Manila: An investigation is being sought in the Senate into reports published by rights watchdog Amnesty International on the alleged widespread torture of police detainees.
According to Senator Aquilino Pimentel, he finds the Amnesty International report disturbing, while at the same time saying that laws should be enacted “to prevent torturous activities, provide mechanisms for the effective investigation and restitution of legitimate claims of torture and end impunity.” The lawmaker chairs the Senate Justice panel.
“We are faced with a situation where those who are primarily entrusted to enforce the law (the police), serve the people, and protect their welfare may have been the ones who may have violated the laws that they are bound to execute,” he said.
According to Amnesty International, torture and other forms of inhuman treatment of police detainees continue in the Philippines even as the country passed the Anti-Torture Law of 2009 or Republic Act 9745.
Under that law, the Commission on Human Rights, Department of Justice and the Philippine National Police are mandated to receive and investigate torture complaints.
Amnesty International said: “A pervasive culture of impunity for torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment within the police force has seen allegations of torture rise year on year in the Philippines, but there has never been a single conviction for torture.
The rights watchdog had been able to record 75 cases of alleged torture in 2013---,the highest number of recorded incidents so far. It said that 60 of the 75 cases have implicated police officers as perpetrators.
According to Pimentel, more cases could have been actually reported, except that whistle-blowers fear reprisal from the perpetrators and lack of confidence in the justice system by the victims.
Pimentel added that those who have filed cases had found themselves faced with a “dauntingly complex criminal and administrative complaints system,” which are “complex, confusing, and reflect overlapping mandates” by government agencies.
Salil Shetty, Secretary General of Amnesty International, wrote in a recent blog that when the country passed its landmark Anti-Torture Law in 2009 “country proved itself a true regional leader.”
However, she said the government failed to follow up on this gain. “For despite the country’s good Anti-Torture Law, the reality is dismal. We were in Manila to launch a new report revealing police torture — which includes electric shocks, rape, waterboarding and mock executions — and the complete failure to hold torturers to account. In the five years since the law was passed, not a single police officer has been convicted,” said Shetty.
Shetty said a probe by Pimentel’s justice committee into the police torture allegations “will be an important start”.
