GMA gets bad mark

January 21, 2008  --  Got something to say?
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MANILA We cannot give a glowing report card to the governments performance on human rights, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said in reviewing the accomplishments of the government of President Gloria Arroyo for 2007.

Human Rights Chairman Purificacion Quisumbing said their assessment focused on the governments performance in relation to its political obligations. She added that the commission had monitored all branches and agencies of the government before it arrived at the apparently poor rating for the executive branch.

The judicial branch earned a passing grade from the commission.
Meanwhile, the European Commission (EU) and the CHR have signed a Memorandum of Agreement to launch a project that will improve human rights standards in the Philippines and other member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Ambassador Alistair MacDonald, head of delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines, and CHR chair Quisumbing to launch a new EC-funded $900,000 human rights project, which will be implemented by the CHR together with its sister institutions in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
This important project, implemented by the Commission on Human Rights in Manila, marks an important step in strengthening human rights efforts in the ASEAN region. Its success will help strengthen ASEANs efforts to build the caring, sharing community foreshadowed at the Cebu summit,” MacDonald said.

At present, Asia is the only region in the world without a human rights mechanism at the regional level, and the development of an ASEAN human rights mechanism was incorporated in the ASEAN Charter signed by the leaders during the summit in Singapore last November.

Commissioner Wilhelm Soriano explained that the judiciary was trying to do its work but [was] not fully able to do [it].” The Manila Times has chosen Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno as its Person of the Year. He is credited with, among other landmark initiatives, organizing the first multisectoral summit that addressed political murders in the country.

Soriano said it recognized that the judicial branch of the government was quite sensitive to human-rights issues. We monitored decisions of the [Supreme Court] on extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.”

He advised the High Court to train regional trial court judges in dealing with rights of women and children and civil and political rights of all citizens.

Quisumbing proposed that trainings be also given to forensic investigators.
The Human Rights chairman said the legislative branch got a grade of not excellent for failing expectations from their human rights platforms. Even our Constitution says Congress must give highest priority to human rights.”

She noted that Congress did not pass a law and did not ratify an important treaty against torture. Quisumbing said it also did not address education, poverty and children issues. She added that human rights victims during the Marcos administration have not received any compensation.

The police and the military need a lot of improvement as evaluated by the commission. Quisumbing did not elaborate.

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Their performance, she said, cannot be helped by the revival of the antisubversion law. Neither will this law, Quisumbing added, help solve the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.
As external adviser to the government, the Commission on Human Rights is pushing passage of a law on enforced disappearances, Quisumbing said.

The government, under President Arroyos watch, is accused by local and international rights monitors of involvement in such disappearances and extrajudicial killings.


Posted by News Team | Filed Under Philippine News 

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