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The outrage was sparked by the failure of the U.N. human rights body to implement the recommendations of U.N. Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, who did exemplary investigative work in the Philippines in connection with scores of extrajudicial killings and other human rights abuses by alleged agents of the state identified with the administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
A total of 301 human rights activists from the financial capital of New York to war-ravaged Sri Lanka have signed an online petition, “Stand for Human Rights in the Philippines,” urging the U.N. General Assembly to overturn the election of the Manila government as vice president of the human rights body.
The petitioners asserted that the election of the Manila government to represent human rights sends the wrong message to the Arroyo administration, whose miserable record in prosecuting military perpetrators of criminal acts encourages the culture of impunity in which these crimes persist.
More importantly, the petitioners said, the election of the Philippine government as the second highest official of the U.N. human rights body also sends the wrong message to the victims of human rights abuses and their families, who will think the United Nations has turned a blind eye to their cries for justice.
In Manila, various activist and human rights groups have protested the move. The chairperson of the militant fisherfolk alliance Pamalakaya, Fernando Hicap, who is one of the victims of military harassment, dismissed the selection of the Philippine government as a direct affront to the cause of human rights, civil liberties, truth and justice.
“Where is the U.N.’s sense of justice and fairness? A lot of people have been summarily executed and massacred by the criminal regime of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo since she assumed the presidency in 2001. This is very, very unfair,” the Pamalakaya leader said to local media at a press conference in the group’s office in Manila.
The U.N. Human Rights Council said the election of the Philippine government to the post demonstrated the "confidence" of the international community in the Philippines as an "active and constructive" member of the United Nations in human rights promotion and protection.
The United Nations is apparently ignoring the glaring human rights crimes of the Arroyo government since it assumed the presidency in 2001. The Manila-based human rights watchdog Karapatan said that last year there were 52 incidents of extrajudicial killings and arbitrary executions victimizing 69 people; 73 cases of illegal arrest and detention victimizing 280 political activists; and 85 cases of threat, harassment and intimidation victimizing 2,194 left-wing activists.
From Jan. 21, 2001 to March 31, 2008, Karapatan said 903 persons were summarily executed by the military, while 193 persons were abducted by state agents since the Arroyo government’s two crackdowns on militants, known as Oplan Bantay Laya 1 and Oplan Bantay Laya II.
Shortly after the election of the Philippine government as vice president of the U.N. Human Rights Council, the Philippine Army based in Negros said it was planning to liquidate leaders and members of left-leaning organizations in the province, whom it branded as fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army.
The following week after the announcement, a religious-led fact-finding mission was conducted after reports reached Manila that a village resolution was allegedly passed on May 28 preventing leaders and members of human rights watchdog Karapatan from entering a highly militarized village in the province to investigate alleged military abuses in far-flung peasant communities.
The U.N. Human Rights Council should be informed that its decision to designate the Philippine government as vice president of the U.N. human rights body was a terrible mistake.
Instead of giving weight to the assessments of various human rights institutions like London-based Amnesty International, the World Council of Churches, the Committee for the Protection of Journalists, Human Rights Watch, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the International Labor Rights Forum and the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Center, the United Nations still proceeded with the selection of the Philippines as this year’s U.N. Human Rights Council vice president.
The Manila government is now capitalizing on what it called a passing human rights record, and is now using the honor bestowed by United Nations to resume the government’s campaign against critics and perceived foes of the ruling regime.
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(Gerry Albert Corpuz is a correspondent of Bulatlat.com, an alternative Philippine online news site. He is also head of the information department of Pamalakaya, a national federation of small fisherfolk organizations in the Philippines. His website is www.gerryalbertcorpuz.motime.com, and he can be contacted at themanager98@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Gerry Albert Corpuz.)
