UN: Culture of impunity remains

A CATHOLIC bishop on Friday said that the culture of impunity in the country still remains as numerous cases of extra-judicial killings are yet to be resolved.

“The culture of impunity hounds us, as two years after the Maguindanao massacre, justice remains elusive,” said Jaro Auxiliary Bishop Gerardo Alminaza, also the head convener of Visayas Clergy Discernment Group.

Alminaza and the group made the statement in anticipation of the 63rd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the observance of the International Human Rights Day today.

“We condemn the extra-judicial killings, whose latest victims in Mindanao included our brother priest Father Fausto Tentorio and peasant leader Ramon Batoy,” the group said in a statement.

Alminaza said that social doctrines consistently promote and defend the dignity of the human person and denounced human rights violations because “a just society can become a reality only when it is based on the respect of the transcendent dignity of the human person.”

He added that without justice, peace will remain elusive because “peace is the fruit of justice.”

“We are then reminding concerned groups and institutions that peace is not a mere absence of war. Rather, a peaceful society is fulfilled through the defense and promotion of human rights,” Alimanza said. –Rommel C. Lontayao, Reporter, Manila Times