“It is a historical anomaly.”
This is how the umbrella group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) described President Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III’s Philippine Truth Commission of 2010, formed through Executive Order No. 1, which is tasked with investigating corruption under the Arroyo regime but does not include human rights violations in its scope.
Bayan’s Research Group said Aquino should not have excluded human rights violations from the scope of the Truth Commission, explaining that human rights violations have often been among the means of enabling corruption and other crimes against the people.
“By stifling all dissent, corrupt leaders hope to remove all obstacles to their nefarious schemes,” the Bayan Research Group said. “How many times did the Arroyo regime, for instance, commit human rights violations to silence or try to silence whistleblowers like Marlene Esperat and Jun Lozada?”
Human rights violations were particularly rampant during the time of Aquino’s predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The Arroyo regime implemented the US-directed counter-“insurgency” program Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL), which targeted unarmed activists and even ordinary citizens in an avowed bid to destroy the “political infrastructure” of the underground revolutionary movement. The implementation of OBL resulted in more than 1,200 extrajudicial killings and more than 200 enforced disappearances. Meanwhile, more than 300 people languish in detention on account of their political beliefs.
The killings have continued, victimizing no less than six people in the first two weeks of the Aquino administration.
The Bayan Research Group noted that truth commissions have been set up within the historical context in which states are emerging or in transition from periods of civil war, dictatorship, or internal strife – during which human rights violations are particularly rampant.
Citing data from TruthCommission.org – a joint project of the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, the Washington D. C.-based non-government organization (NGO) Search for Common Ground, and the Brussels-based NGO European Centre for Common Ground – “Truth Commissions … are set up in response to specific human rights abuses, which in turn are an outgrowth of the particular history, political culture, and institutional structure of a country.”
Truth Commissions act as special bodies aiming to restore justice. South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which served as the model for the succeeding truth commissions, was able to investigate human rights abuses and restore the victims’ dignity and assist in their rehabilitation. It was seen as a crucial component in the restoration of democracy in South Africa.
Setting up a Truth Commission, therefore, to focus on corruption issues alone is a historical deviation of unprecedented kind.
The Bayan Research Group said the nearly 20 truth commissions formed from 1977 to 2002, the most notable examples being those of Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, and Guatemala were all mandated to investigate human rights abuses.
Argentina and Chile’s truth commissions both looked into the atrocities of military juntas. Those of El Salvador and Guatemala both dealt with “civil war/armed conflict...exacerbated by Cold War dynamics (proxy war)” – with a “strong racial/ethnic dimension” in Guatemala’s case.
Our neighbor East Timor’s Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation established in 2001 was an independent commission tasked to inquire into human rights violations between April 1974 and October 1999.
The truth commissions formed after 2002 – such as those in Canada, Fiji, Liberia, Morocco, Solomon Islands, and South Korea – are also tasked with investigating human rights violations, the Bayan Research Group further noted.
“President Aquino’s Truth Commission appears to be the only truth commission in history that has not included human rights abuses in its scope,” the Bayan Research Group said. “This makes the Philippine Truth Commission of 2010 some kind of a historical deviation.” ###
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