DAVAO CITY—Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Armed Forces chief of staff, on Wednesday assailed the report of a United Nations (UN) special rapporteur that he was convinced by the claim of the military that most of the extrajudicial killings of left-wing activists were touched off by internal purges in the ranks of the communist movement.

“It saddens me. We have been hearing of this incomplete report of which we have no copy of,” Esperon told reporters after the first day of the congress of tribal groups with local military officials at the Royal Mandaya Hotel here.

“The report remains speculative and the answers are speculative, and it would be better if Alston talks to more sources,” he said.

Philip Alston was sent by the UN Human Rights Council as its special rapporteur to look into the killings of mostly left-wing activists and other government critics, which has drawn international criticism.

In his final report released on Monday, Alston brushed aside the government military theory that the communist groups killed left-wing activists to weed out spies and discredit the government. On the contrary, he said the Philippine military killed leftist activists as part of a campaign against communist insurgents. The campaign, he added, also led to the executions of “civil-society leaders, including human-rights defenders, trade unionists and land reform advocates; intimidated a vast number of civil-society actors; and narrowed the country’s political discourse.”

Alston visited the country in February and his preliminary report also drew strong reaction from the Armed Forces, which was blamed for the deaths of 836 activists and journalists over the past six years.

“Maybe Alston forgets that there is insurgency here,” Esperon continued, but did not elaborate beyond citing statistics that the number of communist New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas was estimated to be still around 6,000. He said the southeastern Mindanao province of Compostela Valley remains to be one of the strongest bailiwick, with about four guerrilla fronts for an entire province. “I am not making any alibi, but he should know that we are facing an insurgency here with 6,000 personnel.”

Alston said: “The military’s insistence that the ‘purge theory’ is correct can only be viewed as a cynical attempt to displace responsibility.” He said, though, that the NPA committed extrajudicial executions, “sometimes dressing them up as ‘revolutionary justice. . .[but] the evidence that [the NPA] is currently engaged in a large-scale purge is strikingly unconvincing.”

Esperon said that Alston’s report “may be a case of a wrong reportage” and said he hoped that the report of the UN rapporteur should have “contained the report of the lumad [tribesmen] themselves.” Esperon was referring to the several accounts of tribal leaders here who claimed to have been threatened and their kin killed after they cooperated with the military. The tribal leaders appeared with military officials in a news conference here Wednesday night.

Meanwhile, a survey of think tank IBON revealed that awareness of the twin issues of extrajudicial killings and involuntary disappearances is growing among Filipinos, and more respondents believe that government forces are behind the killings.

The IBON survey was released just as the Philippine government and military parried accusations of official complicity in or condonation of the political killings, as underscored in the full, final Alston report.

Alston had deemed incredible the official claim that most of the killings were part of a new internal purge by the communist movement.

“We respect the findings of Alston; that is his opinion. But it’s a different thing if it can withstand judicial scrutiny, meaning if there’s evidence to prove the Armed Forces is really behind these killings,” the military’s information chief, Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, had said on Wednesday.

Per the IBON survey, as of October 2007, 85.5 percent of respondents were aware that, since 2001, unidentified persons have killed many activists, journalists and other civilians critical of the Arroyo administration. This was more than 2 percentage points higher than the 83 percent recorded in July 2007.

Among those aware of the killings, 59.8 percent believed that the military or the police or both were behind the killings, while 29.2 percent believed that other rebel groups such as the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were behind the killings. In July 2007, 58.3 percent believed that the military were behind the killings, and 26 percent, other rebel groups.

Meanwhile, 81.5 percent of a total 1,498 respondents were aware that many activists and other civilians critical of the current administration were victims of enforced disappearances since 2001. Of these, 62.7 percent said the military or the police or both were behind the disappearances, while 29.2 percent believed other rebel groups were behind the killings.

The October 2007 IBON nationwide survey was conducted from October 1 to 9, 2007 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.

SENATE leaders strongly denounced the unwarranted arrests of members of mediamen who covered the Peninsula Hotel standoff Thursday amid widespread outrage over the blatant violation of constitutional guarantees on freedom of the press.

AKBAYAN party-list condemned the arrest and rounding up of journalists and civil society leaders and warned the government last night against using the Manila Peninsula standoff to launch another crackdown on the opposition, saying it should instead face squarely the issues that led to the standoff.

THE P1.23-trillion budget bill submitted by Malacañang to Congress was based on a “bloated” exchange rate, saddling the government with a P20- billion overpayment of foreign loans incurred by the government, according to Sen. Francis Escudero.

ZAMBOANGA CITY—Huge waves caused by strong winds swept away or severely damaged the homes of close to 8,000 people residing along the shorelines of this city’s west coast as well as public infrastructure, and the homeless are now housed in several evacuation centers or with relatives.

DAVAO CITY—Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Armed Forces chief of staff, on Wednesday assailed the report of a United Nations (UN) special rapporteur that he was convinced by the claim of the military that most of the extrajudicial killings of left-wing activists were touched off by internal purges in the ranks of the communist movement.

A LAWMAKER on Thursday called on the government to stop the planned sale of the National Transmission Corp. (Transco) pending review of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Epira).