GMA: Reward can help reduce poll-related slays

MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo yesterday said the P25-million fund she put up for reward to solve political and media killings could help reduce possible election-related violence leading to the national and local elections next year.

In a chance interview at the Palace, Mrs. Arroyo said the fund could reduce election-related violence that has marred previous polls in the country.

She told reporters that the fund could also be utilized to solve cases of killings of journalists if these were connected to politics.

“Political violence has been the scourge of Philippine politics long before our administration,” she said.

“We want to erase the legacy of political violence that has haunted our nations for generations. We want to achieve a violence-free political culture once and for all,” she added.

Mrs. Arroyo announced on Tuesday the establishment of the P25-million fund to pay informants in an attempt to end the wave of political killings.

The fund would go to those who “provide information that foils political assassination attempts or leads to their solution, especially the identification of their masterminds,” she said.

The President urged lawmakers to contribute P250,000 each from their pork barrel to bolster the reward fund.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said yesterday the fund would also be used to augment the budget for the witness protection program and even for communication equipment needed for investigation.

Ermita said there would be no single agency that would handle the fund, but the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) would likely have priority over its use.

Senators scoffed at the President’s reward system, particularly her plan to ask congressmen to contribute P250,000 each from their pork barrel to augment it.

Senators Loren Legarda, Francis Escudero, Benigno Aquino III, Manuel Roxas II and Richard Gordon said the President does not need the congressmen to chip in because she has all the authority and resources to stop the killings.

Legarda said the move was a veritable admission by the administration of its helplessness in solving political crimes.

The senators also said Malacañang must source the reward fund from the money allocated each year by Congress for peace and order and law enforcement.

Escudero, chairman of the Senate committee on justice and human rights, and Sen. Aquino said the administration need not pass the hat to raise the amount, pointing out that pork barrel is controlled by the President.

Roxas, for his part, said the police, military and the Office of the President have enough intelligence funds to use to end the killings.

Gordon said strengthening the country’s law enforcement system would be more effective than putting up a reward system.

‘No coercion’

Malacañang, however, said it is not forcing any legislator to contribute to the P25-million reward fund.

Deputy presidential spokesman Anthony Golez clarified that the President was merely appealing to lawmakers to contribute to the fund and was in no way compelling them to participate.

“It is an appeal, it is a call. It is non-coercive. If they do not heed that call, it’s up to them,” he said.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR), for its part, is cool to the reward fund.

In a statement yesterday, CHR head Leila de Lima said that although the fund “could be useful,” it can only “very well apply” to operations like getting support prosecutors and hiring additional lawyers and paralegals.

De Lima said the “best thing” the government could do instead is to end human rights violations through policy, including the intensification of its witness protection program and in particular, urge or “really force” the PNP and Department of Justice to resolve and prosecute human rights cases.

“I am ordinarily cold to ideas of financial incentives when it comes to addressing human rights violations,” she said. “I must stress that human rights cases are different from corruption cases or ordinary crimes.”

Meanwhile, the DILG is also putting up cash rewards amounting to P3.235 million for informants who could help in the arrest of those behind extrajudicial killings.

Chief Superintendent Nicanor Bartolome, PNP spokesman, said the measure is in response to President Arroyo’s directive to apprehend suspects in these killings. –-Paolo Romero with Jaime Laude, Aurea Calica, Katherine Adraneda and Marvin Sy, Philippine Star