Rights on wheels

The Commission on Human Rights marked its 25th anniversary this month by launching its Human Rights on Wheels program, which seeks to educate people about their rights and provide victims ways of going after their abusers. Under the program, CHR personnel will travel to different areas in Metro Manila to provide human rights education and training, counseling sessions and free legal aid to residents. CHR will also offer workshops on a human rights-based approach to development and governance as well as activities to promote health and wellness.

The campaign should energize the human rights campaign of the Aquino administration, which is perceived as lackadaisical on the matter. Although an independent commission, the CHR must compel the administration to respect and uphold human rights and forge good working relations with it so as to prosecute abusers more effectively and improve the general climate for justice and human rights.

Toward an improved regime of human rights, an effective education campaign is imperative. Raising awareness on human rights will enable the efficient investigation of cases and prosecution of offenders. As it is, the wheels of rights and justice have been slow, indeed. CHR Chair Loretta Rosales said only 27 percent, or 132 out of the 356 complaints filed against the military, police and other armed groups from July 2010 to March 2012, have been resolved. “As an institution, we therefore need to be more proactive in investigating, monitoring and resolving cases of human rights violations through regional case conferences and community-based dialogues,” she said.

It was propitious that the campaign was launched in Tondo, which is hardly the poster boy for human rights. Two years ago officers of a Tondo police precinct were caught on video torturing a robbery suspect, sparking public outrage. Although Tondo as the Wild, Wild West of the Philippines (indeed, Manila is west of Luzon and the Manila Police District used to be known as the Western Police District) has overshadowed its other qualities as a shoppers’ haven and a bargain-hunters’ paradise, an economic and financial powerhouse, and a cultural mecca, the reputation is not entirely undeserved. Warring street gangs are almost second nature to the place, and prostitution and petty criminal syndicates operate side by side with legitimate commerce and business. Drug trafficking is rampant, underscored quite gruesomely by the occasional summary executions of small-time drug pushers whose bodies greet Tondo denizens when they wake up in the morning.

It is easy to see why human rights abuses should thrive in crime-prone urban ghettoes like Tondo. The extremes of luxury and want create a social tinderbox whose initial flares and eruptions are manifested in criminality and anti-establishment behavior. Until more lasting social solutions are applied to remedy Tondo’s social pathologies, the forces of law and order should see to it that the situation does not careen out of control. But the brakes they apply are sometimes too ham-handed, too abusive: To deal with the underworld, the police themselves become the underworld. The system goes under, and in the end, the public cannot distinguish the face of the criminal from that of the cop. Both faces meld and blend together in one seamless fit.

The situation in Tondo applies as much to the rest of the Philippines. If in Metro Manila, the justification for torture and abuse is the war against crime, in Mindanao, the justification is the war on terror. In Western Mindanao, for instance, the CHR said the number of cases of rights violations involving soldiers and policemen is higher than in other areas on the island where the government’s war on terror is focused. Both wars on crime and terror have serious social underpinnings.

Human rights are a cornerstone of democracy, and more should be done to educate our men and women in uniform about human rights and improve the quality of police and military personnel. The subject should be integrated in the curriculum of criminology schools and police and military academies. The Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces should broaden their recruitment campaign to encourage graduates of top colleges and universities to consider a career therein. But the more lasting way of improving the human rights climate is addressing seriously the deep social problems that reveal the inherent violence of our society.