Let us give praise where praise is due. And nowhere is it more due, or well past due, than to Leila de Lima, the Commission on Human Rights chairperson.

In the past, I?ve praised Chief Justice Reynato Puno for his contributions to improving human rights observance in this country. Or since that sounds so abstract, to making this country a little safer to live in, particularly for the poor and weak. Not least by introducing the writ of amparo, which has made it harder for the usual suspects to hide behind the curtain of national security to ply their murderous trade.

I?d be remiss if I did not say the same things, or more, about De Lima. Laboring under even more tremendous constraints than Puno?she does not enjoy the same level of independence and prominence as the Supreme Court?she has pushed the envelope on human rights. Like Puno, she has pulled back human rights from the edge of the precipice, where it has been teetering for some time, and stood it on solid ground. More than Puno, she has reminded us that human rights are not just amenities of civilization, like social graces, they are matters of life and death in a completely, elementally, awesomely literal way.

You do not have human rights, you are dragged away screaming in the middle of the day. You do not have human rights, you disappear. You do not have human rights, you die. It is as simple as that. It is as dire as that.

Since she became CHR head, De Lima has been at the forefront of the fight against ?salvaging,? whether that is done by the military, as in the case of the political activists, or by death squads, as in the case of the dead in Davao. De Lima had quite a row with Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte over the latter a few months ago, refusing to be cowed by the peace-and-order or ?halang ang kaluluwa? (the dead are better off dead, they are human dregs anyway) argument. The peace of the dead is no peace at all. The people who have no souls, or consciences, are not the dead, they are the ones who made them so.

It is De Lima as well who has given refuge to Melissa Roxas who has returned from the United States to testify against her tormentors. Roxas is the Filipino-American activist who, along with two companions, Juanito Carabeo and John Edward Handoc, were abducted and tortured by military agents in Tarlac some months ago. The military of course denies that, just as it has denied the close to the more than 700 activists they have murdered over the last few years. It claims that either Roxas manufactured the case or somebody else, not the military, took them. De Lima herself says that if Roxas manufactured the case, she must be a very good liar, her account being too detailed, too graphic, and too consistent. She did not go on to state the obvious, which is either that or the military is the liar, and not a very good one at that.

That brings me back to giving praise where praise is due. And nowhere is it more due, or well past due too, than to Roxas herself. It is a brave thing she is doing, one that should have a profound and lasting impact on ending barbarism in this country. Or specifically on putting a stop to the ?culture of impunity,? as international human rights and journalist groups have called it, a far too polite term to refer to the brazenness, viciousness, and lack of culpability with which armed men, or indeed the Armed Forces, are murdering citizens.

Philip Alston, whom Raul Gonzalez called the ?muchacho? of the United Nations, has already laid the blame for it squarely on the military, and suggested the ?killing fields? are not random but the product of policy. Jovito Palparan, Norberto Gonzales, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will have much to answer for when their day comes.

What Roxas is doing is not easy. Trauma is the hardest thing in the world to deal with. I?ve seen friends tremble violently and lapse into incoherence at the sight of their torturers long after the torture happened. One friend did exactly that after seeing the captain who made an ashtray of him during martial law come over to shake his hand 20 years later. Roxas had to endure the ordeal of having a plastic bag thrown over her head, which is as near to drowning in dry land as you can get. That she has found the resolve to face the people who did that to her, or who agreed to it, or who ordered it, it is inspiring. No, more than that, it is awe-inspiring. Maybe fury or outrage has done that. I hope it sustains her in what are going to be her most agonizing moments these next few days.

I am glad in particular about two things. One is that Roxas is a US citizen. That is probably the only reason she is alive today. And that is probably the only reason she will be able to leave this country in the same state. Were she not so, she would have been just another blade of grass added to the ?killing fields.? Were she not so, even De Lima?s CHR might not be enough to protect her. She cannot possibly be comforted by the military and police vowing to get to the bottom of things. She can only find in it a not very veiled threat.

Second is that Roxas is a member of the militant Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), US chapter. For so long have Norberto Gonzales et al. gotten away with lumping together activist and rebel, civilian and combatant, dissenter and dissident, and making all of them fair game for executioners. It?s time their obscenity is stopped. It?s time they are stopped. That has no place in a democracy. That has no place in civilization. It?s time the leprous sore is exposed for all the world to see.

Human rights are not an amenity, like tea. They are a necessity, like air. You do not have human rights, the meek will not inherit the earth. They will feed the worms.