Militants to bring ‘Morong 43’ case to UN body

Human rights groups is wet to drag Philippine government officials to the United Nations' Human Rights Council in Geneva over the case of the so-called Morong 43. Karapatan and Ecumenical Voice for Peace and Human Rights on Sunday said they are preparing to file a complaint against state forces for the February arrest. An article posted on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines news site quoted Ecumenical Voice convener Fr. Rex Reyes Jr. as saying they will also bring to the UN's attention the human rights violations under the government's anti-insurgency campaign Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL). Last February, government troops arrested 43 health workers in Morong town in Rizal, suspecting them to be communist rebels. Members of the delegation said they hope the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) will press the Philippine government to adhere to international human rights instruments and stop human rights violations in the Philippines. Reyes also said his group hopes the UNHRC will help push the new administration of president-apparent Sen. Benigno Simeon “Noynoy" Aquino III to fulfill his promise to prosecute outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and give justice to the victims of human rights violations, among other political and economic issues. Members of the delegation that will visit UN include Reyes, Marie Hilao-Enriquez (Chairwoman, Karapatan), lawyer Edre Olalia (Acting Secretary General, National Union of People's Lawyers), Jigs Clamor (Deputy Secretary General, Karapatan and husband of Merry Clamor of the Morong 43), and lawyer Carlos Zarate (Secretary General, Union of Peoples' Lawyers in Mindanao). Reyes, secretary-general of the National Council of Churches of the Philippines (NCCP), added the nine-year reign of Mrs. Arroyo is “marked as the worst in terms of adherence to human rights [treatises]." “With the implementation of OBL, the most vicious counterinsurgency program in recent memory, her government tops the scale of human rights violators in the country’s history since the martial law years," he said. Karapatan records claimed there were 1,191 victims of extrajudicial killings, 205 victims of enforced disappearances; 1,028 victims of torture; and hundreds of thousands of people forcibly evacuated and displaced in rural areas due to military operations under OBL. — LBG, GMANews.TV