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IS LEGITIMATE dissent, even if unarmed, now viewed by the State not as an exercise of constitutionally-enshrined political rights and civil liberties but as actions that promote terrorism?
This is absurd and illogical. These rights and liberties, which unarmed civilians use to vent out legitimate grievances against abuse by government or by the rich and powerful, are precisely in place to prevent desperate people from seeking redress to their complaints through illegal means such as terrorism.
The assassination of activist-priest Fr. Marcelino Paez of Nueva Ecija days before the government formally labeled the Maoist national democratic movement as terrorism points to a grim future on the state of human rights in the country. The Armed Forces has been alleged as culprit in this dastardly act.
One is tempted to wonder if the assaults on political rights and civil liberties are deliberate attempts to provoke the Left movement and thus create a scenario of lawlessness and violence, which would serve as justification for authoritarian rule.
The President’s threat to crack down on activists, critics and all those whom he imagines are conspiring to topple his government has a chilling effect on the public and impinges on our people’s exercise of their political rights and civil liberties. It is not surprising that international human rights organizations have condemned the recent killings of human rights defenders in the Philippines.
“Amnesty International is alarmed by the rising killings of human rights defenders and political activists in the Philippines. In recent weeks, a growing number of activists, community and religious leaders have been fatally shot by unknown gunmen,” AI said in a statement. It called for the “prompt, independent, impartial and effective investigation” and “for those responsible, including those with command responsibility, to be held to account in fair trials.”
Front Line Defenders, an international NGO based in Dublin, Ireland, called on the Philippine government to “guarantee, in all circumstances, that all human rights defenders in the Philippines, are able to carry out their legitimate human rights activities without fear of reprisals and free of all restrictions.”
Geneva-based World Organization Against Torture called on the government to “put an end to all acts of harassment and intimidation against all human rights defenders in the Philippines.”
In 1949, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations in response to the massive human rights violations perpetrated by states before and during World War II. As a signatory, the Philippines is expected to be bound by the obligation to respect fundamental rights and freedoms — the rights to life, to expression of one’s own beliefs, opinion, and thoughts, to suffrage, to decent housing, to adequate standard of living, to self-determination, and many others.
Let us be critical and ever vigilant. Let us resist the erosion of our basic human and democratic rights.
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