Category — Reports

18 September 2009

Dear President Arroyo,

Your visit to London aims to discuss economic development in the Philippines. We do not believe that there can be any meaningful economic progress if the human rights of Filipino citizens are violated.

Madame President, you are the head of a state which stands accused of perpetrating and rewarding political killings, disappearances, torture, and the violation of basic human rights. This situation has been investigated and documented by numerous United Nations bodies as well as human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the World Council of Churches. [Read more →]

For full pdf text of the Executive Summary click here

For full text of Shattered Lives AI report, click here

“We inherited an age-old conflict in Mindanao, exacerbated by a politically popular but near-sighted
policy of massive retaliation. This only provoked the other side to continue the war.”
- President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo during her State of the Nation Address, 27 July 2009

REPORT SUMMARY
Yet another round of fighting between the Philippine government forces and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) has ended on 29 July 2009. The 2008-2009 hostilities, which displaced more than 750,000 persons
in total and led to numerous human rights abuses, officially ended with an agreement to resume peace
negotiations. One year after renewed violence between government security forces and armed groups,
Mindanao is finally beginning to see a possible end to the unrest and uncertainty— and perhaps even an end to
the 40-year armed conflict.

Their lives shattered by the armed conflict, hundreds of thousands of people in the Central Mindanao region of
southern Philippines faced the risk of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests,
displacement and burning and destruction of their homes at the hands of the Philippine armed forces, MILF
fighters, and local militias. With no means of making a living, the people have become dependent on aid.

In May 2009 the Mindanao conflict was identified as having the highest number of new internally displaced
persons worldwide1 and having “the most neglected displacement situation” in 2008. [Read more →]