HUMAN-RIGHTS advocates have urged UN rights experts to look into the country’s continuing extrajudicial killings, and the continued labeling and the filling of trumped-up charges against activists during the recent meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
HUMAN-RIGHTS advocates have urged UN rights experts to look into the country’s continuing extrajudicial killings, and the continued labeling and the filling of trumped-up charges against activists during the recent meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The call was made by Filipino human rights advocates during their discussions with Philip Alston, the newly appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, where they talked about extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and enforced disappearance of human-rights defenders, political activists and community leaders in the country.
Alston, who was then the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, went to the Philippines in 2007 to investigate the cases of extrajudicial killings under former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration.
In his report, Alston pointed out the responsibilities of the government, military and police on the killings and disappearances of political activists also tagged as rebel supporters and recommended a checklist of concrete steps that the government should do to address the violations committed by the counter-insurgency campaigns of the government.
The checklist, said Cristina Palabay, the secretary-general of Karapatan and a member of the delegation of the Ecumenical Voice for Peace and Human Rights in the Philippines (EcuVoice), “remain unheeded or just given lip service as impunity persists.”
Karapatan, a human-rights group, reported to Alston a total of 21 extrajudicial killings and 23 cases of frustrated killings under the Aquino administration.
EcuVoice also submitted a report on the impoverished conditions of the 2,102 farm workers who lost their livelihood in Hacienda Luisita when they were dislocated from the lands that had served as their primary means of livelihood.
The Filipino delegates in the council in Geneva have also recommended to Alston and the UN Missions to urge the Philippine government to end the counter-insurgency program and stop the policy of vilification of human- rights defenders and political activists.
They also called for the resumption of the peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the release of the NDFP peace consultants arrested by the military, including Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria.
Tiamzon and Austria were arrested on March 22 in Cebu despite the immunity granted to them under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees of the government and NDFP.
Edre Olalia, secretary-general of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers and a member of the Filipino delegation to Geneva, said the continuing “judicial environment,” will result to the very same issues and concerns raised in the Universal Periodic Review in 2008 and 2012. It will “haunt and hound” the Aquino administration in the UPR in 2016.
“The present legal and judicial system must be truly responsive in delivering effective justice to the victims, make the perpetrators accountable, and send the crystal-clear message that committing human-rights violations will be decisively dealt with. Otherwise, it will be more like the same, if not worse,” Olalia said.
Alston said he will look into the reports submitted to him and will look into the issue once more after his last report on his mission to the Philippines seven years ago.
The labeling of the political activists as rebel supporters has been the cause of the human-rights violations plaguing the country right now, hindering their freedom of expression and putting threat to their safety.
