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Rights advocates criticize Oplan Bantay Laya extension


The military's decision to extend Oplan Bantay Laya, an anti-insurgency strategy that has been linked to extra-judicial killings, has drawn criticism from human rights advocates who are pushing the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to improve its record instead. "Dapat si President Noy at ang secretary of national defense, hindi ang AFP, ang magpapasya sa ganun. Di dapat patagalin, kundi rebisahin at palitan, ang Oplan Bantay Laya, sa konteksto ng prosesong pangkapayapaan," former Akbayan Rep. Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel said in a text message. Commission on Elections (Comelec) chairman Jose Melo, who headed a fact-finding body that investigated the spate of media killings during the Arroyo administration, also expressed concern about the military's decision and said, "They should exert efforts to improve (their) human rights record." The AFP has extended Oplan Bantay Laya II, which the military began implementing in June 2007 and expired at the end of the Arroyo administration last June, for six months. Melo explained that in 2006, there were 144 victims of extrajudicial killings - all of them unarmed and many of them abducted before they were killed. "Hindi bale kung naglabanan sila... pero walang ginagawang masama (It would have been alright if they were killed in battle but they were not doing anything)," he told GMANews.TV. The former Supreme Court justice said government personnel that are aware of circumstances surrounding the unexplained disappearances of people who are seen as insurgents "can be liable themselves under the law." He expressed hope that President Aquino's administration would keep its promise of upholding human rights in crafting the new anti-insurgency campaign. Human rights reform needed Meanwhile, former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo questioned the military's delay in promoting human rights among its personnel. "Why wait till Jan 1, 2011 to give primacy to respecting human rights under a new oplan, as Gen David stated?" he said in a text message to GMANews.TV. He said the extension of the counter-insurgency plan up to the end of 2010 would mean the new military leadership "is upholding the continuance of extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations associated with Oplan Bantay Laya." Since 2001, there have been 1,205 documented victims of extrajudicial killings and 206 documented victims of enforced disappearances, said Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casino. "The numbers will likely increase under the new government unless serious measures are undertaken and moreso since it has extended Oplan Bantay Laya," the lawmaker said. Casino reminded the government about the recommendation of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions Prof. Philip Alston during his country mission to the Philippines in 2007 for the removal of counter-insurgency operations. Alston had called on then-President Gloria Arroyo as “Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to take concrete steps to put an end to those aspects of counterinsurgency operations which have led to the targeting and execution of many individuals working with civil society organizations." He recommended that command responsibility be made a basis for criminal liability, and that military officers should refrain from making public statements linking political or civil society groups to rebels. In 2009, Alston issued a follow-up report that noted a reduction in extrajudicial killings in the country, but observed that “reforms directed at institutionalizing the reduction of killings of leftist activists and others, and in ensuring command responsibility for abuses have not been implemented". - YA, GMANews.TV

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