From the Womens Anti-Imperialist League
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PHILIPPINES: THE KILLING FIELDS OF ASIA
James Petras and Robin Eastman-Abaya
March 2006
Introduction
Since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo joined the US global
War on Terrorism, the Philippines has become the site of an on-going
undeclared war against peasant and union activists, progressive political
dissidents and lawmakers, human rights lawyers and activists, women leaders
and a wide range of print and broadcast journalists. Because of the links
between the Army, the regime and the death squads, political assassinations
take place in an atmosphere of absolute impunity. The vast majority of the
attacks occur in the countryside and provincial towns. The reign of terror
in the Philippines is of similar scope and depth as in Colombia. Unlike
Colombia, the rampaging state terrorism has not drawn sufficient attention
from international public opinion.
Between 2001 and 2006 hundreds of killings, disappearances, death threats
and cases of torture have been documented by the independent human rights
center ,KARAPATAN , and the church-linked Ecumenical Institute for Labor
Education and Research. Since Macapagal Arroyo came to power in 2001
there have been 400 documented extrajudicial killings. In 2004, 63 were
killed and in 2005, 179 were assassinated and another 46 disappeared and
presumed dead. So far in the first 2 ½ months of 2006 there have been 26
documented political assassinations.
An analysis of the class and social background of the victims of this
systematic state terror in 2005 demonstrates that the largest sector, about
70, have been peasants and peasant leaders involved in land and farm labor
disputes. The military has invariably accused the murdered and disappeared
peasants of links to or sympathy with the communist guerrillas or Muslim
separatists. The victims include members of the national farmers
association, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), as well as Igorot,
Agta and Moro indigenous minority peasant leaders involved in protecting
their lands. One notorious massacre occurred in late November 2005 when 47
peasants and their legal representatives held an open, public meeting over
a land dispute in Palo, Leyte in the Visayas. A large force of soldiers
surrounded and attacked the meeting killing 9 peasants outright and
arresting over a dozen. An additional 18 disappeared and are presumed
dead. The Palo Massacre of the members of the San Agustin Farmers
Beneficiaries Cooperative and Alang-Alang Small Farmers Association was at
first presented by the armed forces as a military encounter with the New
Peoples Army and a few homemade weapons were planted on the victims. In
this, as in all other cases, none of the perpetrators have been punished
and there has been no official investigation.
Workers and labor leaders form the next largest group of victims of
assassination (at least 18) not including the disappeared and presumed
dead. Members of a national labor federation, Kilusan Mayo Uno (May First
Movement), Nestles Workers Union, Central Azucareara de Tarlac, Negros
Federation of Sugar Workers, a leader of the Department of Agrarian Reform
Employee Association, regional college employee union leaders and various
militants in both the electrical company and bus company employee unions
were murdered in 2005.
Earlier in 2005, 26 unarmed Muslim detainees in a military prison in Manila
were shot protesting against their prolonged and arbitrary detention, lack
of a trial date and horrific prison conditions. These men were mostly
vendors and displaced peasants and fishermen living with their families in
Manila. They were accused , but never convicted, of membership in the Abu
Sayaf kidnapping gang.
Seven print and radio journalists and writers were killed in 2005 as well
as seven attorneys and judges involved in human rights, labor and land
dispute cases. Among the religious community, there were 3 targeted
assassinations of clergy and 7 church workers, all involved in advocacy
work with the poor, peasants, workers and national minorities.
This listing of killings in 2005 doesnt included attempted assassinations,
illegal detention and torture and unreported disappearances. The victims
were killed by death squads controlled by the military with the aim of
protecting the power of the large landowners and land grabbers, timber and
mining barons and company bosses with the connivance of the regime.
Another important group of victims, which overlaps with peasants and
workers associations, are the 83 leaders and members of the popular left
political party, Bayan Muna (The People First) and its party list
affiliates. Most were systematically murdered in the provinces outside of
Metro Manila between 2001-2005 (67 in 2005 alone). Leaders and
coordinators of allied party-list groups, such as the womens party
Gabriela and the urban poor peoples party, Anakpawis (Toiling Masses),
have been murdered, disappeared or wounded. Elected officials from Bayan
Muna, such a Tarlac City councilman, Abelardo Ladera , were shot in broad
daylight, prompting defiant provincial funeral marches. His killing
followed the notorious 2004 massacre of hacienda union workers in Tarlac
and the subsequent systematic elimination of witnesses.
A breakdown of the 66 death squad killings of members and supporters of
the progressive political parties in 2005 include 33 from militant urban
poor peoples party Anakpawis and 30 from Bayan Muna. Five members of
Anakpawis and 3 from Bayan Muna have disappeared and are presumed dead in
2005. So far three Bayan Muna officials have been assassinated in the
first 10 weeks of 2006.
Since 2003, the Philippines became the 2nd most dangerous country for
journalists after Iraq because of the staggering number of reporters killed
and disappeared by death squads. Most recently a radio reporter involved
in exposing abuses at a local mine was kidnapped by death squads working
for the mine owners in late February 2006 and is presumed dead.
State sponsored terror today is reminiscent of the worst days of martial
law, under the Dictator Ferdinand Marcos (1972-1986). As under Marcos the
entire countryside is virtually under military control sharply limiting the
role of civilian administrators. A manual published by the Macapagal
regime, entitled Knowing the Enemy is used by the Armed Forces throughout
the country to label legal mass organizations and civil rights groups, like
the Philippine Association of Protestant Lawyers, as supporters of
terrorism.
The combined military-death squad campaign has all the earmarks of
US-sponsored low intensity warfare against the civilian population. The
military proscribes or labels individuals and groups as terrorists on the
basis of what it claims to be secret intelligence in order to criminalize
their right to resist oppression and fight for self-determination and
justify their elimination. The creation of these lists is outside of the
process of judicial scrutiny and limits any legal protection for the
victims or their survivors. Using the black propaganda of a psychological
warfare operation, the victims and their associations are invariably
described as terrorists.
Background
A de-facto civilian-military alliance has been ruling the
Philippines, since with the declaration of Martial Law by Marcos in
1972. In the 1960s most economists considered the Philippines to be the
most economically progressive nation in South East Asia. With the advent
of the liberalization of the economy, it has become and remains the one of
the poorest and most socially polarized country in Asia, with a per capita
GDP of $950/year, about half of Thailands. With over 50% of total private
assets controlled by 15 extended super-rich families it is one of most
unequal societies in the world. In stark contrast to the rest of Asia,
there has been no economic progress in the past two decades. The
Philippines with a population of over 85 million has one of the highest
unemployment rates (20%) and an additional 30% underemployed in the
informal sector. Over 40% of the households are unable secure adequate
shelter and food; they are the indigent poor. The once highly regarded
public educational and health systems have sharply deteriorated due to
massive government cuts in social spending and privatization. The nation,
whose research institutions produced the high yield miracle rice, is now
a net importer of rice and other food staples. Malnutrition is widespread,
according to the World Health Organization. Upwards of eight million
Filipinos, unable to find decent work at home, are working abroad to
support their families Better to die working in Iraq, than to stay home
and watch your family starve was the pitiful, but common slogan of
Filipino workers clamoring for exit visas to perform menial work for the US
occupation army in Iraq. As many as 4,000 Filipino workers are believed to
be in Iraq.
In the years following the overthrow of the Marcos
dictatorship (Feb. 26, 1986) by a military and Church-backed revolt, the
subsequent elected presidents have failed to stem the ongoing deterioration
of the country. The new rulers like Corazon Aquino (1986-1992), and former
General Fidel Ramos (1992-1998), simply favored a new set of oligarchs and
set the stage for the rise to power of a corrupt populist, Joseph
Estrada. His anti-oligarch rhetoric brought him to the presidential
palace in 1998 with widespread support among the poor. Estrada became an
irritant to Washington and the traditional oligarchy by welcoming
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in 1999 and for his populist social
policies, such as handing out thousands of land titles to urban squatters.
US-designed, upper class-backed, street demonstrations
supported by sectors of the military elite culminated in the ouster of
Estrada in January 2001. The same forces hoisted his Vice President,
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the Presidency. Macapagal is a US educated,
neo-liberal economist and favorite of the US Embassy.
This political putsch led to the expansion of US military basing rights and
a new military agreement, quickly signed by Macapagal after a two year
delay during Estradas presidency. With the rise of Macapagal-Arroyo,
Washington has a reliable client.
From Populism to Neo-Liberal Terror
The newly installed Macapagal Arroyo quickly instituted a
neo-liberal program of privatizations, drastic cuts for public education
and public hospitals and onerous value-added taxes which impacted the poor
and lower middle-class. By 2005, the Philippine total external and
internal debt ballooned to over $100 billion dollars and yearly debt
servicing exceed 30% of the budget. Even 8 million overseas Filipino
workers (including a significant section of the educated professionals)
sending home $12.5 billion dollars of remittances in 2005 could not begin
to cover debt servicing. The Philippines bears the dubious distinction of
being the only country in Asia to have seen a drop in per capita GDP during
and since the heady years of the Asian Tiger boom.
Macapagal Arroyos family and cronies have been implicated in
the same levels of corruption as that attributed to the deposed President
Estrada. Mike Arroyo, the Presidents husband, remains in self-imposed
exile in the US to avoid facing charges of graft and fraud. Macapagal
Arroyo maintains her support among the military by offering lucrative
concessions to favorite generals and key officials in the military leading
to deep discontent among the junior ranks of the armed forces forced to
survive on low wages. As a result, several mutinies of junior officers and
soldiers occurred, the largest of which was the takeover of an upscale
Manila shopping and apartment complex in July 2003 by 300 soldiers from the
special forces and the more recent uprising of Marines in January of this
year.
Military intelligence has been implicated in a campaign of bombings both in
Manila and on the southern island of Mindanao, targeting markets, buses,
commuter trains, airports and mosques. The Macapagal regime blamed a
Moslem kidnapping gang, Abu Sayaf, and used the bombings as a justification
for greater militarization of the country. The curious timing of the
bombings, for example the December 2004 bombing of a Manila shopping
center, which killed 15, happened very soon after a devastating landslide
burying almost 1,000 townspeople in a province near Manila, exposed the
regimes incompetence in civil assistance.
Local journalist with sources in the military believe the campaign of
bombings have been carried out by the regime itself to justify requests for
more military aid from the US.
The US Connection
In December 2002 the US announced a significant expansion of
its joint US-Philippine military training exercises. The first contingent
of US troops landing on the southern island of Mindanao engaged in field
operations against the Muslim separatists. In early 2003 then-Assistant US
Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz called the Philippines the Second
Front in the War on Terror. Since then tens of thousands of Muslem
villagers have been forcibly displaced and hundreds have been tortured,
killed or disappeared. As a result Muslim guerrilla activity has increased.
In October 2003, during a visit to the Philippines, Bush cited
the Philippines as a model for the re-building of Iraq. Forgetting to
mention the US invasion of the Philippines in 1898 and 13-year pacification
campaign when upwards of 1 million Filipinos died, Bush described the
Philippines as a model of democracy a bonafide death squad democracy.
The Bush Administrations support for the Macapagal Arroyo regime has
been reciprocated: A contingent of Philippine troops was sent to Iraq over
the protests of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos. These troops were only
withdrawn when Iraqi resistance fighters threatened to execute captured
Filipino laborers in Iraq: the Philippine economy is more dependent on
remittances from its workers in the Middle East than on US aid. The
lucrative reconstruction contracts, which the Philippine elite had expected
to be awarded for its services to the Bush Administration in Iraq, never
materialized. During 2006, another contingent 5,500 US soldiers are
scheduled to arrive in Mindanao and the number of joint exercises has
doubled.
US troops are not confined to the separatist stronghold in the far south of
the country. More and more joint operations occur in the central islands
and Luzon where the communist New Peoples Army has been conducting a
campaign against the government for 40 years over issues of land reform and
oligarchic-imperialist control of the economy. With an estimated 10,000
fighters, the NPA is clearly viewed as a threat to US and local ruling
class interests.
Urban Popular Protest and Emergency Decrees
In 2004, Macapagal Arroyo narrowly defeated her rival in the Presidential
elections in a campaign marred by violence and fraud. An audiotape
released in the spring of 2005 recorded the President discussing with a top
election official the rigging of the election. Amid resignations of
members of her cabinet and calls for her resignation from the general
public, she narrowly escaped a vote of impeachment in November 2005.
Macapagal Arroyos disastrous neo-liberal economic policies, the growing
social and economic deterioration of the country, frantic attempts by the
professionals to escape through immigration, moves by restive middle level
officers and demonstrations by popular mass social movements put the
Philippines back in the international news. In early February 2006, an
even more devastating landslide brought on by rains and de-forestation,
buried almost 2,000 townspeople on the island of Leyte. The inability of
the regime to provide even the most basic aid to the victims angered the
entire nation.
On February 23, 2006, the eve of the 20th anniversary of the
overthrow of the
Marcos dictatorship, Macapagal Arroyo declared a state of emergency banning
all rallies, demonstrations and closing opposition media. She issued
orders for the arrest of 59 individuals including members of the Congress,
military officers and social critics, on charges of rebellion against her
regime. Rallies were planned to commemorate the end of the Marcos
dictatorship and to protest the electoral fraud, corruption, economic
mismanagement and human rights violations of the Macapagal Arroyo
regime. Some rallies defied the Presidents decree, went ahead and were
violently repressed.
Those charged with rebellion included 6 Congress people from leftwing
political parties, a human rights attorney, retired and active military
officers and social activists. Most of the charges have no substance and
are totally arbitrary. For example, Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) Congressman
Crispin Beltran, age 73, veteran labor leader and anti-Marcos activist, was
arrested shortly after the Emergency Rule declaration, at first on the
basis of a 25-year-old charge made during the Marcos dictatorship. When
these charges were shown to have been dropped decades earlier, he was
charged with rebellion.
This is the latest of a series of attacks on the part of the
Macapagal Arroyo regime aimed specifically at destroying class-based
political parties and trade union activity, including Bayan Muna and its
coalition partners. The campaign of assassination and disappearances of 80
members of this party alliance between 2001-2005, including mayors and
provincial elected representatives has finally reached the top elected
representatives in the Philippine Congress. In 2006, repression turned
from the countryside to the capital, from peasant leaders to Manila-based
Congress people, media, working class and left party leaders. Of the 26
political assassinations in the first 10 weeks of 2006, 3 have been Bayan
Muna officials.
The arbitrary arrest of Congressional representatives sends a
signal to the legal left that the regime will not tolerate dissent or
challenges to its policies even from within Congress.
Who are the Perpetrators?
According to the KARAPATAN, the independent human rights
organization involved in documenting and providing legal support to victims
of human rights abuses, the disappearances and assassinations are committed
by death squads in some of the most heavily militarized areas in the
Philippines. The death squads would not be able to act with impunity
without the complicity of the military. Witnesses to the killings have
themselves disappeared and the Philippine judicial system has failed to
prosecute the intellectual authors or perpetrators. Nor has the military
made any effort to investigate and arrest identified death squad
leaders. Human rights groups provide evidence that death squads operate
under the protective umbrella of regional military commands, especially the
US-trained Special Forces. Macapagals promotion of the notorious Colonel
Jovito Palparan, (Butcher of Mindoro) to General, despite extensive
documentation and testimony of gross human rights abuses points to the
Presidents support for military-backed state terrorism. When Palparan was
assigned to Central Luzon in September 2005, the number of political
assassinations in that region alone jumped to 52 in four months. Prior to
his promotion, the regions with the largest number of summary executions
like Eastern Visayas and Central Luzon were under then-Colonel Palparan.
State of the Resistance
In the face the disintegration of the economy and society, and
the regimes use of force to sustain its hold on power, faced with its
gross incompetence in the face of several natural/ecological disasters,
popular resistance has spread from the countryside to the cities. The
popular mass organizations, involving peasant and indigenous minority
farmers, industrial workers, teachers, journalists, civil servants,
students, women, artists, human rights workers, lawyers and clergy have
grown despite the campaign of state terror. On the 20th Anniversary of the
1986 overthrow of Marcos, tens of thousands defied the State of Emergency
and marched in Manila and in cities throughout the country. Over 10,000
women defied police bans to march on International Womens Day. Students
and teachers are mounting campaigns on the campuses around the
country. Former Presidents, business executives and clergy are calling for
Macapagal Arroyos resignation and a smooth transition within the elite,
while the popular mass movements and their besieged political
representatives are demanding justice for the victims of state terror, an
end to US military presence, a repeal of the value added taxes, an increase
in the minimum wage, land reform, a moratorium of debt payments,
re-nationalization of key economic sectors and consequential peace
negotiations between the state and the NPA and Muslim separatists. That
Macapagal Arroyo will eventually be forced to resign is, according to
officials, a likely outcome. The question is when and by whom? --- ###
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