HUMAN rights have come under attack in the Philippines, both the notion of a body of rights that protect individuals, and the rights themselves.
But the attacks did not only begin after June 30, 2016, and although the criticisms seem to come from a range of quarters, we need to hold the Philippine government mainly accountable, even if it is with an administration that one supports.
Not acknowledging these could contribute to the continuing erosion of the constituency for human rights in our country, and pose problems for us all moving forward.
As instruments, human rights have been dismissed at one point or another, as either Western impositions, for being outmoded, or even part of ploys to discredit the incumbent. Specific rights that guarantee physical integrity, particularly the rights to life, against warrantless arrest, and inhuman treatment, seem to have become dispensable. These statements do not hold true only for the first 100 days of President Rodrigo Duterte. They apply, in varying degrees, to the records of human rights under the administrations of Presidents Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and Benigno Simeon Aquino III.
Author Richard Kessler noted that in 1987, a year after President Cory assumed office, there were 50 disappearances, and 242 extrajudicial killings. Using data from Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TDFP), Kessler also pointed out that for the first half of 1988 alone disappearances numbered at 82, and extrajudicial killings at 117. Amnesty International reported 50 disappearances in 1990.
President Cory later complained that AI had the “tendency to exaggerate” HR violations in the country. Under President Ramos, the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates reported 48 disappearances, and the torture of nine among 377 arrested individuals as of 1997. Columnist Cecilio Arillo remarked that there were over 100 incidents of reported violations in the short presidency of Estrada from 1998 to 2000.
Karapatan claimed in 2009 that in the nine-year term of President Arroyo, there were a total of 1,188 victims of extrajudicial killings, and 205 have forcibly disappeared. Karapatan further said that HR violations were “numerous and varied and no sector of society is exempted.”
Arillo also noted the high number of journalists victimized during the term of Arroyo. Human Rights Watch, citing data of local groups, said from the assumption to office of President Noynoy Aquino in 2010 until early 2016, around 300 had been killed, among them activists, human rights advocates, and indigenous peoples.
Rather than explain away the more than 3,000 deaths under Duterte by saying that previous administrations are equally culpable, the point I am making is that the Philippine government in its various iterations has a notorious record when it comes to dealing with its own citizens. And precisely for that reason, rather than dismiss human rights as passé, we need to further strengthen human rights instruments, institutions, champions and constituency so that citizens can consistently and effectively take recourse to them for protection against the inclinations of the Philippine government as the manifestation of the State.
Human rights advocates like other types of activists are entitled to their own political, ideological and organizational inclinations. The unfortunate reality is that such differences have become fundamental divisions that prevented advocates to cross lines and commonly rail against the violations from the time of the first Aquino president to the second one. That being said, to say that the concern about the growing number of killings today is inauthentic because those who are saying so now did not raise their voices in protest against the violations of the past misses the point.
In the current war against illegal drugs, the Philippine government would have us believe that the concern for human rights of drug offenders was one of the key factors for the growth of the drug menace in the Philippines, when the truth it was the systematic failure of the administrations to take full recourse to the legal, institutional and military resources at its disposal, and to monitor its own ranks.
As borne out by the series of events that unfolded before the public eye, we saw that respect for human rights had not been the main impediment, but weaknesses in and sometimes the breakdown of government instrumentalities and their agents: from corrupt police who tolerated or facilitated drug distribution in their areas, to protection extended by generals, politicians, and functionaries of agencies, and the judiciary, and even outright participation in the drug business as financiers.
And now, Philippine government under whose continuing watch the above transgressions happened would have us believe that the only way it can deal with the drug problem is to strip citizens of protection. It is not yet too late for human rights groups, political movements and peace networks across persuasions to unite and prevent this machination from coming to pass.
This time it is illegal drugs. But what is to prevent the current or future administrations of the Philippine government to take issue again with one’s political beliefs, affiliations and practices, or to consider the economic, social and cultural rights of Filipinos as collateral damage in the service of one agenda or another?
Civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights are part of the frame which enable us to conceptualize and actualize together our notions of malasakit and tunay na pagbabago. For what is malasakit if not for a kapwa whose rights we uphold despite our differences and difficulties, and what is tunay na pagbabago if it would not enable the lowly and powerless to be protected against the powerful, be it government or business?
At this point, the informed practice of citizenship could still warrant first, targeted support of positive initiatives of this administration such as the peace processes, enhancement of airport and other services, and the reexamination of our foreign policy and second, critical engagement so that adequate attention would be paid to matters that truly benefit the majority of the Filipino people.
But continued and rampant violations of civil and political rights would only lead to a massive and severe case of collective schizophrenia, and Filipinos would not only have lost touch with, but also control of our realities. These are certainly not in keeping with malasakit and tunay na pagbabago.