By Carlos H. Conde
The New York Times
Published: Feb. 15, 2010
The Philippine military has been criticized for failing to follow a Supreme Court order to present, in open court, 43 health workers who have been arrested and labeled Communist rebels. The refusal is seen by human rights advocates here as a ‘‘dangerous precedent.’’
Last week, the military was ordered by the Supreme Court to produce the 43 people before the Court of Appeals, which was to hear their habeas corpus petition, but the military refused to do this, saying that it had had difficulty arranging the secure transfer of the individuals from a military camp to the court.
Leila de Lima, the chairwoman of the Commission on Human Rights, criticized the armed forces leadership on Saturday, calling its refusal ‘‘a really dangerous precedent.’’ She said the detainees had been prevented from seeking a lawyer during the early hours after their arrest and had suffered mistreatment.
A new hearing is scheduled for Monday, but Julius Matibag, a lawyer for the detainees, said he would not be surprised if the military did not produce the prisoners then, either. Such an outcome ‘‘can only mean that it continues to be arrogant by not recognizing the judicial process,’’ Mr. Matibag said.
Critics of the decision, including lawyers representing the detainees, called the military’s move an insult to the court and a challenge to the Philippine judiciary. Some see the arrests as part of the military’s effort to meet a self-imposed deadline to finish off the long Communist insurgency by the time President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo steps down in June.
Some critics said the arrest and alleged mistreatment of the 43 people, who, by many accounts, are health workers, doctors, nurses and midwives, and not rebels, is a throwback to the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, who used the military to arrest activists and suppress dissent in the 1970s and 1980s. Ms. de Lima said the detainees had been blindfolded for long periods of time and deprived of sleep. Some of them also complained of having been electrically shocked during interrogation and sexually harassed.
‘‘We must not allow this to happen again,’’ Senator Benigno Aquino III, the son of the late Marcos opponent Corazon Aquino, said last week. Democracy in the Philippines, he said, is being ‘‘eroded methodically under the present administration.’’
Gilbert Teodoro, a former defense secretary, urged the armed forces on Saturday to obey the court.
The 43 people were arrested Feb. 6 by a large force from the military and the police, backed by tanks and military trucks. Officials said they had been arrested because they were being trained to make explosives, a charge denied by the families and colleagues of the detainees.
‘‘If they had 300 men to abduct the 43, why can’t they have some people to transport them to court?’’ said Lovella de Castro, secretary general of Karapatan, a human rights group. ‘‘It is clear to us that they are just ignoring the court. They behave as though they are higher than the Supreme Court.’’
Lt. Col. Noel Detoyato, a spokesman for the army’s Second Division, which made the arrests, defended the military in a newspaper interview, saying the detained were considered dangerous individuals with a history of involvement in the rebel movement. He told The Philippine Daily Inquirer that transporting them required ‘‘thorough security planning’’ because of fears that the vehicles would be ambushed in a rescue attempt.
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