The Philippines: Day of the Vigilantes

Abstract

At the end of January 1988, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), the region's principal federation of civil rights watchdog groups, sharply criticized the Philippine government of President Corazon Aquino for serious and unjustifiable violations of human rights. The report of the Hong Kong-based AHRC, after a 12-day on-thespot investigation by a nine-member commission, particularly cited abuses allegedly committed by government-supported anticommunist vigilante groups operating throughout the country. In the commission's words, these groups were creating the impression of a widening militarization that was turning the whole of the Philippines into a battlefield, and was pitting against civilian in a war that properly should be fought by military forces. The report also criticized President Aquino for having rejected allegations of human rights abuses as total lies, when on February 2, 1988, she formally installed General Renato de Villa as the new chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The AHRC characterized Aquino's position as untenable in view of the human rights violations which we have observed.' Even as the AHRC mission was voicing its criticism, however, leading Filipino public figures in and out of government were expressing approval of the upsurge and activities of vigilante groups which, according to human rights sources in October 1987, were already estimated to number more than 200, with six of them in Manila alone.2 On February 4, 1988, for example, Jaime Cardinal Sin, Archbishop of Manila and Roman Catholic Primate of the Philippines, voiced support for the vigilantes while at