Press Release
May 6, 2009

Chiz to Palace: P25-M pork fund not "magic bullet" to stop political killings

Opposition Sen. Chiz Escudero yesterday said good intelligence work and not the P25-million fund being put up by the Palace will stop political killings.

"Assassinations are not street crimes like cell phone snatching. It takes a lot of sleuthing to unmask gun-for-hires. This is a job best done by our intelligence guys," he said.

"I hope this is not another pr job to mollify critics, especially the special human rights rapporteur of the United Nations."

Escudero, chair of the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, also said that the administration need not pass the hat to raise the amount, pointing out that the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) is controlled by President Arroyo.

"If pork barrel were literally a barrel, it will only have the presidential seal on it, dispelling any doubt as to ownership of the fund," he added.

Arroyo issued the order to establish the P25-million fund while in Cairo, Egypt to "erase the legacy of political violence that has haunted our nation for generations." She also asked lawmakers to help raise the amount by contributing 250,000 each from their pork barrel.

Escudero also questioned the government's seeming dependence on bounties in running after criminals and extremists.

"Have we lost the support of the people that we need to buy information from them? Have our police and military become so inept?" he asked.

"The political killings will not end until we address the root causes of the longest-running communist insurgency in the world" the senator said.

Human rights groups have blamed the administration for the extrajudicial killings and disappearances of journalists, church people, unionists and farmers belonging to militant groups.

The Task Force Usig, a unit formed in 2006 by the government to investigate, solve, and prosecute those involved in the murders, has reported a decrease in the number of extrajudicial killings in 2007 and 2008 compared to the all-time high posted in 2006.

The human rights group Karapatan, however, has recorded 16 political killings in the first quarter of this year, prompting it to warn of a possible resurgence in attacks on militants and journalists.

The latest high-profile killing was the brutal rape and murder of 20-year old Rebelyn Pitao, daughter of a communist New People's Army (NPA) leader in southern Mindanao. In retaliation, a communist hit squad killed one of the suspects in the killing of Pitao.

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