NDF slams Rosales for calling killings a 'mere speck'

By Nonoy Espina
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 01:15pm (Mla time) 03/28/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- The National Democratic Front (NDF) has slammed Manila archbishop, Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, for calling extrajudicial killings under the Arroyo administration a "mere speck" compared to those under the Marcos dictatorship.

Various news reports quoted Rosales telling reporters on Monday following the ordination of Bishop Leopoldo Jaucian at the Christ the King Church in Quezon City as saying the human rights violations under the current administration are "nothing compared" to those under the dictatorship that was ousted after 14 years by the People Power revolt of 1986.

"Gagatinga [Like specks of food lodged in the teeth]," Rosales was quoted as describing the present killings, even as he called for an end to the bloodshed he said is committed by both the government and communist rebels.

Rosales also criticized the US for investigating the killings here while also engaged in killing in Iraq and called for the cultivation of a "culture of peace."

In a statement, Luis Jalandoni, chief peace negotiator of the NDF, umbrella organization of the communist underground, took exception to Rosales' downplaying of the present killings, asking how he could "be unmoved" at the loss of "those whose lives and wellbeing he is ordained to protect."

"Is the blood of [Philippine Independent Church] Bishop Alberto Ramento -- brutally stabbed seven times because he stood up for the Hacienda Luisita workers, criticized the Arroyo regime, and fought for social justice -- to be called a 'mere speck'?" Jalandoni asked.

"What about the blood of Father William Tadena, Pastor Isaias Sta. Rosa, Benjaline Hernandez, Alyce Claver and more than 830 other victims of extrajudicial killings, which UN special rapporteur [on extrajudicial killings] Professor Philip Alston said, 'were convincingly attributed to the Armed Forces of the Philippines'? Are these to be called a 'mere speck'?" he added.

Jalandoni also said Rosales' statement seemed "to imply that such military forces can engage in the aforesaid human rights violations on the false assumption that their revolutionary opponents do likewise."

"The statement of Cardinal Rosales can only embolden the practitioners of state terrorism and inflame the civil war that is going on in the country," he said

With his statement, Jalandoni said, Rosales "has allowed himself to be a tool of the Arroyo regime."

"It is regrettable," he said, "that Cardinal Rosales obscures the responsibility of the reactionary state for human rights violations, instead of calling on them to respect the International Bill of Human Rights, international humanitarian law and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law [CARHRIHL]."

Jalandoni urged Rosales to urge "the Arroyo regime to comply with CARHRIHL and the Oslo Joint Statements and thereby lay the ground for resuming the peace negotiations, especially by stopping the gross human rights violations."


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