THIS column is coming out a day earlier than the global commemoration of Human Rights Day. Recently, Amnesty International-Philippines (AI-Ph) requested the five presidential contenders to give them a copy of their human rights agenda but none deigned to comply.
AI-Ph spoke out in the aftermath of an SWS survey showing Rodrigo Duterte aka “Dirty Harry” as the frontrunner for the 2016 polls. This candidate has the gall to brag of personally killing of accused criminals.
As for the presidential frontrunner, he was more forthright. “Am I the death squad? True. That is true,” Duterte admitted on his regular local TV show Gikan sa Masa, Para sa Masa on May 24, 2015.
He added, “I don’t want to kill people. So don’t elect me as president.” In other words, if he does get elected, the Davao city mayor looks at his mandate the license to kill. It scares me to think that there are lawyers who have sworn to uphold the law who support this so-called Punisher.
I find it surprising that his presidential rivals are not even putting him to task on Duterte’s pledge to violate human rights.
Moreover, in speaking of human rights, I might add that none of the candidates are talking of climate justice, of linking climate change with human rights such as the rights to life, livelihoods, domicile, intergenerational, and so forth under economic, social and cultural rights.
In the Philippines, that means deep cuts in carbon emissions can only be achieved in the Philippines by stopping the construction of coal-fired power plants and a radical shift toward a clean, renewable energy, and achieves a more sustainable energy mix. Except perhaps in Negros Occidental, do we hear other provinces if not the entire country that are shifting to renewables?
Recently, AI-Ph, Avaaz, Business and Human Rights Resources Center, Climate Justice Program, the Center for International Environmental Law, Earth Rights International, International Trade Union Confederation, and the Union of Concerned Scientists joined Greenpeace Philippines in filing a complaint against the top 50 investor-owned fossil fuel companies on their accountability on climate impacts that endanger people’s lives and livelihoods, as well as that of future generations.
Where do our presidentiables stand on climate justice and human rights especially on veering the country toward renewables? Alas, what I hear from them is the sound of silence.
There is nothing much to celebrate, and much to commemorate, if not to defend, about human rights.
(bqsanc@yahoo.com)