UN rebukes gov’t, says rights breach continues

The United Nations (UN) reiterated yesterday the Arroyo administration’s lack of commitment to uphold human rights despite the insistence of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who represented the government in the UN meeting at Geneva, that President Arroyo remained committed to the ideals and vision of the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights of attaining “dignity and justice for all.”

The UN cast doubts on the government’s sincerity in protecting human rights mainly because of its failure to offer substantial insights into the current rights situation in the country.

UN rapporteurs, during a periodic review of human rights situations in UN member states in its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland on April 28, questioned the Philippines’ failure to submit a report to the Committee Against Torture in the last 20 years amid the government’s claims that it had “a long standing commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights on a global scale.”

President Arroyo had sent Ermita to present to the UN the supposed progress of human rights protection in the Philippines under her administration.

Ermita pointed out that in Southeast Asia, the Philippines has been “a strong advocate for the enhancement of the human rights environment,” spearheading the creation of a regional human rights body.

Committee Expert Felice Gaer, who served as rapporteur for the report of the Philippines, said the “information given to the committee showed that safeguards against the use of torture were not enforced in practice.”

“In the period between arrest and detention there was a broad record of ill-treatment. The information available showed that arrested persons had no possibility to seek counsel immediately after arrest. On the detention of persons without an arrest warrant, the committee had received information of 409 existing cases of illegal arrest and detention between 2001 and 2007,” Gaer said.

Xuexian Wang, the Committee Expert serving as co-rapporteur for the report of the Philippines, nevertheless, noted significant improvements the country had made in the last 30 years but pointed out several violations still being committed by the government.

He noted that in prisons, male officers were authorized to guard female detainees and had the right to conduct body searches.

“What could the delegation say on this issue? Also, some 1,026 torture cases had been reported by an organization between 2001 and March 2009. Did the government know about these cases? Did it do anything to investigate these cases?” Wang said.

It is one of the several strongest international rebukes to date of the dismal human rights record of the Arroyo government which Philippine officials contend has improved but human rights watchdogs continue to view with alarm.

Other issues of concern raised by UN experts include the situation of migrant women in the Philippines, children in armed conflict, and the lack of public access to legal counsel and to government agencies where they could file a complaint for torture.

“The committee had received a huge mass of information from civil society organizations. Amongst it was the fact that if somebody wanted to file a complaint for torture, the complaint would not be accepted unless there was an independent witness that could testify. Very often, victims had not even access to an independent medical doctor,” Wang said, adding that “impunity did not serve the provisions” of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

The Philippines is among the 146 states which are parties to the convention and as such it must present periodic reports to the committee on how it is implementing its provisions.

Gaer “regretted” that although the Philippines had been one of the first countries to report to the UNCAT, “it had been 20 years since the country had last reported to the committee.”

“The quality of the report indicated that the delegation knew how these UN committees worked. However, there were not many examples included in the report and these could offer far much insight,” she said.

Gaer also observed that the Philippine Anti-torture Bill had not moved beyond discussion in the Philippine Congress.

She lamented that there is currently no law that prohibited and criminalized torture, as the convention required it.

In the same meeting, one UN Expert found unsettling that confessions of suspects “were often extracted through torture.”

Since 2001, hundreds of activists, trade unionists, journalists and religious leaders in the Philippines have been killed or abducted but the Arroyo government continue to deny any involvement of the security forces and the army in these political killings amid evidence earlier presented by a UN fact-finding mission to the Philippines in 2007 led by Special Rapporteur Philip Alston.

Alston issued a report that blamed members of the military for many killings and disapperances of left-wing activists.

Arroyo’s government then disputed Alston’s findings, saying it did not reflect the true conditions in the country.

As proof of the country’s commitment to upholding human rights, Ermita said that in the last decade the government had acceded to eight core international human rights treaties.

“Further, the international advocacy and commitment of the Philippines to the advancement of human rights was reflected in the government’s policies and programs in the country,” Ermita said.

He added that “activists of all political and ideological persuasions were vocal and free to air their views through peaceful and democratic expression and that human rights defenders were routinely consulted in government decision making.”

Ermita even cited that the Philippines had been honored to have been elected as Vice-President of the UN Human Rights Council, a position it still held.

The Philippines, he said, also took pride in being “one of the first few countries, if not the first country, to enshrine the creation of a Commission on Human Rights in its Constitution.” –Michaela P. del Callar, Daily Tribune