Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] on Monday urged accountability [press release] for torture in the Philippines, noting that five years after the enactment of the Anti-Torture Act of 2009 [law, PDF], there have still been no convictions. Salil Shetty, AI’s Secretary General, says that the law, considered at the time a huge reform for the state, is at “risk [of] becoming nothing but a piece of paper. … [T]he government must step up its commitment to smart out torture once and for all.” The Secretary General has even gone so far as to say that “no one in police detention is safe.” For example, in January a wheel of torture was found at a facility in the Laguna province in which 43 detainees were thought to have been subject to torture and other ill treatment. According to AI, 23 of those detainees have filed complaints but none of those complaints has been prosecuted, and five individuals have actually dropped their complaints. In December, AI will release a report recounting the persistent torture practices, lack of justice for the victims, and lack of accountability for torture in the Philippines.

The Philippines has taken several measures over the past few years to eradicate torture within the state, but there has been a lack of follow-through. In November 2012 President Benigno Aquino passed administrative order 35 [text], which was a special prosecutorial task force charged with implementing The Anti-Torture Act in the state. However, the task force is still in training and has yet to have any impact. In August 2010 Darius Evangelista was video-taped being tortured on a mobile phone, which was broadcast on live television, but the case has not been prosecuted.