The disappearances in Philippines

After eight months of a sustained and bloody ground offensive against Abu Sayyaf that has the Muslim separatists in disarray, the military claims they are switching from tanks to tractors to rebuild the battered islands in the south.

But while the government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo may have the militant Abu Sayyaf — with links to indigenous Islamist separatists and regional terror network, the Jemaah Islamiya — on the run in their island stronghold of Jolo, 600 kilometres south of Manila, the war against destabilising forces is far from over.

The military machine has barely dented the ideological armour of a militant opposition which includes Islamist separatists, communists and right-wing forces.

On Jolo, the military has claimed 70 kills, including that of Abu Sayyaf's top leader Khaddafy Janjalani and his deputy Abu Sulaiman, splintering the 400-strong guerrilla force. Apparently, the leader now is the one-armed and ageing Radulon Sahiron who is based in the village of Patikul in Jolo where some 600,000 people have borne the brunt of the guerrilla war since the United States poured troops into the south to flush out Islamist separatists.

In neighbouring Basilan, a former stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, the Philippines army — with US backing — has successfully rid the island of the separatist strain. A second prong is aimed at the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) who are in talks with the government under the aegis of the Organisation of Islamic Countries, holding out the promise of a political settlement that could see long-time political leader of the Moros, the charismatic but controversial Nur Misuari, appointed as governor of Jolo. No one is holding their breath though.

In the past, successive governments have failed to execute a decade-old peace deal with the MNLF, the oldest Muslim rebel group, and stalled peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the largest rebel formation. Bound by clan loyalties and ideology, rogue members of both have joined hands with the Abu Sayyaf.

The third is potentially far more complicated as it is aimed at countering the sophistry of the leftist National Democratic Front (NDF, which moved its headquarters to the Netherlands), the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the growing reach of its armed wing — the 7,400 strong New People's Army (NPA) which has a presence across the country.

With the armed forces in ascendance in the Arroyo dispensation, dominated by military chief General Hermogenes Esperon and earlier by former general, Jovito Palparan Jr, leftist sympathisers have seen their ranks being steadily depleted by selective assassinations, summary arrests.

Analysts insist that as much as the rise of religious and leftist forces, it's the growth of right-wing pressure groups within the military which is responsible for the Philippines' continuing instability. Every government after the Ferdinand Marcos era has been held hostage by the army. Except during the presidencies of Fidel Ramos and Joseph Estrada, it was always suspected of launching a series of coup attempts.

Insidious war

Therefore, peace talks with the NDF are unlikely, given that left-leaning parties like Bayan Muna (Nation First) are seen by Arroyo as aligning with her right-wing rival, ousted president Joseph Estrada to remove her from power. Arroyo had initiated peace talks with the group in 2001 but after the CPP and NPA were designated as terror groups by the US and the European Union, the NDF in 2004 turned down government overtures for talks.

The army has used that as a signal to step up the silent, insidious war against left-leaning intellectuals. In the Philippines, it is a war largely fought outside media glare.
When I was on a visit to Jolo in 2001, a member of the Abu Sayyaf, 'Commander Robot' and a brother of Sahiron was at pains to explain to me the nature of their insurgency which aimed at establishing an independent Muslim state in the south.

Trekking deep into the jungles of Jolo where they lived in makeshift tents, I found the Abu Sayyaf had capitalised on the grievances of a Muslim populace weighed down by grinding poverty and deprivation.

Years of fighting on Jolo has displaced thousands, making their homes uninhabitable and their farms uncultivable. Meanwhile, the Arroyo government has been trying to use economic development as a means of stamping out extremism among Jolo's people by providing healthcare and infrastructure.

But the bigger problem lies in the use of questionable tactics to suppress the leftists that has raised a political storm worldwide. It's one that the president is finding hard to quell. On a website run by human rights groups in the Philippines is a list of the "disappeared". The list has been updated with the inclusion of the names of five more people who have disappeared between January-March this year.

They include Siche Bustamante-Gandinao, a mother of six, resident of Purok 7, Upper Poblacion. On another link appears this passage: "Half-naked and blindfolded on a June night, two University of Philippines female students were dragged and beaten by the military under the command of General Jovito Palparan Jr in Hagonoy, Bulacan. The two were volunteers of a local peasant organisation, have since remained missing."

These are two of the documented human rights violations under Arroyo's anti-insurgency campaign Oplan Bantay Laya (Operation Freedom Watch), the website says.

Since the time of the ousted former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, this South East Asian nation has been plagued by military-inspired "disappearances". Under Arroyo the numbers of anti-government activists across the far-flung archipelago — journalists, lawyers, labour activists, clergy and civilians — who go missing or have died in extra-judicial killings have risen to 830.

Most of those who have disappeared were sympathisers of the NPA, while many were named as "leftists" by government officials, reinforcing the suspicion that the army, which has long blamed the killings on communist infighting and internal pogroms, could well be responsible.

Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon has told an investigative commission that guerrillas of the NPA killed 843 civilians and 384 soldiers or police officers in 1,130 attacks between January 2000 and May 2006. Esperon submitted a copy of "Oplan Bushfire", reportedly a CPP document on a plan to purge the organisation of suspected infiltrators.

As international criticism by human rights watchdogs like Amnesty International mounted, Arroyo finally agreed to set up a commission of inquiry in August last year. It was headed by retired Supreme Court associate justice Jose Melo. But the Melo Commission Report has not been made public on orders from the presidential palace. Like the T. F. Usig Commission which did not see the light of day, critics have swiftly come to the conclusion that this too is only a cover-up, a sop to mollify the international community.

Says Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings: "The armed forces of the Philippines remains in a state of total denial about the political killings in the South East Asian nation despite many of the murders having been convincingly attributed to them." Alston was particularly critical of Palparan, called "The Butcher" by some and "The Executioner" by others, saying he has dodged charges over extrajudicial killings in Central Luzon.

Military ascendance

Analysts believe the military has grown into a powerful and privileged force that has not been held accountable for human rights violations that date from the 1970s to the end of the Marcos era in 1986 in addition to the present campaign. It is similar, they say, to the late 1980s when an officially sanctioned drive against leftists and sympathisers of the CPP saw masked men riding motorcycles "picking off" over 580 victims.

"Killing has become part of the government's attempt to quell dissent," says Ruth Cervantes, spokeswoman for Karapatan, a local human rights group. "They are against left-wing activists participating in the political arena."

Arroyo, increasingly dependent on the military for her survival and aware that it was military backed movements that led to previous changes in government, may not have much room to manoeuvre.

Psephologists at Social Weather Station predict that left leaders like Teddy Casinno could forge Bayan Muna into a powerful political party that may well see its candidates fielded for the Senate in 2010.

Therefore, with the left gaining ground, Arroyo's government must tackle the bigger challenge of restoring the mechanisms of accountability that the Philippines Constitution and Congress have put in place over the years.
Or risk seeing the Philippines' much vaunted 'People Power' stand for nothing.

Neena Gopal is a South Asia analyst.

A dark history…

After the fall of the dictator, former president Ferdinand Marcos (1965-86), some 10,000 human rights victims filed a class action suit against him in a US court in 1989. They were granted $2.2 billion in damages. The number of those who filed the case is, however, well below the number of victims of summary executions.

During the Marcos era, government spies infiltrated the communist parties, leading to many of them being killed in the run-up to the assassination of opposition leader Benigno Aquino.

Political killings continued during the time of president Corazon Aquino (1986-92) even after she ordered the leaders of her People's Power mutiny to release NDF chief Jose Maria Sison from detention. Several leading leftist leaders like Lean Alejandro who wanted to run as a representative of Calocan and labour leader Rolando Olalia were eliminated, prompting Sison's flight to the Hague even as he ended the internal purges and was inclined towards participation in the political process. Peace talks with the Aquino government became impossible in the face of one coup attempt after another.

President Fidel Ramos (1988) ended the political bloodbath by forging a peace settlement with right-wing elements of the army that he once headed while opening peace talks with the NDF. The communists split into two factions — the Reject and the Reaffirm.

President Joseph Estrada (1998-2001) did not hold peace talks with the NDF or the MILF. But he did sign a hurried peace settlement with the Reject faction, which opened the doors for Akbayan party representative Etta Rosales into the Senate in 2000. Many members who took government posts were eliminated by the elitist Reaffirm group. The Reaffirm group backed then Vice-President Gloria Arroyo during protest rallies against Estrada. Their party Bayan Muna's first representative was elected to the House of Representatives in 2001.

In 2005, Bayan Muna switched to Estrada's camp, calling for Arroyo's ouster for alleged election fraud.