Ecumenical pressure: Churches seek to stop repression in Philippines

Published: 2007-03-16

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The stories of harassment, violent attacks and murders of missionaries, indigenous leaders, farmers and human rights activists in the Philippines reminded Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., of another place and time. Paired with information that the U.S. recently increased aid to the Philippine military, alleged to be behind many of the incidents, Boxer questioned a State Department representative about whether the situation has parallels to the U.S. role in Central America's civil wars of decades past. "As with El Salvador, are we going to be attacked for training a military that goes out and does these things? Should we be attaching strings to the money we give them?" Boxer asked Eric G. John, deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs. She questioned John during a March 14 hearing of the Senate Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, which she chairs. The hearing came on the final day of an International Ecumenical Conference on Human Rights in the Philippines. Filipino religious and human rights activists, including a Catholic bishop, asked the U.S. government to pressure the Philippine president to better address human rights abuses in the former U.S. territory.

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