Philippine NGO Delegation to the HRC second session slams Philippine government's response on political killings in the country

Press Release
By KARAPATAN
September 24, 2006

GENEVA, Switzerland  – Filipino representatives of NGO's attending the Second Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council slammed the Philippine government's statements in its right of reply to a statement made by the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) and Forum Asia calling the attention of the Council to the rising cases of extrajudicial executions in the Philippines.

By insinuating that the extrajudicial executions going on in the country are cases involving "actions made by state agents in the course of their duties, common crimes or those committed for personal ends," the Philippine government is trying to hide its culpability in these violations.  This is very apparent when it finally says that, "It should be only after proper court trial that certain offenses are classified conclusively as human rights violations."

This statement shows a very dangerous tack of washing off its hands of responsibility in these cases of extrajudicial executions.  If we will go by the Philippine government's meaning of human rights violations as only those cases that have undergone "proper court trial" before they are "classified conclusively as human rights violations," then this would deny the plain reality of extra judicial executions happening in the country. 

The government only knows too well the inordinately slow grind of court cases in the Philippines; the inability of poor people to afford the costly litigation expenses and the real dangers of filing such cases against powerful, armed state security forces and their agents.  No wonder that notorious human rights violators, who are emboldened to continuously commit such crimes against humanity because they are praised in public by their commander-in-chief, boastfully challenge victims of human rights violations and human rights advocates to file charges in court against them.

This attitude of the government shows how it taunts the various and separate fact-finding missions and investigations conducted by independent and respectable international organizations such as  Amnesty International, the World Council of Churches, the Lawyers for Lawyers Foundation, the Asian Human Rights Commission, the International Solidarity Mission, the International Labor Solidarity Mission and International Peasant Solidarity Mission.

The statements by the Philippine government further support the view that it has no moral right to sit as a member of the Human Rights Council.  Sweeping under the rug its responsibility in the horrible number of extrajudicial executions makes the Philippine government a very poor example of a state occupying such a position in the international body tasked to uphold the respect for and protection of human rights.  Its twisted understanding of or negation of such of human rights violations will lead to more impunity and more killings.  It has disgraced the Council and even undermines the role of UN mechanisms to address human rights violations.