Human Rights Groups Denounce Military Harassment

Statement on the Harassment, Illegal Arrest and Detention of Sister Stella Matutina,

Maria Fe Matibo, Wenceslao Mapa and Gil Sentimales

We, members of the Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights (CPS-HR) in British Columbia, Canada, express our outrage and disbelief at the harassment, illegal arrest, and detention of Sr. Stella Matutina of the Missionary Benedictine sisters and of Maria Fe Matibo, Wenceslao Mapa, and Gil Sentinales, all environmental advocates, last February 16, 2009 in Davao Oriental. Sr. Stella and her companions are members of the Panalipdan, a multi-sectoral alliance for environmental awareness and protection, firm in its anti-mining position and defense of the people's lands.

According to the Sisters Association in Mindanao (SAMIN), Sr. Matutina and her companions were invited by the local officials of Taytayan, Cateel, Davao to talk to the community about environmental awareness and protection.

It is unfortunate that just when entire communities, institutions and individuals all over the world are searching for and working on solutions to environmental problems like global climate change that threaten our very survival as a nation and as a planet, the Philippine military, steeped in paranoia and shortsightedness, once again raises the “terrorist” or “communist” specter to justify detaining Sr. Matutina and company. In this case, officials of the 67th Infantry Battalion alluded to “fake nuns organizing people against the government,” and going as far as to say, “a nun’s place is in the convent.”

We are aware of the backdrop on which this overzealous defense of the government by the military is being played. Mindanao, like the rest of the Philippines, has been and continues to be sold one hundred per cent to foreign big business, foremost of which are mining and logging interests.

With their local partners, among them political and military bigwigs, and the Presidential family, these profit leeches reap the bonanza of the plunder of the national patrimony and could not care less about the pollution of the Philippine lands and rivers, and the deprivation of the people 's right to life and their resources.

We commend Sr. Matutina and her companions for fearlessly standing up for and with the people in the pursuit of justice and genuine development, in spite of the state’s terrorism that they face every single day. We give them our full support as they tread the dangerous path of working with the people in defense of their land and life.

We denounce the culture of impunity that is the hallmark of the government's Oplan Bantay Laya. Touted as the Arroyo regime's “counter insurgency” weapon, it is intended to silence dissent, terrorize the people, trample on their civil rights and liberties and eliminate (or disappear) activists, community organizers and nationalists. The Arroyo regime, its military and agents must be made to stop these gross human rights violations and be held accountable for them.

Justice for Sr. Stella Matutia, OSB and environmental activists. Stop Military Persecution of Church People. NO to large-scale Mining and Militarization.

President Arroyo's order for prosecutors to go on leave undermines its independence

When the five senior public prosecutors, including the chief of the Office of the Chief State Prosecutor (OCSP), were placed on an indefinite leave on 11 January 2009 to comply with orders from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, it rather exposed the frailties and confirmed the widely acknowledged lack of independence of the country’s prosecution system.

President Arroyo’s order forcing Jovencito Zuño, chief prosecutor; Phillip Kimpo, senior state prosecutor; Misael Ladaga, state prosecutor and John Resado, investigating prosecutor, to go on an indefinite leave while investigations take place into allegations of their alleged wrongdoings, which include an attempt to exonerate three wealthy young men from charges of illegal drugs in exchange for a bribe. 

It was Raul Gonzalez, secretary of the Department of Justice (DoJ), who had President Arroyo’s order implemented. Gonzalez’s undersecretary, Ricardo Blancaflor, who is also the head of Task Force 211, a Presidential body tasked to investigate and prosecute cases involving political killings, was also ordered to go on leave. 

While it is reasonable that the prosecutors involved should go on leave to ensure that an investigation into allegations of their wrongdoing be conducted, for this order to come from the President, is completely unacceptable. The DoJ and the National Prosecution Service (NPS), to which these prosecutors are attached, certainly have their internal disciplining mechanism to deal with public officials committing any wrongdoing. 

The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has since been expressing serious concern about the government’s actions, in particular the executive, of either subverting or undermining the independence of the country’s prosecution service. The very existence of the NSP, whose head and prosecutors are accountable to the DoJ secretary, who is a presidential appointee, has already had its independence undermined. 

What was shocking is that there were neither pretexts nor pretension at all that the order forcing these five prosecutors to take indefinite leave had indeed comes from President herself. It therefore illustrates and confirms the control of the executive branch over the country’s prosecution service through her appointee. In this case, even before a conclusion of the investigating body as to whether or not the prosecutors committed wrongdoings, the President had already acted on her own effectively ignoring any internal procedures and due process that already existed. 

In the normal course of procedure, prior to the imposition of punishments or sanctions to public prosecutors committing wrongdoing, the DoJ secretary has to notify the President after reaching a findings and deciding whether or not to have these decisions implemented. However, when President Arroyo ordered these five prosecutors to go on leave, none of these procedures were observed at all. 

The President’s action therefore had already effectively undermined and attacked the independence of the prosecution service, to which the DoJ is complicit. 

The AHRC once again renews its calls, and supports the long overdue demands of the lawyers and legal fraternity, that the NSP should be separated from the DoJ. The pending proposal which aims towards making the prosecution service completely independent from executive and political control, should be acted upon without further delay. 

The AHRC is deeply concerned by the implications of the President’s actions. It calls for the order to be withdrawn and for the executive to refrain from any further actions that effectively undermines the prosecution service. The prosecutors within the country, public or private, should express concern over the politicization of the prosecution service. The success of prosecuting the public officials, security forces and the head of state, which are facing serious allegations of either tolerating or committing human rights violations, heavily depends on the independence of its prosecution service. 

If the President’s action is allowed to continue, the victims of human rights violation would lose their trust and confidence upon the prosecution service. These victims includes the families of hundreds of victims of extrajudicial killings in recent years, most of whom have yet to obtain legal redress for the violations committed upon them. 

What is of serious concern, too, is the apparent resignation on part of prosecutors involved by simply accepting the order and challenging the President’s order legally. They should have insisted that the independence of the prosecution service be upheld. They themselves have apparently accepted their plight without putting up a fight at all. 

The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation monitoring and lobbying human rights issues in Asia. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

(Prosecution in the Philippines 

http://www.article2.org/mainfile.php/0701/307/)