Torture Seen on Increase in Philippines

Reports of torture in the Philippines have increased since the Manila government stepped up its counter-insurgency campaign against Communist rebels, Amnesty International said today.

This “pattern of torture” has re-emerged despite constitutional and legal measures by President Corazon Aquino’s government to outlaw brutality, Amnesty International said in a report.

The London-based organization said it knew of no instance of a military or police officer being convicted of a serious human rights offense since Aquino came to power in February, 1986.

Alleged members of the banned Communist Party of the Philippines and its military wing, the New People’s Army, are among those who have said they were tortured, the report said.

Amnesty International said it is aware that the rebel army has killed captives. It said it “condemns such abuses by opposition groups, but stresses they can never justify human rights violations by government forces.”

The organization, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, also said it had received no official response from the Philippines to its March report detailing allegations of murder by military and paramilitary forces and instances of “disappearances.”

“Several consistent and apparently reliable reports of torture show that extensive legal safeguards against incommunicado detention, ill-treatment and torture are being ignored,” Amnesty International said in its report released for publication today.