Philippines is now only ‘partly free’– Freedom House

Several controversies in the human rights department and various unsavory political events have demoted the status of “freedom in the Philippines” during the years of the Arroyo administration as assessed by Freedom House. From “free” we are now only “partly free,” according to the studies of the nonprofit organization co-founded, during the rise of Hitler’s Fascist and Nazi movements, by Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of then US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Freedom House, a watchdog organization based in New York, regularly conducts various studies and analyses on the status of democracy, human rights and freedom around the world. The organization’s flagship publication is an annual report called “Freedom in the World [FIW].”

The latest in the series, Freedom in the World 2009, classifies the Philippines as only a “partly free” nation, as a result of a decline in its political rights rating. .

Our country was classified as “free” in the FIW 2005 report. The decline in our status mostly because of government corruption, witnessed allegations of election cheating and extra-judicial executions and disappearances linked to the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The study by Freedom House revolves around two basic sub-categories of freedom, namely: political rights and civil liberties. Both categories, of political rights and civil liberties, include several qualities that are listed as criteria.

The Freedom House staff then determines if a certain country possesses a certain quality of political right or civil liberty and gives an appropriate score.

The scores for each criteria is then calculated into a rating between one and seven, one (1) being the highest and seven (7) the least.

In the case of the Philippines, the nation currently has a political right rating of four (4) and a civil liberties rating of three (3).

According to Freedom House, their analysts use “a broad range of sources of information—including foreign and domestic news reports, academic analyses, nongovernment organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region” to formulate the scores and ratings.

The two ratings are then averaged, and the result determines whether a country is “free,” if the average is between 1.0 and 2.5; “partly free,” if between 3.0 and 5.0; or “not free,” if between 5.5 and 7.0.

The current political rights and civil liberties ratings of the Philippines equate to an average of 3.5, thus placing the nation under the “partly free” category.

The publication also features a “trending arrow” for each participating country, which either designates an increase or a decline in the country’s state of freedom. The FIW 2009 showed that the Philippines has a downward trending arrow.

The FIW reports also refer to studies done based on the previous year (ex. the FIW 2009 reflects the country’s freedom in 2008).

After President Arroyo replaced former President Joseph Estrada in 2001, Freedom House released the FIW 2002 report in which the Philippines had a political rights rating of two (2) and a civil liberties rating of three (3), with the average classifying the country as “free.”

According to the FIW 2002 report’s overview on the country, President Arroyo had made some key improvements to foster the development of freedom during her first year and thus restoring investor confidence after the marring scandals of the previous years. She also engaged in peace efforts in Mindanao, as opposed to Estrada’s aggressive “all out war” policy in dealing with rebel separatist armies of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The Philippines’ political rights rating, however, dropped from two (2) to three (3) in the FIW 2006 publication, as the result of a crisis-filled 2005.

“The Philippines’s political rights rating declined from two to three, and its status from Free to Partly Free, due to credible allegations of massive electoral fraud, corruption, and the government’s intimidation of elements in the political opposition,” The FIW 2006 report stated.

The report also further noted that President Arroyo’s administration “continued to struggle to reign in armed separatist and terrorist groups in the south, while attacks on journalists and human rights activists rose sharply during the year.”

Then the Philippines’ political rights rating dropped once again from three (3) to four (4) in the FIW 2008.

The year referred to by the study, 2007, featured the controversial NBN-ZTE broadband deal and 121 counts of election-related violence, as reported by the Philippine National Police.

Also during that year, the Melo Commission and an investigation conducted by UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial killings Phillip Alston found increasing evidence that the military had been involved in summary executions and forced disappearances of leftist activists in recent years. A much-publicized incident during the said year was the disappearance of Jonas Burgos.

Another contributor to the country’s decline in its political rights rating was President Arroyo’s pardoning of former President Estrada. The Sandiganbayan had found Estrada guilty of plunder and was sentenced to life imprisonment in September of 2007. Estrada was the first Philippine president to be convicted, marking a progressive milestone in the country’s judicial system. However, President Arroyo granted Estrada a full pardon, an act which raised speculation that the pardon was a precautionary measure to avoid criminal liability.

“The move came as GMA was herself implicated in a major corruption scandal involving a national broadband contract approved by the Philippine and Chinese governments in April, spurring claims that GMA was using the pardon to block any precedent for incarcerating former presidents,” the 2008 FIW said.

“GMA’s October 2007 pardon of Estrada reversed what could have been a major step forward for anticorruption efforts in the Philippines,” the report further stated. “The guilty verdict itself was important for her legitimacy, however, as she had first entered office as a result of Estrada’s ouster.”

Many experts, however, lauded President Arroyo. They believe he deserves the pardon mainly because the charges against and process of finding Estrada guilty were flawed.

The latest publication (FIW 2009) retains both political rights and civil liberties ratings for the Philippines, yet gives the country a downward trending arrow because of high-level corruption scandals and a breakdown of peace negotiations between the government and Muslim insurgents in Mindanao, which led to armed conflict resulting in the displacement of 600,000 families.

Despite the decline in political rights, the Philippines during the Arroyo Administration has maintained a somewhat positive and active role in promoting various human rights and liberties, despite outbreaks of exceptionally deplorable human rights violations.

The burning controversy over the arrest of the Morong 43 health workers and the Maguindanao massacre did not figure as factors in the latest report because they happened only in late 2009 and in early 2010. –Rafael Puyat reporter, Manila Times