A long-delayed report into allegations of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines says there is evidence to believe that military commanders were responsible for "allowing, tolerating and even encouraging" the killings of activists, church workers, journalists and judges.
The administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had previously refused to release the report to the public, saying it was "incomplete," despite a nationwide clamor that was joined by bishops and church leaders.
"We are happy the report is finally out so we can be enlightened, because we don't see any good reason in creating a commission to probe the killings and withholding the results from the public," the Rev. Efren Supanga of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines told Ecumenical News International on February 23.
A church-based group said that with the publication of the report, it would try and seek justice for victims.
"We can now pursue our campaign in pinning down who really ordered the killings," Maureen Belen of the Regional Ecumenical Council in the Cordillera, an ecumenical church group in northern Philippines, told ENI. "The report points to certain elements of the military as responsible for the killings but soldiers cannot act on their own."
Public outcry and pressures from the international community led by the European Union, human rights groups, and organizations such as the World Council of Churches prompted Arroyo to appoint a commission in August 2006 to probe more than 800 political killings since 2001, when she became president.
Led by retired Supreme Court justice Jose Melo, the Commission completed its 86-page report in January. But the government had withheld its release until February 22, after United Nations human rights special rapporteur Philip Alston had appealed for it to be made public. Alston was in the country recently for 10 days to help investigate the extrajudicial killings.
