RP's election as VP in UN HRC does not mean that it is doing its homework

A Press Statement by the Philippine UPR Watch
July 1, 2008

The Philippine UPR Watch is appalled at the way the Arroyo government is making a big deal of the Philippines' election as vice president of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Lest people are misled and deceived, we have it in good authority that these positions are usually filled on a rotation basis within the regional/continental groups.

This means that the Asian countries merely appointed one of its members to be vice president for a year.  This year is the Philippines turn. That is why a country with a bloodstained human rights record can be accorded such administrative position on the rights body.

It does not mean that the HRC is patting the Arroyo government at the back for being "committed to the protection and promotion of human rights".  It does not mean that the Philippine Government is doing its homework, plain and simple.

Hence we find it deplorable, that the government through the Department of Foreign Affairs is crowing about the government's election as though it is worthy of admiration.  The government's spin doctors are at it again, just like what they did during the session of the HRC last June 2-18.  The Philippine Government boasted that it is a 'rights-based' State signing UN core documents and enacting laws that supposedly protect the rights of its citizens.

But the grim reality is that the killings, disappearances and other rights violations continue with impunity.  Instead of really addressing the human rights situation in the country, the Arroyo government has resorted to various forms of window dressing and lies before the international community to hide their accountabilities.   But the Filipino people know for a fact that it is a complete failure in fulfilling its obligations to international rights treaties.  Justice for the victims remains elusive.  Only a handful of low-level perpetrators have so far been convicted.

Furthermore, the VP election would be worth bragging about if the Arroyo government would really uphold the UN processes and mechanisms. The problem is, the Philippines undermines these same process and mechanisms.

Last April, Sec. Eduardo Ermita made a mockery of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) when he presented a report of the country's human rights record that is full of lies even hypocritically stating that "there is an open and vibrant democracy in the Philippines" and that the government is "a human rights defender".