Manila pledges probe into deaths

By Sarah Toms
BBC News, Manila

Mrs Arroyo has given police a deadline to solve the killings

Philippine President Gloria Arroyo says she plans to form a commission to probe political killings in the country.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said Mrs Arroyo was mulling a list of appointees to investigate killings of journalists and activists.

The announcement comes amid international criticism of her administration's human rights record.

On Wednesday, two more left-wing activists were killed in separate shootings by unidentified gunmen.

Warning

This week, Amnesty International released a report warning that the killings of activists in the Philippines could lead to spiralling violence.

The report said the left-wing ideology of the victims and a climate of impunity showed the attacks were not an unconnected series of criminal murders but a politically-motivated pattern of killings.

The government has intensified its campaign against the communist rebel group the New People's Army.

Mrs Arroyo - who accuses the rebels of being involved in a coup plot in February - has ordered the military to crush the group within two years.

Nearly 1,000 left-wing activists, community workers, lawyers and journalists have either gone missing or been murdered since Mrs Arroyo came to power in 2001, but she has denied police or military involvement in the killings.

Earlier this month, Mrs Arroyo gave state prosecutors and police a 10-week deadline to solve the murders after she was criticised for failing to stop the attacks.

But despite the government's promises and cash rewards, only a handful of the killings have been solved by police.