Army vows reform after posting of torture video

The Philippine Army said on Tuesday it would review training procedures after a video was posted on the Internet showing half-naked cadets being beaten with sticks during drills. The 130,000-strong military has been struggling to improve its image after a 2007 U.N. report blamed soldiers for human rights abuses, including dozens of documented political killings and disappearances of left-wing activists and suspected Maoist rebels, including journalists. "As a matter of policy, there has to be no physical contact," Army commander Lieutenant-General Arturo Ortiz told reporters in the capital Manila. "We have taken preemptive and proactive measures to instill discipline in the organisation." Ortiz said the incident, posted on Youtube (www.youtube.com), happened three years ago and soldiers in the video had been disciplined. On Monday, a senior military officer said the AFP had relieved the officials involved in the supposed torture of trainee soldiers in Bicol, but is now re-investigating the case after a video showing the alleged abuse surfaced on the Internet. Col. Domingo Tutaan, the head of the AFP’s Human Rights Office, said the new investigation seeks to determine if additional punishments should be imposed on the soldiers who supervised the training. He also said the training module on escape and evasion, which was what the trainees were undergoing on the video, was already scrapped. — with Reuters, RSJ, GMA News