BY REINIR PADUA

THE militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) yesterday urged President Arroyo to immediately comply with the recommendations of United Nations special rapporteur Philip Alston on ending the wave of extrajudicial killings.

Renato Reyes Jr., Bayan secretary general, said Arroyo, for starters, should revamp the security cluster in the Cabinet and the AFP leadership.

Reyes said Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Defense Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr., national security adviser Norberto Gonzales, and Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez are among the "biggest stumbling blocks" in stopping extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations.

He said AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon and the Army Chief Gen. Romeo Tolentino should also be sacked for their continuing denial of military involvement in the killings of activists.

Reyes said Esperon and Tolentino have also issued statements tagging legal leftist groups as "enemies of the state" who deserve "neutralization."

"The ball is in the hands of President Arroyo as commander-in-chief and chief executive. Does she have the resolve to order the military to stop attacking legal activists? Does she have the resolve to order the military to stop labeling activists as enemies of the State?" Reyes said.

Alston has recommended before the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that the Arroyo administration be asked to order the AFP to stop linking legitimate militant groups to the communist movement.

Alston also said government should provide him a copy of the military’s "order of battle."

He also said the Arroyo government should restore "accountability arrangements" as he criticized Memorandum Circular 108, which he said bars military officers from appearing before Congressional inquiries.

Alston, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, made his interim recommendations in his preliminary note presented to the ongoing fourth session of the UNHRC in Geneva.

Reyes said Alston’s recommendations to stop tagging legal activists as enemies of the state and start restoring systems of accountability in government are simple initiatives but "cannot be fully realized under the present dispensation."

"The state policy runs too deep now in the Arroyo administration. Arroyo’s top Cabinet officials in the security cluster and the top brass of the AFP have all contributed to the rise in the killings. The President’s top policy-makers are all guilty of vilifying activists and subjecting them to violent attacks. Arroyo herself is too concerned with keeping herself in power that she welcomes the moves that result in the elimination of her critics," he said.

IN CONTROL

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Arroyo remains in full control of the Armed Forces.

He also said the military’s order of battle does not include militant organizations "operating within Philippine democratic space."

On the insurgency program, he said the military operates under a strict set of rules of engagement.

"As a government fighting a live and ongoing insurgency, our troops have strict rules of engagement against armed units of the CPP-NPA and their verified commanders and co-conspirators clearly employing violent means to attain their political ends. Violations of these rules are sanctioned and we have charged soldiers suspected of criminal acts," he said.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said Malacañang is not worried about possible sanctions from the UN as Alston’s report also recognized government efforts to stop the killings.

"The Philippine situation is far from the level where the (UNHRC) Council would issue a negative resolution. The HR Council takes a constructive view on how to assist countries, (and) has never imposed sanctions yet. Even in the issue of Israeli actions in Palestinian Territories – (where they only) expressed concern, called for fact finding body but no sanctions," he said.

He expressed confidence Alston’s report will not have a negative impact on any of the attempt of the Philippines to be a part of any UN council or committee. He said the Philippines has long proven its commitment to human rights.

LOSING SUPPORT

Team Unity senatorial Michael Defensor said President Arroyo will lose the support of the international community if her government continues to fail to end political killings.

"Any decent country in a strong democracy can’t have people killed because of their political beliefs," Defensor told reporters after attending mass in Ilagan, Isabela.

But Defensor, former presidential chief of staff, also said the President could not be blamed for not directly ordering the military to stop murdering leftists.

"Kasi it’s tantamount to saying that the AFP is guilty. Pero kino-condemn naman niya (Arroyo) ang killings," he said.

Defensor said the UN should also take into account the state of armed conflict between government and the communist rebels which has dragged on for four decades.

"Kasi wala naman nang armed group sa ibang mga bansa. Kinakailangan di nilang tingnan ang kinakaharap natin," he said.

Defensor’s fellow Team Unity candidate Vicente Sotto III said Alston showed bias by giving more credence to the claims that the killings are perpetrated by the military.

"Para ding piskal yan. Yung piskal puwedeng mali , puwedeng tama at yung husgado ang magsasabi kung tama o mali . Kung ang piskal tama, kinukuha both sides. Mukhang ito hindi kinuha," he told reporters at the Pulong-Sulong with the Cagayan officials in a hotel in Cauayan town.

GOV’T INCOMPETENCE

Magdalo leader and Genuine Opposition candidate Antonio Trillanes IV said the country will find the truth about the extra-judicial killings only when Arroyo "is out of office."

But Trillanes, after yesterday’s hearing of his coup d’état case at the Makati regional trial court, said he was not seeking Arroyo’s ouster through violent or extra-legal means but through impeachment as provided in the Constitution.

He said Arroyo, as commander in chief, has the power and authority to do more to stop the killings.

"The killings only show government incompetence. If you can’t protect your own people, whom she can protect? Her cronies and political allies?" Trillanes said.

He appealed to the people not to blame the whole Armed Forces for the killings as he said there are many officers and personnel in the military who are righteous and mindful of their constitutional duty to uphold the law and respect civilian authority.

He also said the communist insurgency could be solved through the military approach combined with a serious campaign to eradicate poverty, illiteracy and corruption.

"Communism cannot be solved by military solution alone. It can be defeated by offering the people a much better idea and hope for a brighter tomorrow. The government should offer a much superior idea to convince the people that they have a stake in the country’s future," he said.

The National Democratic Front assailed Manila Archbishop Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales for saying the killings would stop if both the military and the communists would order an end to them.

Luis Jalandoni, NDF chairman, said: "It is highly anomalous for Manila Archbishop Rosales to imply that such military forces can engage in the aforesaid human rights violations on the false assumption that their revolutionary opponents do likewise. The statement of Cardinal Rosales can only embolden the practitioners of state terrorism and inflame the civil war that is going on in the country."

Jalandoni said what Rosales should have done was urge Arroyo to "comply with international human rights laws."

"It is regrettable that Cardinal Rosales obscures the responsibility of the reactionary state of human rights violations, instead of calling in them (government) to respect the international humanitarian law," he said. – With Jocelyn Montemayor, Wendell Vigilia, Ashzel Hachero and Gerard Naval