Manila may face UN blacklist over rights abuse

Manila, Jul 27: The Philippines may face sanctions from the United Nations for its failure to report human rights abuse in the country, the head of the state's rights commission said today.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who survived political attempts to unseat her last year, is currently facing eight impeachment complaints, which include allegations of human rights abuses related to the murder of leftist activists.

Arroyo, who has denied police or military involvement in the killings, is expected to defeat the complaints because she has majority support in the lower house of Congress.

''The Philippines can be blacklisted by the UN if it fails to explain why it has not submitted the reports,'' Purificacion Quisumbing, chairman of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), told reporters during a forum at the main army camp in Manila.

Today, a leader of a leftist farmers' group was murdered while sipping coffee with his three sons at his home on the southern island of Mindanao, adding to the list of nearly 700 activists, journalists and lawyers killed in the Philippines.

A Hong Kong-based rights group, Asian Human Rights Commission, has sent an open letter to the national police chief, urging an investigation into the alleged role of soldiers in the killings across the country.

Since 1992, Manila has failed to comply with the UN requirements to submit reports on cases of rights abuses in the country, according to the CHR.

Quisumbing said there has been an alarming rise in the number of extra-judicial killings and disappearances of suspected rebels across the country, which is fighting communist rebels and Muslim separatists.

''All these are possible basis for being blacklisted in the human rights system of the United Nations,'' she said, adding her office had investigated about 68 murders of leftist activists, including 19 cases of media killings, since 2002.

The rights commission also looked into 58 cases of alleged kidnappings, which were blamed on soldiers and police officers.

In her talk to soldiers, Quisumbing asked them to respect the rights of non-combatants, including ''part-time'' communist rebels who were not in the battlefield.

REUTERS