ASIA International Mission Backs Local Christian Leaders' Human Rights Appeal

Posted: 9th August 2005

Carmencita Karagdag from Peace of Life group hosts the July 20 press conference..

QUEZON CITY, Philippines (UCAN) -- A recent international mission that examined allegations of human rights abuse in the Philippines has concluded that a military approach to conflict resolution does not work.

The Pastoral Ecumenical Delegation ended its late July visit with a call for dialogue between the conflicting parties and a comprehensive approach by the government to protect rural communities.

the delegation's 13 members came from Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Norway, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and the United States. During the visit, they traveled July 14-19 with Filipino Catholic and Protestant Church leaders to Tarlac province, northwest of Manila, to Leyte and Samar provinces in the central Philippines, and to Butuan, Davao and Surigao in the south.

On July 20, Clement John of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches and Tony Waworuntu of the Christian Conference of Asia in Hong Kong presented the delegation's findings at a press conference in Quezon City, northeast of Manila. Thereafter, they presented the same to the executive secretary and the human rights commissioner of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The ecumenical mission assigned each of its three groups to one conflict area. They dialogued July 15-17 with victims of killings and human-rights abuses and their families, as well as with government officials, non-government, community, religious and Church organizations and military officials. The groups also consulted with Manila-based NGOs, media workers and other interested people who joined the delegation's public forum on July 20.

The mission gave to Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and Human Rights Commissioner Wilhelm Soriano a proposal requesting an "immediate and impartial investigation" of all recent extrajudicial executions, revision of the government's military strategy so as to protect innocent civilians in its anticommunist insurgency war, and resumption of stalled peace talks with the communist National Democratic Front.

The ecumenical mission also urged the government to promote agrarian reform and ancestral domain rights of indigenous peoples, and to repeal the 1995 Philippine Mining Act that opened up mining ventures to foreigners.

Five Asian and western Church leaders went to Mindanao where they visited a community of indigenous Manobo people in Han-ayan, Lianga town, in Surigao del Sur province, 800 kilometers southeast of Manila. They met a 9-year-old boy who wept as he narrated how soldiers had held a knife at his throat and told him to start digging a hole for his grave with his bare hands. The soldiers reportedly told him he would probably become a fighter of the communist New People's Army, so they may as well kill him now.

Mission members reported more stories of abuse from other residents, who claimed intimidation had been used to force them to leave the area so that a mining company could begin operations there.

The mission team declared, "We were deeply impressed by the courage of the Han-ayan people ... working hard for their own development" without government support. In its written report, the group wrote that "the story was the same everywhere" in Butuan City and Davao and Lianga.

Another such group visited Leyte and Samar provinces, where a lawyer and Reverend Edison Lapuz of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines are believed to have been killed unlawfully on March 14 and May 12 respectively. At least six UCCP members in those provinces have reportedly been ambushed or assassinated during the first quarter of 2005.

A "top political leader," whom the ecumenical group did not name, reportedly told the mission about his "frustration" concerning documented offenses committed by the military since February 2005 when Brigadier General Jovito Palparan, Jr. became commanding general for the Eastern Visayas area.

This group concluded that militarization of the area is "supported" and "unchallenged" by the government because the military "is set up to (protect) economic investments" in commercial logging, marine and fishing industries, geothermal power and mineral deposits.

The mission group observed that clergy and lay people whom the group met "clearly demonstrated a Gospel spirituality of prophetic urgency and pastoral care" that involves challenging those entrusted with power and "who abuse this power," while articulating "a voice on behalf of the voiceless."

The third group visited Hacienda Luisita where sugar workers have been on strike at a plantation and mill owned by the family of former president Corazon Cojuangco Aquino in Tarlac province.

This group reported that "someone" should be held accountable for violence that erupted on Nov. 16 when a joint military and police team dispersed the workers. The subsequent killings of Philippine Independent Church Father William Tadena, Tarlac City Councilor Abel ldera and Marcelo Beltran are believed linked to their support for the strikers. The group also discovered that Philippine Independent Church Bishop Alberto Ramento has received a death threat through a mobile phone text message.

This group's report calls attention to the "moral issue" of a Cojuangco family move to distribute stocks to legitimate farmer beneficiaries under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, instead of subdividing and distributing the land to tenants who were to buy the land under reasonable payment terms. The Stock Distribution Option was devised under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program during Aquino's term as president 1986-1992.

The World Council of Churches (WCC), an umbrella group for 347 Churches, said it is concerned about "the meeting or building up of human beings." As urged by the National Council of Churches of the Philippines, the WCC wrote Arroyo on March 31 asking her to open an independent investigation into the military's alleged atrocities in areas the mission groups visited.

WCC's partner on the mission, the Christian Conference of Asia, is composed of 1,116 churches in 19 Asian countries, set up in 18 different councils.

Article Source: UCANEWS