THE Commission on Human Rights on Friday said it respected the prerogative of President Rodrigo Duterte and the majority vote of both the Senate and Congress to extend martial law in Mindanao.
“We, however, continue to stress the need to address accounts of human rights violations on the ground,” said Jacqueline Ann de Guia, the agency’s Public Affairs and Strategic Communication Office director.
The commission admitted the communities in Marawi “still bear the damage and consequences of the armed conflict despite recent reports on the situation in Marawi City now being normal,” she said.
“Internally displaced persons continue to occupy shelter sites in Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur, as well as other areas in Northern Mindanao, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and even Metro Manila,” she added.
In related developments:
• Opposition lawmaker Party-list Rep. Gary Alejano warned that an extended martial law in Mindanao might lead to military abuse.
“I trust them [military] to perform their mandate professionally,” Alejano, a former Marine captain, said.
“But we should not expose them to the principle that civilian authority isn’t working. Their view on civilian authority becomes weak,” he said.
Alejano claimed that “abuses cannot be avoided if their is prolonged combat” among government troops.
“They get hurt in battle and are unable to go home, there’s really a possibility of abuse,” he said.
• Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque earned the ire of the militant fisherfolk group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas for “sugar-coating” the one-year extension of martial law in Mindanao and its possible nationwide declaration.
Roque said “there would be no return of a dictatorial government” and human rights violations would not be repeated under President Rodrigo Duterte’s martial law—in reference to martial law from September 1972 to January 1981 imposed by then President Ferdinand Marcos under the 1935 Constitution.
Pamalakaya said Harry Roque was only deodorizing the extension of Mindanao martial law to mind-condition the Filipino people on the possible declaration of a nationwide martial rule.
“Martial law is martial law; no matter how they sugarcoat it, it is still the same Marcos-military rule that suppressed the civil and liberty rights of the Filipino people, and paved the way to a blatant plunder of public coffers,” Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya chairman, said in a statement.
“The Presidential Spokesman is deodorizing the Mindanao martial law in order to make it appear acceptable to the people and to prepare the public for a nationwide authoritarian rule; something that the Filipino people will not let happen,” Hicap said.
De Guia said there was also a need to investigate allegations of looting by the military, unlawful/arbitrary arrests, military presence in IDP camps, cases of profiling, military harassment, enforced disappearance, torture, and extrajudicial killings.
“We also urge the government to hold to account both state and non-state actors responsible for the atrocities committed against the local residents,” she noted. With Bill Casas