(Due to its timeliness, we yield this space to the statement of the human rights alliance Karapatan. – Ed.)
THERE is nothing new with the Philippine government’s report on the human rights situation in the Philippines, when it is subjected to the 4th cycle of the Universal Periodic Review at the UN Human Rights Council. We expect the tall tales and big words – “transformational reform,” “real justice in real time” – which are empty rhetoric. The same words were used during diplomatic briefings, statements, and reports to the UN Human Rights Committee.
But facts, experiences and implementation of policies on the ground reveal the realities. According to the UP Third World Studies Center, from July 1, 2022 to Nov. 7, 2022, 127 individuals died in Marcos Jr.’s drug war. Majority of them were killed by state agents, despite the Philippine National Police’s claims of “bloodless” anti-narcotics operations under the Marcos Jr. administration.
There is almost no successful prosecution and zero final convictions of perpetrators in the sham drug war of former President Rodrigo Duterte. International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan, in his statements in September 2022, stated that the Philippine government has not demonstrated that it has conducted or is conducting national investigations on the thousands of cases of extrajudicial killings in the drug war.
Karapatan documented 442 civilians, mostly peasants, indigenous and Moro peoples killed during the Duterte administration’s counterinsurgency campaign. At least 222 of them are human rights defenders.
According to a report in June 2020, the Task Force on Administrative Order 35 mechanism, which has been mandated to solve cases of political violence in the form of extra-legal killings (EJKs), enforced disappearances (ED), torture and other grave violations of the right to life, liberty and security of persons, handled 385 cases since 2001, with 270 cases of extrajudicial killings, 28 cases of enforced disappearance, 7 cases on international humanitarian law, and 80 cases of torture. During the said period, Karapatan documented 1,953 extrajudicial killings, 252 enforced disappearances, and 1,570 victims of torture.
Red- and terror-tagging have become the default responses of the government against dissent and criticism. Freedom of expression and press freedom remain in peril, with journalists among those killed in the first months of the Marcos Jr. administration.
The government cannot hide behind empty platitudes. It cannot sugar-coat the dire lack of effective domestic mechanisms for redress, nor can it spin tales using trolls and disinformation machines. The bare, glaring realities are there.
