Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 17) — Human rights violations in the country have worsened over the past year, according to an independent international commission probing abuses in the Philippines.
In its initial 196-page report submitted to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Tuesday, Investigate PH said the current situation is graver since June 2020, when the OHCHR released its own findings on the issue.
“Political repression and the human rights violations that result from it have become more institutionalized, streamlined, and brazen,” the group said.
Investigate PH is an independent international commission, composed of civil society organizations, which seeks to investigate the human rights situation in the Philippines.
“Extrajudicial killings of human rights defenders, lawyers and judges, and peace consultants, have continued to climb,” it added.
The enactment of the controversial Anti-Terrorism law, as well as the creation of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), have provided institutional mechanisms to facilitate the said abuses, according to Investigate PH. To justify repression, the group said individuals and organizations are “red-tagged,” even by the President himself, with such accusations escalating “to false charges, unlawful detention, and summary executions.”
READ: Here are the major issues raised against the Anti-Terrorism Act
Investigate PH also cited the Human Rights Watch report, which found a 50% to 76% spike in the number of extrajudicial killings linked to the war on drugs during the first months of the COVID-19 lockdown. Meanwhile, communities in the countryside are forced to evacuate because of the settlement of military detachments inside barangays, it said.
But not only is the implementation of human rights laws “lacking,” the government itself has also undermined these legal protections and “obstructed” past investigations, the report stated.
“Investigations that are carried out have usually been neither impartial nor independent, but are overseen wholly or in part by the agencies responsible for abuse, such as the police, military, and drug enforcement agency,” it added.
Investigate PH urged the UN to further probe human rights concerns and continue exerting pressure on the Duterte administration “to provide immediate and unhindered access” to international human rights monitoring and investigative mechanisms. It also asked the organization to ensure protection of all witnesses in the cases being investigated, as well as of victims of red-tagging and supposed threats from state forces.
Investigate PH’s initial report is based on an examination of 49 cases of human rights violations from 2020 to 2021. A second report will be released in July, while a final one will be submitted to the OHCHR in September this year.
Malacañang has yet to comment on the report filed by Investigate PH before the OHCHR.
