US Congress’ action on RP gov’t human rights record sought

An alliance of churches in the United States has urged the US Congress to withhold additional military funding to the Philippine government until it improves its dismal human rights record.

The National Council of Churches USA (NCCUSA) said Congress must “require assurances that the Philippines is living up to human rights standards” before providing its government with additional military financing.

NCCUSA general secretary, Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, in an open letter to the Congress, noted that despite efforts by the House and Senate appropriations committees

to tie US military aid to improvements in the Philippines’ human right record, widespread abuses continue.

“The perpetrators of these abuses continue to enjoy impunity and there is strong evidence that Philippine military officials responsible for human rights abuses will never face justice,” Kinnamon, in a statement, said.

He stressed that Congress must ensure that US military aid “does not directly or indirectly promote human rights violations and undermine democracy in the Philippines.”

“The rights and freedoms of the Filipino people depend on it,” Kinnamon said.

The NCCUSA consists of 35 member communions from a wide range of Christian traditions including mainline Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican, evangelical, historic African American churches and peace churches. Together, the churches represent 100,000 congregations and 45 million people in America.

Kinnamon said NCCUSA is also alarmed at reports that the Philippine government is “increasingly using politically motivated prosecutions to charge and detain political activists, labor leaders, attorneys, academics and clergy.”

In 2008, the US Congress allocated $30 million in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to the Philippines, but said $2 million of the amount would be conditioned on the Philippine government’s compliance with recommendations of a United Nations report, prosecution of human rights violators, and an end to military harassment of civil society.

“The Philippine government did not meet any of these conditions … (but) the (US) Department of State provided the Philippines with the full FMF allocation,” Kinnamon lamented. “We are very concerned about the lack of transparency in the reporting process.”

He said the Congress should stipulate that the Philippine government will “receive no further FMF until it meets all of the three human rights conditions.”

Kinnamon added the State Department should also be required to make public its process for certifying human rights in the Philippines “to promote greater transparency and understanding between the United States and the people of the Philippines.”

Special Rapporteur Philip Alston issued a report that blamed members of the military for many killings and disappearances of left-wing activists.

The Arroyo administration then disputed Alston’s findings, saying it did not reflect the true conditions in the country. –Michaela P. del Callar, Daily Tribune