Zara Alvarez, a health worker and former director of the human rights group, Karapatan, has been shot to death in the central Philippines. The incident reportedly occurred on 17 August 2020, by an unidentified assailant in the central city of Bacolod and was aided by a motorcyclist who helped him escape.
Issues to Consider for the Philippines
Zara Alvarez is the 13th member of the Karapatan killed since mid-2016 after President Rodrigo Duterte came into power. Government investigators have quickly linked Zara’s assassination to her affiliation with a “leftist group” but promised to commence an investigation.
It will be instructive to note that in February 2019, the Department of Justice issued a petition that labelled more than 600 people including dozens of leftist activists as members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA) putting the named individuals at risk of extrajudicial execution.
Alvarez’s death comes a few weeks after the president signed the highly controversial Anti-Terrorism Act into law. The law defines terrorism as intending to cause death or injury, damage to the government or private property or use weapons of mass destruction to “spread a message of fear” or intimidate the government. The law also holds that Suspects could be held up to 24 days without charge, which violates a three-day limit set by the Philippine constitution. Penalties against law enforcement agencies for unlawful detention has also been removed.
Several rights bodies have condemned the move by President Duterte whose assumption of office easily transitioned the Philippines into a policed-state. Amnesty International reports that Killings by the police and unknown armed individuals remained rampant as the government’s violent “war on drugs” reached its fourth year. Over 6,500 people have been killed in police operations since the Duterte administration took office in July 2016.
The International Criminal Court made a move in February 2019 to begin Investigations of “drug war” killings in the Philippines. President Duterte withdrew Philippines from the ICC after that move and not much has been heard about the investigation since then.
