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Step up efforts to seek justice—Cordillera Martial Law survivors

BAGUIO CITY (Feb. 9) — While human rights victims of the Marcos regime nationwide waited for almost two decades for justice to be served, a misinterpretation of another US court decision last week by a national daily elicited varied reactions.

Two celebrated survivors of the Marcos regime here said the efforts to get indemnified should not be distracted by the recent US ruling, instead, these should be intensified. In separate interviews Manny Loste and Joanna K. Cariño reaffirmed the justness of the indemnification claims. They said that the recognition that there had been some 10,000 victims of atrocities during the Marcos rule is victory enough and they share the sentiment of other victims and groups that indemnification is in order.

“This makes the move for compensation urgent and Congress should take this up at once,” Loste said. Loste, then a Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) mentor was jailed and tortured during martial law. He is now national vice-president of party list Bayan Muna.

Loste said, the entire Filipino people, especially the masses of peasants and workers suffered during martial law. He said they ought to be compensated through government services as land reform. However, Loste is not so optimistic the government could deliver these services to the poor peasants, “especially now that our Land Reform Program is a farce.”
“It is sad that much of the recovered money will end up in the pockets of the bureaucrats,” Loste notes.

Cariño, in a statement, likewise said that the responsibility to give some degree of justice to the human rights victims of the Marcos dictatorship lies in the hands of the GMA government and the Philippine Congress. Cariño was an instructor at the University of the Philippines College – Baguio (UPCB, now UP Baguio) when she was incarcerated. Cariño now heads the Cordillera Afong – SELDA.

“The Marcoses cannot wash their hands off the crimes of the dictatorship that they were part of,” Cariño said.

It has been more than a decade since the federal jury in Hawaii awarded $2 billion in damages to the victims of torture, summary killings and disappearances during martial law. With interests, the amount is now $4 billion.

The US Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the earlier decision of the Hawaiian jury when it ruled that a US court could not interfere with the decisions of the Philippine courts. While the US appeals court upheld the Supreme Court decision, our own SC has not recognized the $2 billon-dollar judgement won by the victims of martial law. The SC in July 2003 ruled as ill-gotten the Marcos wealth in escrow at the Philippine National Bank.

While the administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has set aside $200 million or P11 billion from the $356 million (now $683 million with interest) proceeds of the Marcos ill-gotten wealth for the indemnification of the human rights victims, Philippine Congress has yet to pass a measure authorizing the release of the funds to its legitimate claimants.

The creation of an appropriate board where claimants can file their claims is still pending because the Human Rights Victims Compensation Act remains pending in the Senate and the House. Two separate bills are now in the House of Representatives. One version authored by Bayan Muna representative Satur Ocampo, defines victims as those named in the US class suit in 1995 and those who may be identified by proper bodies to be created for the purpose. The other version by Representative Etta Rosales of party list Akbayan excludes those who have opted to take up arms.

Ocampo, himself an ML survivor, welcome the US Court ruling saying that it only means “what we are doing in Congress – processing the compensation package - is correct.”

Cordillera Afong-SELDA, Cariño said, will persevere in the struggle for justice and indemnification for the victims of martial law, and in the wider struggle for a just and lasting peace. # Lyn V. Ramo for NORDIS

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