Manila bishops demand government action on killings

MANILA, Jan 28 (Reuters) A government inquiry into hundreds of killings and disappearances of leftist workers was ''unsatisfactory'', a group of Philippine Catholic bishops said today.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) also said in a statement after a three-day national meeting that the government should ensure that cheating which marred the 2004 national polls would not be repeated in this year's elections.

''The government and military's response to the shameful extra-judicial killings of unarmed crusaders for justice and equality is most unsatisfactory, their protestations of concern not too convincing,'' the bishops' statement said.

A rights panel set up by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to investigate the killings of left-wing workers and journalists has finished its inquiry but the findings have yet to be made public.

Local newspapers quoted Catholic Bishop Juan De Dios Pueblos, a member of the rights panel, as saying the commission found that the military, private armies of some politicians and the communist New Peoples' Army and their militant fronts were all involved in the killings.

He said among the measures recommended by the panel headed by former Supreme Court justice Jose Melo was to make military officers accountable for murders carried out by their soldiers.

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol told reporters today that the panel's recommendation would help the armed forces conduct its own probe on the involvement of military men in the killings.

Rights group Amnesty International said in August it was gravely concerned that soldiers and police could be involved in the killings. It estimated 51 activists were killed in the first six months of 2006 after 66 were murdered in the whole of 2005.

A local human rights group Karapatan said more than 700 leftists activists, farmers, community organisers and journalists have been killed since Arroyo came to power in 2001.

The killings have tainted the image abroad of Arroyo, who is seeking to shake off questions on the legitimacy of her presidency in mid-term elections in May.

The opposition claims that Arroyo cheated her way to victory in the 2004 national elections, helped by corrupt poll officials.

Bishops asked citizens of the dominantly Roman Catholic country to be vigilant and help ensure credible polls in May.

''As a nation, we cannot afford yet another controversial electoral exercise that further aggravates social distrust and hopelessness,'' the bishops' statement said.

REUTERS DKA BD1703