Gays, massacre highlight rights challenges

On International Human Rights Day December 10, a United Nations official criticized the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for denying the petition of gays and lesbians to accredit a sectoral party and dismissed fears about martial law imposed in Maguindanao.

Renaud Meyer, United Nations Development Program (UNDP) country director for the Philippines, pointed out that this year’s theme for International Human Rights Day—which commemorates the signing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—is “Embrace diversity and discrimination.”

In the same breadth, Meyer lamented the Comelec ruling denying accreditation to Ang Ladlad, which had applied as a party-list group hoping to represent gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans-genders in the House of Representatives. Ladlad had initially applied ahead of the 2007 elections but was also denied.

“It [Comelec’s disqualification] violates the rights of gays, lesbians and transgender,” Meyer said at the launch of the Philippine Human Rights Initiative at the Grand Opera Hotel in Manila on Thursday.

“The massacre and what happened to Ang Ladlad reflect the challenges of the human rights in the Philippines,” he added, referring to the grisly murders of 57 people, including women and journalists, in Maguindanao.

“There are many other violations. While it may not be as bad as the massacre, its still human rights violation,” Meyer said.

Going all the way

Meyer pointed out that more people were speaking out strongly against human rights violations, but he said that more needed to be done to make the perpetrators on rights violations accountable.

Some 700,000 cases are pending in the Philippine courts, and 50,000 new ones are filed every year, the UN official said. But given that there are only 1,453 judges in the country, each magistrate has a heavy load of 500 cases, he added.

Meyer said that education and strengthening human rights institutions were part of the solution. He added that human rights should be integrated into public policy and the normal resources planning of the government.

In resolving human rights problems, Filipinos should also be vigilant against corruption, Meyer said. Corruption takes away the resources from the most vulnerable, he explained.

Martial law in Maguindanao

Also on Thursday, Meyer said that he did not believe that martial law in Maguindanao would lead to a spike of human rights violations similar to what happened during the authoritarian rule of the late President Ferdinand Marcos.

Marcos imposed martial law nationwide in 1972. In remained in effect until he was ousted in 1986.

“Of course there is a risk [of abuse], but it’s hard to compare the situation in the 1970s to what’s happening now,” Meyer said. “The fact that there have been no let up of protests, as well as prosecution and arrest of the alleged perpetrators sends a positive signal.”

Situation more dismal

However, Chairman Leila de Lima of the Philippine Commission on Human Rights has stronger position about developments in Maguindanao.

“Atrocities in Maguindanao make human rights situation in the country more dismal,” she said also on Thursday.

De Lima added that the nature of human rights violations in the country was aggravating, and the number of human rights cases reported during Arroyo administration was catching up with the number of violations during Marcos era.

De Lima said that all government institutions had lapses in Maguin-danao incident, saying that the massacre should have been avoided if government institutions had earlier addressed the atrocities committed by the powerful political clans there.

She conceded that even the Commission on Human Rights had lapses, because its regional office in Maguindanao had earlier received complaints about alleged atrocities committed by the Ampatuans. But the commission failed to get witnesses, de Lima added.

Members of the powerful Ampa-tuan clan are prime suspects in the Maguindanao massacre and are facing murder and rebellion charges. But the Ampatuans deny the allegations. –LLANESCA T. PANTI AND IRA KAREN APANAY, Manila Times