The Philippines is not yet a full-blown dictatorship, but our claim to democracy has become tenuous, at best.
Reliable figures are hard to come by in a country where surveys are predetermined by their “sponsors.” Nonetheless, the headlines of dailies cannot but give a horrendous picture of the human rights situation in the former Pearl of the Orient. New and old criminal cases overlap. The Ampatuan massacre occurred on November 23, 2009 in Maguindanao province. More than 34 journalists are known to have been killed. The trial in the town of Ampatuan drags on with not a single conviction in sight. The powerful perpetrators have the money to cover the exorbitant fees of lawyers who see to it that “they get away with murder” literally.
On December 4, 2017 at around 8 pm, Fr. Marcelito Paez, then regional coordinator of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines in Central Luzon, was shot down while driving his vehicle in San Leonardo, Nueva Ecija. A day earlier, elements of the 27th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army and the marines killed eight T’boli and Dulangan Manobo in Sitio Datal Bong Langon, Brgy. Ned, Lake Sebu, South Cotabato. The list of heinous crimes lengthens. On record since the start of the Duterte regime on 30 June 2016 are 13 massacres, 216 political killings and more than 20,000 killings related to the ongoing drug war. Obviously the present regime is oblivious to the matter of human rights and morality. More recently: 9 farmers were massacred in Negros Occidental; a week later their lawyer, Benjamin Ramos was ambushed and killed; former congressman Satur Ocampo and ACT Teachers representative France Castro, together with 17 others, were arrested and charged with trumped up charges of human trafficking in Talaingod, Davao del Norte. (cf the General Secretariat of Karapatan)
On 28 November President Duterte announced that he will create an armed civilian group that will counter the New People’s Army Sparrow unit, a group of urban assassins blamed for the deaths of security forces and former rebels. The President said his DDS (Duterte Death Squad) would be sent to transport terminals, eateries and other public places to kill suspected rebels and even loiterers and junkies. “I will create my own Sparrow. Walang hahanapin kundi mga istambay na mga tao, prospective NPAs at bibirahin sila” (They will look mainly for idlers, prospective NPAs and kill them), the President said during the turnover of military and police housing units in Bohol. (Source: Philippine Star, 28 November 2018). The PNP and the AFP quickly expressed their support for the formation of death squads and added that soldiers and policemen are the best qualified to do the job for the president.
All these point to the blatant disregard for human rights by the powerful of the land supposedly chosen to serve God, people and country. Thus, the importance of Human Rights Day. It is no less than a declaration of the universal and inalienable right to be human.
Because presently in the Philippines such a declaration might sound like “a weak voice crying in the wilderness” all advocates of peace and justice for all, and the pursuit of true happiness are enjoined to raise their voices in protest, in defiance of this diabolic attempt to degrade the Filipino and his homeland in violation of the true nature of the human person as a spiritual being destined for eternity.
Fr. Wilfredo T. Dulay, mdj
Convenor, Religious Discernment Group
