PRESS RELEASE

23 October 2003

Reference:  Marie Hilao-Enriquez

Secretary-General

c/o 0920-9034097 (Geneva)

 

 

UN RIGHTS BODY CHIDES RP GOV’T FOR CONTINUING VIOLATIONS

Karapatan scores RP delegation for gross misrepresentation on Marcellana case

 

 

The Human Rights Committee of the United Nations (UNHRC), the treaty body overseeing compliance by State parties to the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and its Protocols, chided the Philippine government for its late and “rather laconic” report and “abstract responses” to its queries.  It was also alarmed by the continuing violations of rights with impunity in the country.

 

The government delegation to the ongoing 79th Meeting of the UNHRC in Palais de Wilson in Geneva, Switzerland that reported the Philippines’ supposed compliance with its obligations under the ICCPR was headed by Justice Department Undersecretary Merceditas Gutierrez, assistant secretaries from the Foreign Affairs and Defense departments (a retired major general), a director from the National Police Commission, and embassy officials. KARAPATAN Secretary-General Marie Hilao-Enriquez wondered why no representative from the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) was present.

 

KARAPATAN and three other non-governmental organizations also attended the meeting to give their parallel reports and had consultation-briefings with the 18-member UNHRC headed by Mr. Amor Abdelfattah of Tunisia. KARAPATAN, through Enriquez together with International Relations Officer Marissa Dumanjug-Palo and legal consultant Edre Olalia of the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) earlier submitted an abbreviated version of its comprehensive documentation of the various forms of human rights violations under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s government like torture, summary executions, disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions as well as the campaigns of vilification on legal progressive organizations and their members, patriots and the national liberation movement.

 

They also made oral presentations, submitted voluminous fact-finding mission results, publications and other documentations on human rights issues and cases before the body and spoke with its members as well as representatives from Amnesty International (AI), Franciscans International (FI), World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and International Service for Human Rights (ISHR). They also met with a member of the Swiss Parliament in Bern regarding the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses.

 

The UNHRC noted with dismay the very late submission of the Philippine government report, which was due way back 1989. It also chided it for the “lack of proportion or balance” between the actual volume of the report and the “rather succinct and laconic” replies to the Committee’s queries. It lamented that the formal legal measures made or being undertaken by the Philippine government was “abstract” and did not address whether rights are in fact implemented in practice and in concrete situations.

 

The UNHRC members commented that the report “was excessive in detail regarding laws but there is insufficient information in practice.”  The UNHRC also raised its serious concerns for the continuing impunity of the perpetrators, the killings and harassment of human rights defenders, the accounts of torture, the vague and “dangerous” proposed anti-terrorism bills which are “much too wide” in scope, the continuous imposition of the death penalty and the violation of the rights and welfare of women and children and the workers.

 

Enriquez said KARAPATAN was appalled when in their presence the government delegation misrepresented before the body the status of the killing of its Southern Tagalog Secretary General Eden Marcellana and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy of

KASAMA-TK and the abduction of 9 other human rights volunteers. Contrary to the fact that the case is still belatedly in the very early stage of the snail-paced preliminary investigation in the DOJ, the government delegation claimed that cases “have been filed in court” and are “being tried in the Regional Trial Court in Calapan, Mindoro.”  Prompted by KARAPATAN’s protestations, the Special Rapporteur of the UNHRC, Mr. Ivan Shearer of Australia, who led in raising the serious concerns of the other members on the killings of human rights workers, publicly pointed out the disparity in the information given by the government.

 

KARAPATAN welcomes the concern and observations of the prestigious and respected UNHRC on the dismal state of human rights in the country and looks forward to its forthcoming final observations and other appropriate measures it will undertake within its mandate to address the blatant, wanton and vicious violations of the ICCPR and other international instruments by the State. Enriquez reiterated KARAPATAN’s concluding statement in its own report that it is not enough to formally recognize and profess respect for human rights without being implemented in practice and without justice being truly served.

 

At the same time, “it lambasts the government’s incredible arrogance and self-righteousness in justifying or sweeping away even in the eyes of the international community and world bodies the reality of the worsening violations in the country, “

Enriquez added. # 

 

 

Geneva, Switzerland