Philippine Extrajudicial Killings and Desaparecidos

Extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances in the Philippines are illegal executionsunlawful or felonious killingsand forced disappearances in the Philippines. These are forms of extrajudicial punishment, and include extrajudicial executions, summary executions, arbitrary arrest and detentions, and failed prosecutions due to political activities of leading political, trade union members, dissident and/or social figures, left-wing political parties, non-governmental organizations, political journalists, outspoken clergy, anti-mining activists, agricultural reform activists, members of organizations that are alleged as allied or legal fronts of the communist movement (such as the "Bayan group") or claimed supporters of the NPA and its political wing, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

Extrajudicial killings are most commonly referred to as "salvaging" in Philippine English. The word is believed to be a direct Anglicization of Tagalog '' salbahe'' ("cruel", "barbaric"), from Spanish '' salvaje'' ("wild", "savage").

EJKs that occurred during the administration of Rodrigo Duterte, at the sub-national level, are more likely to occur in provinces that have high population densities, stronger state capacities, and those that are more affluent in terms of economic development. It is also found that higher rates of EJKs are correlated with provinces that have severe drug affectation rates, and those areas where Duterte's vote share in the 2016 elections are highest, indicating the presence of vertical accountability.

Nature

Philippine extrajudicial killings are politically motivated murders committed by government officers, punished by local and international law or convention. They include assassinations; deaths due to strafing or indiscriminate firing; massacre; summary execution is done if the victim becomes passive before the moment of death (i.e., abduction leading to death); assassination means forthwith or instant killing while massacre is akin to genocide or mass extermination; thus, killings occurred in many regions or places throughout the Philippines in different times - 136 killings in Southern Tagalog region were recorded by human rights group Karapatan from 2001 to May 19, 2006.

Desaparecidos

A forced disappearance (desaparecidos), on the other hand, as form of extrajudicial punishment is perpetrated by government officers, when any of its public officers abducts an individual, to vanish from public view, resulting to murder or plain sequestration. The victim is first kidnapped, then illegally detained in concentration camps, often tortured, and finally executed and the corpse hidden. In Spanish and Portuguese, "disappeared people" are called ''desaparecidos'', a term which specifically refers to the mostly South American victims of state terrorism during the 1970s and the 1980s, in particular concerning Operation Condor. In the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, "Enforced disappearance" is defined in Article 2 of the United Nations Convention Against Torture as "the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law."

Even if Philippine Republic Act No. 7438 provides for the rights of persons arrested, detained, it does not punish acts of enforced disappearances. Thus, on August 27, Bayan Muna (People First), Gabriela Women's Party (GWP), and Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) filed House Bill 223, later promulgated as Republic Act No. 10353"An act defining and penalizing the crime of enforced or involuntary disappearance." Sen. Jinggoy Estrada also filed last June 30, 2007, Senate Bill No. 2405"An Act Penalizing the Commission of Acts of Torture and Involuntary Disappearance of Persons Arrested, Detained or Under Custodial Investigation, and Granting Jurisdiction to the Commission on Human Rights to Conduct Preliminary Investigation for Violation of the Custodial Rights of the Accused, Amending for this Purpose Sections 2, 3 and 4 of RA 7438, and for Other Purposes."

Background

Marcos regime

In 1995, 10,000 Filipinos won a U.S. class-suit against the Ferdinand Marcos estate. The charges were filed by victims or their surviving relatives for torture, execution and disappearances. Human rights groups placed the number of victims of extrajudicial killings under martial law at 1,500 and over 800 abductions; Karapatan (a local human rights group's) records show 759 involuntarily disappeared (their bodies never found). Military historian Alfred McCoy in his book ''Closer than Brothers: Manhood at the Philippine Military Academy'' and in his speech "Dark Legacy" cites 3,257 extrajudicial killings, 35,000 torture victims, and 70,000 incarcerated during the Marcos years. The newspaper ''Bulatlat'' places the number of victims of arbitrary arrest and detention at 120,000.

The New People's Army (NPA) groups known as "Sparrow Units" were active in the mid-1980s, killing government officials, police personnel, military members, and anyone else they targeted for elimination. They were also part of an NPA operation called "Agaw Armas" (Filipino for "Stealing Weapons"), where they raided government armories as well as stealing weapons from slain military and police personnel. A low level civil war with south Muslims, Al-Qaeda sympathizers and communist insurgents has led to a general break down of law and order. The Philippines government has promised to curb the killings, but is itself implicated in many of the killings.

Since 1975, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has been deeply involved in politics. Because of the armed conflict, the military continued its campaign versus the New People's Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Since 1969 it aimed to establish a Marxist regime with armed rebellion against the government.

Under President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, left-wing nongovernmental organizations were critical of her administration. Members of these organizations who were red-tagged as members of the CPP and NPA were targeted in a series of political killings. Human Rights Watch investigated extrajudicial murders in the Philippines in September 2007.
Three major investigation groups were commissioned and their final reports were submitted and published: the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo government-appointed bodies: a) Task Force Usig created by her on August; as a special police body, it was assigned to solve 10 cases of killings; it claimed having solved 21 cases, by initiating court cases, but only 12 suspects were arrested; b) the Melo Commission (chaired by Supreme Court Associate Justice Jose Melo) with members National Bureau of Investigation Director Nestor Mantaring, Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño, Bishop Juan de dios Pueblos, and Nelia Torres Gonzales; its final report states: "There is no official or sanctioned policy on the part of the military or its civilian superiors to resort to what other countries euphemistically call "alternative procedures"meaning illegal executions. However, there is certainly evidence pointing the finger of suspicion at some elements and personalities in the armed forces, in particular General Jovito Palparan, as responsible for an undetermined number of killings, by allowing, tolerating, and even encouraging the killings." (Melo Commission report, p. 53), and c) Philip Alston, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions (February 12 to 21, 2007).

Remedies

Malacañang's peace summit and Puno's killings summit

* Because of the magnitude of Philippine killings and desaparecidos, 22nd Chief Justice Reynato Puno of the Supreme Court of the Philippines called a National Consultative Summit on extrajudicial killings on July 16 and 17, 2007, at the Manila Hotel. Participants included representatives from government (including the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the PNP, Commission on Human Rights (Philippines), media, academe, civil society

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