Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 00:22:00 04/14/2008
MANILA, Philippines - Apparently, the human rights situation in the Philippines is just lovely—if Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita is to be believed. The former general and ex-congressman has set great store by the applause his presentation received at the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva the other day.
“We felt that we were on Cloud 9,” an ecstatic Ermita said by telephone. “It was very encouraging. I didn’t expect it ... I was told that presenters are not usually accorded that privilege.”
We presume that by “that privilege” he meant applause that could be spun for the home audience as both approval and praise. But perhaps the audience was merely entertained?
Human rights lawyer Edre Olalia said other Filipinos watching the briefing by Ermita and other administration officials were “appalled by the ebullient presentation of barefaced lies, spins and out-of-this-world razzle-dazzle.”
After all, even the King of Spain can be persuaded to hail President Macapagal-Arroyo, during whose term political killings have risen to new record highs, as a champion of human rights. Who is to say members of the UN Human Rights Council can’t be as gullible?
Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casiño said he “nearly fell” off his seat after he heard Ermita present what he called a “totally one-sided depiction” of the human rights situation at home.
“I almost fell from my seat listening to him expound on government efforts to strengthen the Ombudsman and Sandiganbayan, the success of its electronic procurement system and effectivity of its lifestyle checks.” [He meant “effectiveness.”]
Granted, Casiño et al. are not exactly on cozy terms with the Arroyo administration. It is difficult to imagine the Bayan Muna party-list group, for instance, praising the Arroyo administration for anything having to do with human rights, especially before an international forum. But it should be easy enough to compare the true situation with Ermita’s alternative reality.
Of the hundreds of political killings that have stained the countryside since 2001, how many have been truly solved? (The police definition of a solved crime—the mere filing of a case—is patently absurd and pathetically inadequate.) Of those who have been forcibly abducted, in politically motivated disappearances, how many have been returned to safety? (The case of Jonas Burgos, who disappeared from a crowded mall, continues to haunt the national conscience.) Of the many pointed proposals of the Alston report, how many have been accepted and put into effect? (To this day, Ermita and other administration officials continue to deny the balance and comprehensiveness of the report, prepared by UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, when it was the administration itself that invited the United Nations in the first place.)
The fundamental finding of the Alston mission was that the administration’s own counter-insurgency policy was responsible for a climate of fear and a culture of impunity which have claimed the lives of hundreds of victims. (Even the extrajudicial killings in the cities of Davao and Cebu, while not politically motivated in the usual sense, have benefited from the same climate, the same culture.)
To be sure, brave steps have been taken, to defend potential victims, to fight back against human rights abuses. How telling, though, that the Ermita presentation did not highlight the Supreme Court’s introduction of new legal remedies, such as the writ of amparo. Perhaps that was because calling attention to the crisis in extrajudicial killings which led to the remedies would have dulled some of the presentation’s razzle-dazzle, lessened some of its entertainment value.
Unfortunately for all of us, the Arroyo administration is a most pragmatic operation; it will use whatever works. And a public relations blitz based on the “encouraging” applause the Philippine government’s presentation in Geneva received will work, if it can be successfully substituted for actual performance. Why go through the arduous hard work of prosecuting officials accused of human rights abuses when the administration can simply announce it is doing so—and judge its own performance by the applause it generates?
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