(Update) AFP chief says Alston report on killings 'half-baked'

Armed Forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon on Wednesday criticized the final report of UN rapporteur Philip Alston, who earlier affirmed that the Arroyo administration, through the military, had been carrying out a national policy of killing leftist activists Esperon said Alston’s report was “half-baked" because the latter only spent 10 days in the Philippines before he came out with the report that solely blamed the military for the killings. “I wish Mr. Alston had better and more complete sources. He was here for 10 days and suddenly he’s an expert in human rights in the Philippines, much more an expert in insurgency in the Philippines," Esperon said during the 2nd Mindanao Indigenous Peoples Convention for Peace and Development at the Royal Mandaya Hotel in Davao City. He said the AFP never denied that some soldiers were involved in extrajudicial killings. However, Esperon said the admission didn’t mean that Alston could all together blame the military, and conclude that the AFP was not doing anything to solve the killings and punish the perpetrators. Esperon said two soldiers, one an enlisted personnel, and the other an officer were already facing court martial proceedings for the killing of radio broadcaster Rolly Cañete in Pagadian City in January 2006, and a Sangguniang Kabataan chairperson in Rizal, Cagayan province on December 13, 2006. “Had he (Alston) stayed longer or had he talked to more people other than those people that gave him the initial data, then he could have known more about the real situation of human rights in the Philippines," the AFP chief said. In his final report on the extra-judicial killings in the Philippines released on Monday, Alston doubted the claim of the military that the killings were a result of the purge within the ranks of the New People’s Army to neutralize spies and undermine the government. Alston called the state of denial of the military on the scope of the killings as “a cynical attempt to displace responsibility." The UN Human Rights Council earlier instructed Alston to investigate the killing of activists and journalists in the Philippines after international human rights groups raised concern on the alarming rate of cases of extrajudicial killings in the country. But Esperon said the military was not into condoning these killings. “(Human rights) is institutionalized in our promotion system, it is institutionalized in our values system," he said. Alston’s report, according to Esperon “is blind on one side (as it) only sees the other side." Also Wednesday, Malacañang said the report of UN rapporteur on extrajudicial killings in the Philippines is not updated and was not given fair treatment by the media. Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said that the military's being in a "state of denial" was Alston's opinion and that he did not consider that the Philippines has an insurgency problem. Ermita, in his weekly press conference, also said Alston's report is not updated because it is similar to what he said during his exit press conference in Makati City after his stay in the Philippines from February 2 to 21. "It's very hard that over a period of 10 days, for an outsider to claim that he could have gotten a full blown evidence about the situation in a place like the Philippines, especially because we have an insurgency problem," he said. He said the report did not include developments in the Philippines since Alston left last February. "Let's leave Mr Alston to his opinion…He was unconvinced (about the mass graves). We cannot fault a rapporteur of the UN," he said. Ermita said the government has been providing the UN rapporteur with materials on these developments with the hope that these would be included in his final report. - GMANews.TV