US holds military aid due to human rights issues - Manila Times

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By Frank Lloyd Tiongson, Reporter

The United States government reportedly withheld $2-million worth of military aid to the Philippines in 2009 due to concerns raised by human rights groups and churches in the US on the human rights record of the government. Rep. Neri Colmenares of Bayan Muna said the conditional aid was not released because of the failure of the administration of President Gloria Arroyo to account for the spate of human rights violations in the country.

Colmenares said officials from the US Department of State confirmed in a meeting with him in Washington, D.C. on October 27 that the conditioned amount has in fact been withheld.

However, the State Department officials, whose responsibility includes US policy toward the Philippines, admitted they were unable to report to the US Congress that the Philippine government had met the human rights conditions required for the release of the military aid. As such, the final $2 million in military assistance appropriated by the US Congress for the Philippine Government was not released.

The conditions include the (1) implementation of the recommendations of Professor Philip Alston, (2) the investigation and prosecution of military officials credibly alleged to be responsible for human rights violations, and (3) that violence and intimidation of legal organizations should not form part of the (Philippine military’s) policy.

Consequently, the US House of Representatives approved HR 3081 withholding the same military aid for the Philippines in 2010 on the basis of the same three conditions. The US Senate has approved the House spending bill, which shall form part of the 2010 Budget.

Colmenares said members of the US Congress took the cue from the recommendations of the UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston that “the Philippine government must address the long-standing impunity for the killings, enforced disappearances, and other forms of human rights violations, and that extra-judicial executions and other human rights abuses do not form part of the policy of the military and the government.”

In 2008, following a hearing in the United States Senate on the human rights situation in the Philippines convened by Sen. Barabara Boxer (D), the US Congress voted to release the full amount of 2009 military aid to on the condition that the Philippine government was meeting the cited human rights conditions.

“Instead of heeding the conditions,” said Colmenares, “the Philippine government merely launched high-level lobbying efforts of the US Congress, led by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, President Arroyo’s Special Envoy Patricia Ann Paez and the Philippine Legislative Affairs Officer Ariel Penaranda. The failure of President Arroyo to investigate and prosecute Gen. Jovito Palparan defeated all their lobbying efforts,” said Colmenares.

The Filipino-American community and the US-based National Alliance on Filipino Concerns (NAFCON), who also met with US congressional officials, have similarly expressed outrage over the spending of their taxes to arm a repressive government.

Besides the UN report, Col-menares said that members of the US Congress are aware of the Supreme Court decision in. Sec. Gilbert Teodoro vs Manalo and the Melo Commission report implicating Gen. Palparan and other military officials in various human rights violations.

Colmenares also raised concerns with US State Department officials about progress on the US-Philippines Defense Reform Program, a large US funding for the modernization and reform of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, citing the on-going impunity for human rights abuses. He called for the end to the funding considering the human rights record of the Armed Forces and its cover up of the perpetrators of human rights abuses.

The Philippines Defense Reform Program began in 2003 in cooperation with the US military and is funded, in part, by the US Congress. The State Department committed to inquire about the said funding from the Pentagon. The Pentagon has been criticized in the US for implementing aid projects, a purely civilian function.

Colmenares was invited to the US to give a talk at the National Convention of the National Lawyers Guild.

He also met with representatives from the office of influential Democrats Sen. Barbara Boxer from California, Congresswoman Nita Lowey, head of the House Appropriation Sub-committee on Foreign Operations, Rep. Howard Berman, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and other offices of the US House of Representatives and Senate to express concern over the $30-million military aid to the Philippines.

He also raised the same concerns to Sen. Harry Reid, the Majority Leader of the US Senate, through his representative during a meeting in his office in the US Capitol.