The following is a summary of the submissions of Karapatan, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Ibon Foundation, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, Indigenous Peoples Rights Monitor, GMA Watch, Asian Legal Resource Center and NGO Working Group on Asia to the UN Human Rights Council as it conducts the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the Philippines. This summary also includes the report prepared by Bayan Muna, a political party in the Philippines which suffered political persecution.

The submissions discussed the human rights crisis in the Philippines that showed a pattern of human rights violations nationwide, specifically extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, abduction, torture, arbitrary detention and strong military presence in rural and urban poor communities.

The pattern shows that the human rights crisis was brought about by the Philippine government’s counterinsurgency program, Oplan Bantay Laya, (Operation Freedom Watch) launched in 2002 that has targeted not only armed rebels but also unarmed civilians. Journalists, lawyers and judges, human rights defenders and church people, who have publicly expressed their opinion, have fallen victims of the politically motivated killings as they are considered by the military as “enemies of the state”.

As indicated in Bayan Muna’s submission, because of their critical stance on the Government’s national policies, they are considered recruiters of the New People’s Army (NPA) and “legal fronts” of the communist party. Their leaders and members have been placed under the military “order of battle” subject to threats, harassments, intimidation, frustrated killings, arbitrary arrests, illegal detention and torture.

All reports indicated that a culture of impunity allows the killings and enforced disappearances to persist and be tolerated. The lack of prosecution or the widespread lack of accountability of the security forces – both the police and military – continues the culture of violations and denial of rights.

Poorly conducted investigations, in which there is little or no reliance on forensic evidence and an inability to produce witnesses mean that many complaints are being dismissed even before they are heard in court. A case is considered solved once it has been filed in the prosecutor’s office.

The Melo Commission and Task Force Usig created by the government to investigate political killings are face-saving tools to the international community. Suggested perpetrators stated in the Melo report have not yet been convicted and its recommendations delayed.

Though the Philippine government welcomed the UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary and arbitrary execution Professor Philip Alston to indicate the country’s “good citizenship in the international human rights system”, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita claims his final report on the human rights situation was maligned and misrepresented. The recommendations made by Professor Philip Alston are still pending and have yet to be genuinely implemented.

The lack of real witness protection emphasizes the susceptibility of being the next victims of killings. For example, Siche Bustamante- Gandinao was killed on March 10, 2007, days after speaking to Professor Philip Alston. Witnesses are not given the protection and assistance needed in spite of the witness protection program created under the Republic Act 6981.

The Philippine government has signed into law its Human Security Act which qualified a terrorist act as “to sow and create conditions of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace, in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand”. Martin Scheinin, UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism described this as “an overly broad definition which is seen to be at variance with the principle of legality and thus incompatible with Article 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.”

Because the administration cannot violently suppress its international critics, the government aligned certain foreigners with Taliban and Al-Queda activities. GMA watch reports that hundreds of individual critics from over 50 countries were placed on a blacklist indicating that they were to “be watched” because of their alleged links to such groups. These are names of petitioners criticizing the Arroyo administration, solidarity writers denouncing the extrajudicial killings, and groups who have visited the Philippines to investigate on the human rights violations.

The Indigenous Peoples Rights- Monitor described three areas of human rights violations: political killings of indigenous peoples and the continuing threats to indigenous leaders and community members asserting their collective rights; escalating militarization of indigenous peoples’ territories including the forced recruitment of indigenous peoples into paramilitary groups; and violation of the collective rights of indigenous peoples to their land and resources brought about by the widespread implementation of extractive industries and other development projects in indigenous territories.

The submission also described the failure to adequately implement and follow the provisions of the Free, Prior and Informed Consent in the government’s Indigenous Peoples Rights Act that was made a requirement for any project or activities in indigenous territories.

Finally, this human rights crisis should be seen in the landscape of extreme poverty. Ibon Foundation and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan discussed the non-compliance by the government of the different rights elaborated in the ICESR. This is a result of “free market” socioeconomic policies that have increased the control of foreign and domestic elite economic interests of the nation, particularly its labor and natural resources, to the detriment of the national economy and the welfare of the majority of the Filipino people.

Recommendations were forwarded to the Philippine government as follows:

• Issue an order to the military to immediately stop the killings, abductions, torture, and other forms of human rights violations, including the revocation of all hit lists that target members, leaders and other civilians suspected by the military as being affiliated with “communist front organizations”
• Review and repeal, to ensure strict compliance with international human rights standards, of the government’s counter-insurgency program which is cynically self-titled: Oplan Bantay Laya ( Operation Freedom Watch)
• End the reign of terror and intimidation that has been virtually imposed by massive troop deployment and military operations
• Revoke the labeling and association of progressive democratic organizations, national liberation movements, indigenous people as “enemies of the state” and repeal all military hit lists
• Prosecute and punish the perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture and other forms of human rights violations
• Resume peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
• Repeal the Human Security Act of 2007
• Allow the UN representatives, Special Rapporteurs and Working groups especially those who have sent their requests to the Philippine government to visit and inquire into the human rights situation in the Philippines
• Ensure the independence of the Commission on Human Rights and pass legislation that would provide the commission prosecutorial powers independent of the Department of Justice.
• Call on the government to fulfill its pledges to the UN Human Rights Council.
• Implement the recommendations made by the Melo Commission, the UN Special Rapporteurs on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions and indigenous peoples.
• Ratify all international human rights instruments to which it is not a party, and in particular the Option Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and the Convention on Enforced Disappearances
• Immediately enact, and strictly implement, laws on torture, involuntary disappearances and internally displaced people
• Review the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act and other laws in conflict with IPRA and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• Review and repeal or revise existing laws, such as those for example relating to mining and the Automatic Appropriations Law, to ensure full conformity with international human rights standards
• End regression and promote progressive realization of economic, social and cultural rights of people adversely affected by the economic policies of the government.

The different non-government organizations also forwarded to the UN Human Rights Council the following:

• Enjoin the Philippine government to establish a truly independent body to investigate and address complaints relating to the above-mentioned human rights violations.
• The UPR review of the Philippines must assess fulfillment of all of the voluntary pledges made by the Philippines in 2006 and 2007 and in particular its “commitment to protect and promote human rights at the national level” and its pledge to “uphold justice and strengthen efforts to address impunity”.
• A fair and thorough UPR review should support serious consideration to remove or at least suspend the Philippines’ membership in the Council until such time that there are indications of genuine, effective and adequate good practices to resolve and address the human rights issues and concerns in the country.

Philippine UPR Watch