(We yield this space to the statement of the Center for Women’s Resources marking the International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, 2018, due to its timeliness. – Ed.)
WE ARE in a period of distress and deception. While state spin doctors announce a “slowdown” in the inflation rate, it is still high by November: rice prices to 8.1 percent, fish prices to 12.5 percent, meat to 6.3 percent, and vegetables to 11.5 percent. Water, electricity, gas, and other fuels obtain 4.2 percent rate.
Jobs remain on a contract-basis especially for women workers. Peasants and small farmers remain landless. Policies guarantee the profit for big-time businessmen and foreign investors. Impoverishment prevails.
As more Filipinos voice out their discontent, the government brands them as terrorists who can be arrested, tortured, and murdered. With its US-backed Oplan Kapayapaan, the government has committed 216 political extrajudicial killings, 2,000 illegal arrests, 100 torture cases, among other rights violations. As of this writing, there are already 540 political prisoners where 45 of them are women and 120 are sickly and elderly. As the state armed forces operate with impunity, more women experience violence and sexual abuses, where police officers have been reportedly involved in 33 gender-based violence cases.
We are in a period of discontent and rage. For 70 years, our human rights have been challenged by the powers-that-be. The President and cohorts in Congress are hell-bent in changing the Constitution to offer 100 percent ownership of our rich resources to foreign investors, to extend their term, and to remove our bill of rights.
Thus, the moment of upholding and defending our human rights is more pressing now than ever. The government’s repressive measures are its desperate attempts to make us cow in fear, to stop asserting our rights. As we mark the 70th year of the Declaration of Human Rights, let us also mark that on this day forward, we will persist in defending our rights as women, as people, as human beings. We need to remember, we are all defenders.
