As the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) welcomes the investigation that the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is conducting into ‘vigilante killings’ in Davao City, it holds reservations as to how it will pursue the inquiry. It should not only be just another investigation, but rather adequate and effective so that it will be able to identify who the perpetrators are and to be able to effectively prosecute them.
The Commission’s focus should be, apart from finding crucial information of how many victims have been killed and who they were, but to ensure that the sources and bearers of this information are given adequate protection. The observation by Leila De Lima, the CHR Commissioner, that these types of killings end up having “no witnesses and the investigations did not progress”, is nothing new but merely reaffirms what the people there have long come to know about.
There had been numerous reports and publications which demonstrates the extent of loss to the families of the dead and those who thought they could be targeted for this ‘vigilante killings’. Thus, the investigation should not only be an “attempt to find out the truth about the existence of the (Davao) death squad” nor to prove it does really exist, but of how to encourage witness, the families of victims and any persons, who have personal knowledge to come forward.
The debate and the quest for truth should not only be about the existence of a death squad, but to strive why this ‘vigilante killings’ persisted and why the government had become incapacitated to prosecute the perpetrators and to protect the persons who had been needlessly described as ‘legitimate targets’. For this killings to continue take place for years and in a large scale also demonstrates the failure by the other institutions obliged to protect lives–the police, the prosecution, and the courts.
Also, it is already common knowledge that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte had been perpetuating for years his own notion of restoring ‘peace and order’ by describing a certain class of people as either legitimate targets or not worthy of life; however, to react by merely condemning this is no longer sufficient. The reality that the local people had already displayed acceptance and acquiesced to this are the matters that we should strive to understand, than impliedly putting the blame on them.
The people there are forced and had acquiesced to accepting this phenomenon, not of their own choice of losing the value for human lives, but born for lack of choice to which demonstrates what Mayor Duterte had long been wanting as he had described in his own words: “What I want is to instil fear”. The agents of the State have had the utmost responsibility not only to ensure protection of lives, but to unequivocally reject notion that incites the commission of crimes–to which Duterte ignores.
However, in the present penal laws, though the principle the doctrine of ‘command responsibility’ is accepted, there is no law that exist that could be used to prosecute “government officials, military or otherwise, who encourages, incites, tolerates or ignores any extra-judicial killing committed by a subordinate” as what has been recommended by the Melo Commission. Thus, the government should also be held responsible for failing to implement this recommendation.
The lack of the laws required on ‘command responsibility’ as a minimum requirement to address extrajudicial killings had already been exploited not only by Duterte himself, but also by other town Mayors in the neighbouring cities, General Santos City and Digos City, where this incidents of vigilante killing had also been occurring. It has already been used to justify not only of the victims deaths, but the local officials and police failure to put an end to this and to prosecute perpetrators.
In the Philippines, town Mayors have the authority to appoint who they would want to be the head of their local police force. As long as the head of the police has the town mayors support, the former could carry on with his business, whether or not he would be able to effectively investigate and to be able to take their cases in court for prosecution, they could not be removed or questioned about their performance. Thus, the local police head could subsequently afford to take this scenario lightly, if not carelessly.
This also at least explain the prevailing ‘apathy and indifference’, not solely of the local people there, but by elected-officials and the local police force, of their either lack of willingness or inability to effectively solve this cases. Why would the witnesses, families of victims and others who may have personal knowledge of these crimes, come out in public exposing their selves when local officials and police themselves have shown lack of moral responsibility and failing to carry on their duties?
For instance, the local police have since been exploiting as an excuse the lack of witness that would be admitted for Witness Protection, Security and benefit Act (RA 6981), which requires that a case to whom the person is testifying should be filed in court first before he would be admitted for protection, as hampering the progress of their investigation and the prosecution of cases, when in fact, they could have taken a proactive role if they chooses of doing.
Under section 1 of the Memorandum Circular No. 2000-008 of the National Police Commission (NAPOLCOM), the police, in particular the heads, could decide for themselves and make available protection of persons who “is under actual threat/s of deaths” should they be requested; which could have also been used as ‘interim protection mechanism’ for individuals who are experiencing threats. However, these are means victims knew little about and obligations the police paid little attention to.
Therefore, the AHRC once again, urges the Commission to consider as a priority, protection of witnesses the core priority in the process of their investigation. Without adequate and effective protection, any investigation and intervention to respond to the ‘vigilante killings’ in Davao and other places, would have negligible meaning.
