The Shooting:

After the March 10 shooting of Siche Bustamante-Gandinao in Misamis Oriental, the victim's family carried her as far they could. Finally another motorcycle driver helped them to bring Gandinao to the municipal hall, where an ambulance came to take her to Cagayan de Oro City, an hour and a half away. They stopped at the Balingasag Medicare Hospital for first aid, but the victim was declared dead on arrival.

As in nearly all such cases, the killing was carried out by an unidentified gunman who later escaped by motorcycle. And, as in many other instances, senior military and defense officials blamed communist insurgents for carrying out a purge of their own members. In this case, the officials claimed the victim was killed because she was discovered as a military "asset," which her family denies.

The killing took place close to the entrance of the 8th Infantry Battalion camp. According to the victim's daughter, after the shooting the gunman drove by on a red motorcycle they had seen parked in front of the military camp just before the shooting.

It has also been reported that Ms. Gandinao was told by her father-in-law before he was killed that their names were on a military "Order of Battle," meaning that he believed that they were both potential military targets. Both the Melo Commission and the U.N. Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston, found probable military involvement in the wave of killings. Both also found that the explanation that the killings were part of a purge by armed insurgents was improbable and unsupported by the evidence.

Background:

The flood of extrajudicial killings since 2001 is a resurgence of an old problem in the Philippines. In the 1970s, the Marcos government created civilian militias as part of the military's counter-insurgency operations. After Marcos was deposed in 1986, many of the armed groups were dissolved, having been linked to extensive human rights violations. However, in the vacuum that followed, numerous vigilante groups, many of them created and supported by the armed forces, targeted those alleged to have links to, or sympathies for, communist insurgents. During this period the insurgents also carried out bloody purges of their own members.

In the 1990s, killings became far less common as overall levels of violence declined. However, in the last five years there has been a resurgence of attacks on left-wing political party activists, labor organizers, human rights activists, journalists, lawyers, and judges. Estimates range from the government figure of just over 100 to the human rights group Karapatan's figure of more than 800 activists killed since President Arroyo came to power in 2001. Many were members of a left-leaning political party called Bayan Muna and related groups.

Government responsibility for the attacks

These attacks have been accompanied by heightened rhetoric by the civilian and military leaders accusing non-violent human rights, labor, and political activists of being fronts for the communist insurgency or even "enemies of the state."

There is also evidence of direct military involvement in some of the killings. In Malobago, in Eastern Bicol, a peasant leader and Protestant pastor named Isaias Santa Rosa was abducted by 20 armed men. His body was found soon after in a nearby creek-next to the body of one of his abductors. Presumably shot accidentally, the second man was carrying an ID card identifying him as a member of an army intelligence group.

The government has failed to investigate and prosecute those responsible. Part of the problem is limited police capacity and a climate of fear that makes witnesses fearful of coming forward. However, much of the failure to prosecute can be linked to political will, and the reluctance of police and prosecutors to challenge widespread impunity for the armed forces and the groups they support. Of 114 political murders considered by a police task force, there have been arrests in only a handful of cases, with no reported convictions.

The Melo Commission

As domestic and international pressure to address the killings has grown, the government of the Philippines has taken some initial steps. The first measure was to create Task Force Usig, a special police commission to look into the killings. However, allowing the police to investigate their own actions did not produce satisfactory results.

In August 2006 the Arroyo government created a second body under the leadership of former Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo. The body reported their findings to the President at the end of January 2007, and the report was made public in February after pressure from the visiting U.N. Special Rapporteur, Philip Alston.

Concerns were raised about the Melo Commission from its inception. More than 70 human rights groups met at the University of the Philippines College of Law and agreed the Commission lacked credibility and independence. Despite the powers granted by the presidential decree that created the Commission, there was concern that the body would not fully exercise its authority on the crucial question of accountability. Justice Melo explained, "[Task Force] Usig is essentially police work. They are there to find out who are the particular culprits or felons responsible for the killings. We are not so much concerned about that. We are more concerned about why is this happening. What is the cause of all these things and how do we arrest this."

Another major flaw was the fact that due in part to the weakness of the Department of Justice's Witness Protection program, witnesses and victims' families largely refused to appear before the Melo Commission. As a result, the findings were largely drawn from police reports and testimony from members of the police and military.

However, the Commission was able to conclude that the killings have increased, that the police have made little headway in investigating them; and that the killings are "pursuant to an orchestrated plan by a group or sector with an interest in eliminating the victims."

The president announced a six-point plan to respond to the findings. The plan's focus on better witness protection and the role proposed for European Union investigators are particularly commendable. However, the plan does not adequately address two priorities: 1) the need to address the question of responsibility for policies and practices at all levels of the civilian and military hierarchy; and 2) the need to end the practice of labeling non-violent political parties and NGOs as "enemies of the state" or communist front organizations, particularly considering the coming elections. The true test will be in achieving tangible results in the form of credible prosecutions of those responsible and an end to the wave of political killings.