Windows of hope

I was with a government official visiting our urban poor communities within UP Diliman, and she asked the barangay captain if the drug problem was still serious in their area.

“I will be truthful,” the barangay chair answered in Filipino. “The problem is still serious. Six people have been killed here but people still use the drugs. They excuse themselves saying the drugs keep them awake when they have to work, and kills their hunger at night.”

When we moved on to another community, even more depressed than the previous one, I asked the barangay chair about a teenager I had met some months back with a bandage on the side of his head. When I asked what had happened, the kid just looked down. The barangay chair answered in his behalf: “Minartilyo ng tatay. Lasing kasi.” (His father hit him with a hammer. He was drunk.) That time, I found some consolation because the kid was taking the barangay-sponsored ALS (alternative learning system), which could allow him to finish high school by attending intensive classes on Saturdays and taking exams.

This time, I was hopeful when I asked the barangay chair about the kid, but she looked at me sadly: “He’s in jail. Their house was raided and there were drugs. It was his father’s, but they took the boy in as well.”

I always leave these community visits impressed with all the little projects of the barangay, but always there are stories like the ones I just shared. They are stories of despair and this time they took an added meaning because I had to move on from the communities to a signing of a memorandum of agreement between UP Diliman and the Commission on Human Rights, to establish a Center for Human Rights Education in our campus in Pampanga.

At that signing event, I shared the stories I had picked up from the urban poor communities and asked that this new project explore more innovative and relevant ways of doing human rights education.

68 years

This year’s Human Rights Day (Dec. 10) will mark the 68th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The concept of human rights is, of course, much older but it took the horrors of World War II to push for a universal agreement.

Despite the signing of the universal declaration, I do not remember growing up with discussions on human rights in school. My first exposure to “human rights” was during martial law, in the 1970s, when I was already in college but the discussions of these rights were outside the classroom, coming from a few groups, mainly of the religious and lawyers who were exposing violations of human rights, mainly illegal arrests, torture and “salvaging,” the term used for extrajudicial executions.

The legal groups produced primers, mainly for activists, listing the rights we had if we were ever stopped by the police for interrogation, or if an arrest or raid happened and, finally, the rights one had under detention.

Awareness of those rights was important, spelling the difference between life and death. Yet, there was a disconnect between those rights, and the basic rights to food, shelter, clothing; in other words, basic human needs. There seemed to be two worlds for activists: those handling human rights, and those organizing communities around basic human needs.

Yet, the most dramatic gains in political activism during martial law was really building up this freedom from fear, reflected in people feeling they could speak up and tell the truth and, sometimes, being able to get results.

After the dictatorship fell, human rights became a buzzword, with every other government agency holding workshops and symposia. Yet, I often sensed some cynicism when officials spoke of these human rights. The giveaway always was when officials would say “pa human rights human rights,” the repetition suggesting half-hearted conviction in the concept.

This was especially the case with HIV/AIDS programs, where international activism had resulted in strong advocacy to protect people with HIV from harassment. Many health professionals were not convinced, scoffing at the “human rights human rights” and saying, in private, that people with HIV should be quarantined.

Today, in relation to the drug problem, we see the same attitudes except that we now have a government that scoffs at human rights, so there’s no need for “pa human rights human rights.” The calls are explicit, ranging from a more “benign” attitude of arresting and locking them all up, to the more brutal wipe them all out.

Practical

It’s hard explaining that a respect for human rights is not some abstract moral call, but a practical one as well. Violating human rights to control the drug problem, as with HIV/AIDS, just does not work. It drives people underground, gives more power to the syndicates and the conniving police, and prevents the drug dependents (and people with HIV/AIDS) from seeking professional help. It also opens the door to arbitrariness, the innocent ones arrested or killed, while the big-time pushers, syndicate heads, go scot-free.

Worse though is how the very concept of human rights, already weak to start with, is further eroded. The drug users and pushers go further underground so people think, “See? Just shoot them and you don’t see any more drug addicts and pushers.”

Even worse, the “success” of the drug war erodes the already weak commitment to human rights. With human life so devalued, what’s there to stop a man from beating up his wife, or using a hammer on his son?

We have to go back to basics with human rights education, asking people what they think of when they hear the word “karapatan.” Kids will talk about the right to education, the right not to be cursed at, the right not to beaten up. Adults will talk first about housing, and jobs, which is fine and essential. And as we talk about those rights, and the freedom from want, then we can ask what people need to be able to push for those basic needs? Then we’ll hear of the freedom to speak up, the freedom to be protected from violence.

Our Center for Human Rights Education in Pampanga should bring out, in Kapampangan, the stories and key words around rights, and how the freedom from want must relate to the freedom from fear. Each human right must be seen as a window, a way of framing our understanding the world’s problems, and the solutions to those problems. When people have a more complete perspective of social reality, they just might find more reasons to hope.

mtan@inquirer.com.ph