported out by the Senate Appropriations Committee last July.
They also noted that the conditions affect only $2 million of the total $30 million in foreign military financing and asked that the requirements be made to cover all American aid to the Philippines in the 2009 budget.
"The experience in 2008 demonstrates that conditioning only a portion of the military aid, and then sending it without significant scrutiny, sends the wrong signal to the Philippine government, because the human rights violations have continued with impunity," they said.
In an e-mail to INQUIRER.net, Brian Campbell of the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) said the groups signed and delivered on February 9 a letter to members of Congress "raising concern about human rights abuses committed by the Philippine military using US taxpayer funding."
US President Barack Obama, in his inaugural speech, set his foreign policy to include strict adherence to the principles of human rights and rule of law.
