The human rights alliance, KARAPATAN, slams the term extension
of Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. His continued stay in the command of the
Armed Forces will mean more extrajudicial executions, disappearances and other
forms of human rights violations.
The human rights alliance, KARAPATAN, slams the term extension
of Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. His continued stay in the command of the
Armed Forces will mean more extrajudicial executions, disappearances and other
forms of human rights violations.
It is during Esperon’s
term that the administration has resorted to a national policy of
killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other human rights
violations. By implementing the vicious
Oplan Bantay Laya counter-insurgency program, the military under General
Esperon has embarked on the systematic targeting of leaders of farmer and trade
union organizations, partylist groups, church leaders, women, youth and indigenous
leaders as well as human rights workers including lawyers.
attributed the extrajudicial killings on this counter-insurgency program. Esperon and the entire military institution
including the Presidency have continuously denied any involvement even as
witnesses and evidences clearly point to military elements as the perpetrators
of these violations.
It must be recalled that in 2001, when Esperon was still the
commander of the 103 rd Brigade of the Philippine Army in Basilan, the CHR has
filed 32 cases of torture against him at the Ombudsman for the Military. Although the Ombudsman expectedly dismissed the
charges against him, these are evidences that he resorts to such gruesome
torture that are prohibited by the United Nations. This is reprehensible especially considering
that the
is a member of the Human Rights Council.
“Mrs. Arroyo’s decision to extend Esperon shows hypocrisy to
put a stop on the extrajudicial killings and other forms of human rights
violations. Also, this move of Mrs.
Arroyo does not show seriousness in bringing the perpetrators of human rights
violations to justice. The Esperon term extension can only be viewed as an
attempt of the Arroyo administration to perpetrate the culture of impunity,”
Marie Hilao-Enriquez, secretary general of Karapatan said. ###