After Coronas impeachment, President Aquino Should speed up versus extrajudicial killings, torture While the Aquino administration

is whooping it up following the successful unseating of Chief Justice Renato Corona, human rights activists in many other countries are questioning the Philippine governments ongoing but slow campaign in eradicating human rights abuses in the Philippines. These alleged abuses are in the form of extrajudicial killings ( EJKs), enforced disappearances, and torture. Although the number of these human rights violations, allegedly perpetrated by some elements of the Philippine Armed Forces have slightly diminished since President Aquino took office in 2010, new cases continue to be reported, and few of those responsible for the violations have been brought to justice, according to Human Rights Watch (UHW). One recent example is escaped General Jovito Palparan, accused of ordering the alleged murders of two University of the Philippines activists. Reports said that Palparan was purportedly helped by some of his colleagues in the Armed Forces. Another is the yet-tobe tried alleged perpetrators of the 2009 Manguindanao Massacrein which more than 50 journalists and media personnel have been killed. While the Filipino nations attention was glued on the closing days o of Chief Justice Coronas impeachment last, a Philippine delegation headed by Justice Secretary Leila de Lima was at the receiving end of a chorus of questions raised by several delegates in the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) convention held in Geneva, Switzerland on May 29. At least 22 of the participating countries have raised questions about the continuing spate of EJKs, enforced disappearances and torture. The United Kingdom, Spain and the Holy See called on the Philippines to completely eradicate EJKs, even as the United States lamented that impunity on human rights violations is continuing. Earlier this week, in anticipation to Pres. Aquinos meeting with Pres. Barack Obama in Washington, DC, URW called on the US chief executive to use millions of dollars in military aid as a bargaining chip to persuade Aquino to bring justice to security forces involved in serious human rights violations. The human rights organization said that since 2001, years before Aquino took over, security forces have been allegedly implicated in hundreds of human rights violations, and victims included leftist journalists, insurgents, environmentalists and clergy. Accountability for these alleged abuses is not only a matter of justice for victims, declared the HRW, but vital for the Philippines future as a rights-respecting democracy, the head of UHR, John Sifton, reported. Other countries in the UNHRC convention suggested that Pres. Aquino should widen his ongoing campaign against government corruption and excesses to include a robust and focused drive to go after the perpetrators of human rights violations in the Philippines, whether these elements belong to the Armed Forces, or in para-military and militia groups that are rampant in some conflict-ridden parts of the Philippines.

What the Philippine government should do, as pointed out by some Philippine human rights activists groups, is to not gloss over its meager achievements in reducing cases of human rights violations, but to highlight the real conditions in the Philippines, like nil conviction rate of perpetrators, failure to press charges and arrest suspects, and the continuing effects of the governments counter-insurgency program on citizens. PinoyWatchDog.com would also like to point out that the Philippines could accelerate the prosecution of these alleged cases of atrocities by systematically ridding the Justice system, including military courts, of corrupt judges and putting in their stead incorruptible judges that are above being bought with bribes and courageous ones that would not be cowed by a threat of violence to their own life.