razen assaults on the rule
of law" was how Chief Justice Reynato Puno described the surge of political
killings under President Arroyo. "The extrajudicial taking of life is the
ultimate violation of human rights. It cannot be allowed anywhere, and it has to
be resisted everywhere," he added.
As the Supreme Court’s contribution to the fight against this
heinous form of human rights violation, Puno told visiting UN rights
investigator Philip Alston it will set up special courts to handle cases of
political killings. He added that the court administrator has been directed to
do an inventory of such cases. The special tribunals will be put up in places
where the courts are over-burdened.
Puno’s condemnation of political killings no doubt comes
straight from this respected jurist’s heart. But it only drives home the fact
that the judiciary is the weakest of the three branches of government.
We will steal a march on the court administrator who has been
directed to do an inventory of cases of political killings. We are sure the
pending cases of political killings can be counted with the court
administrator’s fingers and toes, with some digits to spare.
Remember that bromide about the four pillars of the justice
system? First, there’s the police to identify the suspects and gather the
evidence. Then comes the prosecution service to file and pursue the charges.
Only then do the courts enter the picture. And finally, there is the
correctional system to handle the guilty.
In cases of summary executions blamed on soldiers and
policemen, investigations are to say the least lackadaisical. Families of
victims invariably complain that police investigators do not aggressively pursue
leads. In many instances, the investigators are perceived as coddling the
perpetrators.
The prosecution service, meantime, is too busy building
cases, however flimsy, against rebels and their suspected supporters. In the
process, the prosecutors join the military in willy-nilly tagging legal and
legitimate groups as "fronts" of communist rebels. It is no coincidence that the
targets of political killings are leaders or members of the groups tarred as
communist fronts. So what does that make of the prosecutors then? Accessories,
accomplices to state-sanctioned executions?
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez, in a separate meeting with
Alston, said the UN Human Rights Council, which is undertaking the
investigation, should realize that the killings are taking place in the context
of an ongoing communist rebellion. The implication is that leaders of Leftist
groups are fair game for assassins. They are "fronting" for communist rebels, so
they deserve a bullet in the head and an unmarked shallow grave.
We wonder what Alston would think of such reasoning.
Alston, we learned, was the masteral thesis adviser of Raul
Pangalangan, the former UP Law dean whose nomination to the Supreme Court by the
Judicial and Bar Council was ignored by President Arroyo.
Pangalangan is now teaching at the Harvard Law School, the
first Filipino to be invited as a full-time faculty member of that institution.
Alston must have an understanding by now of why a government
which is nominally liberal democratic allows its agents to shoot citizens, who
formally enjoy the full range of constitutionally protected rights, like dogs
because of their political beliefs.
Decent and scholarly lawyers are forced to go into exile. The mentally and
morally challenged get appointed as justice secretaries.
