Watchdog condemns Calabarzon killings

PHIL Robertson, deputy Asia director for the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW), has condemned the series of police operations against suspected left-leaning individuals in Calabarzon Region.

Robertson said HRW is “seriously concerned about reports of raids conducted by law enforcement authorities that resulted in activists’deaths in the provinces of Laguna, Cavite, Batangas and Rizal.”

Calabarzon groups the four provinces, together with Quezon province.

“The Philippine government should act now to investigate the use of the lethal force in these raids, stop the mayhem and killings that have gone hand in hand with the practice of Red-tagging, and respect of Filipinos to exercise their civil and political right and dissent,”he said in a statement.

Robertson believed that the simultaneous operations were “clearly part” of the Philippine government’s “increasingly brutal counter-insurgency campaign,” with the administration’s ambitious bid to end the 52-year-old communist insurgency in the country.

“The fundamental problem is this campaign no longer makes any distinction between armed rebels and non-combatant activists, labor leaders and right defenders,” he pointed out.

Robertson said the deadly raids were not a coincidence with President Rodrigo Duterte’s pronouncement two days ago, ordering the military and the police to“kill all”suspected communist rebels and not mind human rights violations.

The HRW official noted that with all incidents taking place in Southern Luzon, it was not a coincidence that Lt. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. was taking charge of supervising these areas, being the commander of the military’s Southern Luzon Command.