The United State Department’s2014 Human Rights drew flak from human rights group Karapatan, saying the report is “hypocritical” since the US is also responsible for abuses committed by Philippine state security forces.

“It is image building. The US government is trying to soften its image among Filipinos and also in the international community as it prepares for an increased and permanent presence in the Philippines for its vaunted Asian pivot,” said Tinay Palabay, secretary-general of Karapatan.

Palabay said the blueprint of Philippine counterinsurgency program, Oplan Bayanihan, is patterned after the US counter-insurgency guide, and US military aid causes human rights abuses.

On Thursday, the US released its report regarding the human rights situation in 200 countries, including the Philippines. It said that extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the Philippines for the past year remains unabated.

But Karapatan said that the US government foments human rights abuses in the Philippines by filling up the military war chest of the Aquino government.

“The US military aid is used for the implementation of Oplan Bayanihan which already victimized thousands of Filipinos especially in the rural areas,” said Palabay.

She cited the $40 Million military aid to the Philippines promised by State Sec. John Kerry in December when he visited the Philippines. The report, which came out two months after Kerry’s $40-M pledge, is allegedly “deceitful” according to Palabay.

In a separate article written by Azadeh Shahshahani and Vanessa Lucas of the National Lawyers Guild in the US, they said that US military aid to the Philippines rose to $30-M in 2012, from $11.9-M in 2011.  Karapatan alleged this as as signal of US government’s renewed support for Oplan Bayanihan to end a 45-year-old insurgency led by the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army.

Palabay asserted that impunity exists because there is not one perpetrator arrested, prosecuted and jailed but rather, they are being promoted. “President Aquino always immediately dismissed documented human rights violations perpetrated by State forces as ‘communist propaganda’,” she added.

She also took a swipe at the “prompt response” of the Aquino government’s agencies after Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Commissioner Eta Rosales agreed to the US report that abuses still persist. Karapatan added that the CHR practically ignored the killings that have been going on since the Aquino’s presidency.

“The Commission on Human Rights cannot simply agree to the report. It is equally accountable because it issued clearances to military officials promoted by Aquino, despite pending court cases against them,” Palabay said.

From July 2010 to December 2013, Karapatan documented 169 victims of extrajudicial killings. In the first six weeks of 2014, Karapatan said it has already documented six victims of extrajudicial killings.

“Impunity persists precisely because of US backing. For its own political and economic interests, the US propped up regimes which are human rights violators—from the time of the Marcos dictatorship up to the present,” Palabay added.