AMNESTY International (AI) on Wednesday noted the “dramatic decrease in the number of victims of extrajudicial killings in 2007 compared with the previous records in 2005 and 2006.”

However, Aurora Parong, AI Philippines section director, said the fact remains that the government failed to identify and prosecute the perpetrators.

Parong said AI recorded at least 33 extrajudicial killings in the Philippines in 2007, way below the 70 recorded extrajudicial killings in 2006. 

However, she warned that owing to the government’s failure to thoroughly investigate the incidents, and arrest and prosecute the perpetrators, “there is a big possibility that there will be a resurgence of extrajudicial killings in the coming years.”

At the same time, AI said government leaders have failed to live up to their promises made 60 years ago to uphold and protect human rights.

In a roundtable discussion with the diplomatic community, government officials and civil-society groups in Quezon City, AI urged governments to renew their commitments to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) and put an end to the injustice, the inequality and the impunity.

In particular, AI said the Asia-Pacific Region is characterized by injustice, inequality and impunity, despite rapid economic growth and despite the fact that some Asian countries are members of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

A member of the UN human-rights body, the Philippines has been criticized by the international community because of the issues hounding the Arroyo administration, particularly, impunity and the lack of political will to render justice to victims of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance and torture.

The human-rights watchdog Karapatan said the extrajudicial killings, abduction and various forms of human-rights violation continue in the country.

The latest was the abduction of Jonas Burgos, a son of press freedom icon Joe Burgos. Jonas remains missing.

His mother Edita Burgos is blaming the military for her son’s disappearance and has sought all legal remedies, including the filing of a petition for writ of amparo before the Court of Appeals to pressure the government to surface her son.

AI demanded that governments apologize for their failure, and renew their commitment the way the government leaders in 1948 gave its commitment to promoting the UDHR.

“The world’s governments have accepted a legal obligation to respect, protect, and fulfill the human rights of their citizens during the adoption of the UDHR in December 1948. Six decades after, world leaders, including those in the Asia-Pacific Region, and the Philippines, should stop making promises that would just be broken, must apologize for inadequate action and fill in the gaps showed by unresolved human-rights violation cases,” Parong said.

Last year the UNHRC agreed to a public debate on their human-rights performance.  Bangladesh, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea and Sri Lanka, are current members.

While AI recognizes some of governments’ gains in promoting human rights in Asia, which it describes as “potentially useful developments,” including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders’ adoption of a charter committing to establish a human-rights body for the subregion, the group expressed alarm over the growing gap between the rich and the poor, causing more social tensions and grassroots protests, migration issues, and sexual exploitation as well as intensified repression and discrimination.

Parong said Asia-Pacific Region lags behind the rest of the world in terms of regional institutions and framework dedicated to human rights.

AI notes dramatic decrease in human-rights violations

AMNESTY International (AI) on Wednesday noted the “dramatic decrease in the number of victims of extrajudicial killings in 2007 compared with the previous records in 2005 and 2006.”

FORMER elections chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr. was a no-show on Wednesday’s continuation of the hearing on the controversial $329-million national broadband network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Co. at the Office of the Ombudsman, creating tension among lawyers of the contending parties.

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority’s Law Enforcement Department (SBMA-LED) and Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group-Task Force Subic (PASG-TFS) agents confiscated some P4.62 billion worth of methamphetamine hydrochloride or shabu after a foiled attempt to smuggle the illegal drugs into Subic.

A PALL of gloom descended over the House of Representatives on Wednesday as the body of labor leader and party-list Rep. Crispin Beltran, more popularly known as Ka Bel, of Anakpawis lay at the plenary hall where a Mass and necrological service were held before the militant legislator was laid to rest in Bulacan.

TO mitigate the effects of the skyrocketing price of petroleum products on the country’s economy, legislators have proposed the implementation of energy-conservation measures such as carpooling and reducing government working days to four.

THE environment group Greenpeace, together with several legislators, on Wednesday urged the government to adopt a national energy program that would harness the massive renewable- energy potentials of the country while reducing its dependence on dirty energy resources, particularly coal.

THE Swedish minister for migration and asylum, Tobias Billstrom, said his government is working with other Schengen member-countries of the European Union in their embassies in Manila to accept and process short-stay visas to Sweden, amid possible constraints on the visa application of Filipinos traveling that country owing to the closure of its embassy here starting next month.

THE appointment of former Armed Forces chief of staff Hermogenes Esperon as head of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process may adversely affect the ongoing peace process, citing the military official’s bad human-rights record.