EU to help RP tackle extra-judicial killings

Envoy finds few convictions ‘regrettable’

MANILA, Philippines—(UPDATE) The European Union on Thursday said it would give 3.9 million euros (about $5.8 million or P270 million) to the Philippines to help the government stop extra-judicial killings and disappearances of activists.

EU Ambassador Alistair MacDonald and Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita signed the financing agreement for the EU-Philippines Justice Support Programme which is intended to speed up judicial proceedings against the perpetrators of such killings.

The money will cover over a period of 18 months (from the end of the year to March 2011) the establishment of a national monitoring system to help government and non-government groups track the progress in preventing such incidents.

The program seeks to strengthen the criminal justice system (investigation, prosecution, and judiciary), provide support for the Commission on Human Rights and for civil society groups, and give human rights awareness training to the police and military.

MacDonald said the program would help government agencies and non-government groups work together to stop the killings and disappearances of activists, journalists, trade unionists, and farmers’ representatives.

The ambassador added that “while the incidence of these killings has declined significantly since 2007, it is regrettable that there has as yet been so few convictions in relation to the killings of political activists.”

He did not say by how much the killings had declined.

“Today’s signature of the financing agreement confirms the willingness of the EU and of the Republic of the Philippines to work together even in sensitive areas such as governance, reflecting the spirit of partnership which we have built up over the years,” the ambassador said.

Also present at the signing were Ambassador Luis Arias Romero of Spain (representing the Presidency of the European Union), Ambassador Cristina Ortega (Philippine Ambassador to the EU), and James Moran (Director for Asia in the Directorate-General of External Relations, European Commission, Brussels).

In 2007, the UN’s special rapporteur on extra-judicial killings, Philip Alston, as well as a Philippine government fact-finding mission, blamed the military for many of the extra-judicial killings taking place in the country.

The military denied the accusations.

Leftist human rights groups have said more than 900 people were killed in such a manner since Arroyo took office in 2001. –Agence France-Presse