E/CN.4/1991/17 page 74 likelihood that he will be killed, injured, forced, threatened, intimidated or harassed to prevent him from testifying, or to testify falsely or evasively because or on account of his testimony. This Bill was approved by the Senate and is presently under consideration for concurrence in the House of Representatives. Another Bill pending before Congress is a Bill restoring the authority of the civil courts to try the cases of members of the armed forces accused of having committed a crime against civilians, unless the offence is service-connected, in which case the military courts shall have jurisdiction. Presidential Decree 1850, enacted during the Marcos regime, stated that members of the armed forces, including the police, should always be tried by military courts. In view of the fact that this hardly ever led to the punishment of military personnel for violations of human rights, Congress approved a Bill to repeal PD 1850; this Bill, however, was vetoed by the President in the aftermath of the December 1989 coup attempt. At the same time, however, the President submitted a draft Bill with the same aims, which was eventually incorporated in the above-mentioned Bill. As long as this Bill is not enacted, the President can grant a waiver of PD 1850 upon a request to do so. Such a request can be made by any party or by his relatives but also by the authorities and is nearly automatically granted according to Government officials. The present Bill, however, is criticized by various human rights organizations as being ambiguous in certain respects. 229. The Commission on Human Rights, together with a number of Representatives, has taken the initiative for a Bill to establish separate courts to try, hear and decide certain specified human rights cases. According to the Commission on Human Rights this would answer the problem of delayed administration of justice involving human rights cases. Other sources, however, expressed the fear that the judges serving in such courts would be particularly liable to harassment. 230. The Human Rights Committee of the House of Representatives is in the process of drafting a human rights code elaborating on both article III of the Constitution, containing the Bill of Civil and Political Rights, and article XIII entitled "Social Justice and Human Rights", which deals with labour questions, agrarian and natural resources reform, urban land reform and housing, health development and the position of women. This highly ambitious project is still in its initial phase. 231. Under the Marcos regime torture was widely practised in the Philippines. Out of the total number of complaints filed with the Commission on Human Rights' predecessor, the Presidential Committee on Human Rights, and involving human rights violations by the previous regime, torture ranked second after extra-judicial killings. According to non-governmental sources the number of torture allegations declined rapidly after the new Government came into power but started to rise again in 1988. The statistics provided by the Commission on Human Rights on the number of complaints of torture or maltreatment filed with it are not always consistent, but are for 1988 between 50 and 75 and for 1989 somewhat lower. Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, a non-governmental organization, documented in 1988, 718 cases of alleged torture, in 1989 some 386 cases and in the period January to 6 September 1990, 149 cases. (The vast difference between the number of complaints filed with the Commission on Human Rights and cases documented by the TFDP will be discussed later).