A HUMAN rights group on Thursday urged the United Nations to denounce the Philippines’ brutal war on drugs that has killed more than 7,000 people when the country comes up for review on May 8 in Geneva.
“The UN review of the Philippines is critical because of the sheer magnitude of the human rights calamity since President Duterte took office last year,” said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ has been nothing less than a murderous war on the poor,” Kine said.
The Philippines will appear for the third cycle of the Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review on May 8 in Geneva.
Kine said UN member countries should urge the Philippines to support an international investigation into the killings, given the Philippine government’s own failure to impartially investigate or prosecute those responsible.
Various UN bodies, the media, Human Rights Watch and other nongovernmental organizations have reported on the extrajudicial killings.
Through the UPR, the human rights progress of each UN member country is reviewed every four years.
Members and observers of the UN Human Rights Council will raise the Philippines’ past human rights pledges and new concerns.
Photo from www.hrw.org
The previous reviews of the Philippines were in 2008 and 2012. This year’s review covers the last four years of the administration of President Benigno Aquino III and the period since Duterte took office.
Immediately after the UN review of the Philippines on May 8, Human Rights Watch will moderate a side event in Geneva, co-hosted with other NGOs, to assess the review and the Philippine delegation’s responses.
Human Rights Watch, in its UPR submission in September 2016, highlighted some of the human rights problems the Philippines faces.
These include the extrajudicial killing of activists, peasant and indigenous peoples’ leaders, environmentalists, journalists, and—especially under the Duterte administration—suspected criminals.
Human Rights Watch has also documented the existence of police-linked death squads in several cities, including Davao City, where Duterte served as mayor for 22 years. A 2014 Human Rights report examined the death squad in Tagum City in Mindanao.
The group also said the military and police have continued to commit torture. The passage in 2009 of the Anti-Torture Act was met with enthusiasm but has resulted in only one torture conviction to date.
There is evidence that the military engages in torture of civil society activists and alleged insurgents in its custody, the group said. In October 2013, Human Rights Watch documented the mistreatment of detainees, including children, by security forces in Zamboanga City.
The National Commission on Human Rights has received numerous torture allegations that mainly implicate the Philippine National Police.
In the 2012 UPR review, the Philippines accepted recommendations to carry out impartial investigations into all allegations of enforced disappearances. Two bellwether tests of military impunity for enforced disappearances were the abduction and alleged torture of activists Karen Empeno and Sherlyn Cadapan in 2006. Although police eventually arrested retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan for his alleged role in that crime, his trial is ongoing. The case of Jonas Burgos, a peasant leader who was abducted by military personnel from inside a mall in Quezon City in April 2007, and has not been seen since is also emblematic of impunity for enforced disappearances, the group said.
Tribal and environmental groups have also accused the military of using local paramilitaries to help clear ancestral areas to pave the way for mining companies and other business interests.
Human Rights Watch has also documented policies designed to derail the full enforcement of the country’s Reproductive Health Law. A temporary restraining order issued in 2015 by the Supreme Court, which was responding to conservative opposition to contraceptives, threatens to render obsolete a considerable number of contraceptives already procured by the government because these would expire in 2018. The court has since expanded the ruling, instructing the Food and Drug Administration to not approve any new applications for contraceptives.
At least two cities—Sorsogon City and Balanga City—have issued ordinances that effectively banned the sale and distribution of contraceptives, among them pills, implants, and condoms.
Human Rights Watch has also documented how thousands of children—some as young as nine—risk their lives in small-scale gold mines, mostly financed by local businessmen. Children work in unstable 25-meter-deep pits and dive underwater to mine along shores or in rivers. Children also work with mercury, a toxic metal that is commonly used to process gold.
Attacks on schools by the military and its paramilitary group continue to be a concern, the group said.
Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, who along with Deputy Executive Secretary Menardo Guevarra, leads the government’s delegation to the UPR, said that the review would be the perfect opportunity to correct the misconceptions of the international community regarding the alleged human rights violations of the present administration.
“There are a lot of facts that need to be clarified and put in proper context so our friends in the United Nations and the international community would understand the extent of problems of corruption, illegal drugs, and criminality in the Philippines,” Cayetano said.
“We want to share the overall picture of our human rights-based development programs, especially our gains, priorities in the coming years, as well as the major challenges at hand.”
The senator, meanwhile, pointed out that the period under review covers five years of the Aquino administration and 10 months of the Duterte administration.
“Human rights issues were raised by various sectors not just in this administration,” Cayetano said. With John Paolo Bencito, Macon Ramos-Araneta, PNA