“BS Aquino’s tactic of sweeping under the rug human rights violations committed under his watch is the same scheme he is now using to cover up his accountability for carting away billions of people’s money under the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). If the use of DAP is unconstitutional and an impeachable offense, so are human rights violations committed during his four years in office,” said Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan.
“BS Aquino’s tactic of sweeping under the rug human rights violations committed under his watch is the same scheme he is now using to cover up his accountability for carting away billions of people’s money under the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). If the use of DAP is unconstitutional and an impeachable offense, so are human rights violations committed during his four years in office,” said Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan.
Palabay said the four years of the Aquino regime is replete with “lies and deceit on how it supposedly addresses extrajudicial killings and human rights violations even as these violations are unabated since BS Aquino assumed power.”
Karapatan cited the case of Fernando Baldomero, the first victim of extrajudicial killing under the Aquino regime. Baldomero was killed on July 5, 2010, five days after Aquino was sworn in as president of the Republic. Four years after, the case remains in the archives, unsolved, with the perpetrators in the military yet to be arrested and jailed.
“By coming out with Oplan Bayanihan, his own version of Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya, Aquino completely disregarded recommendations even by the international diplomatic community on the extrajudicial killings and human rights violations committed by the Macapagal-Arroyo regime,” Palabay said.
Since Baldomero’s death in 2010, Karapatan documented 204 victims of extrajudicial killings under the Aquino regime.
The Aquino government’s line—‘impunity no longer persists’ with regards to the continuing human rights violations and ‘good faith’ in relation to the abuse of people’s money under the DAP—does not work. Sooner or later he will have to face the people and account for the crimes of his regime,” Palabay concluded.