Magda Fahsi/Human Rights Tribune – Since 2001, the day Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo became President of the Philippines, the NGO Karapatan has recorded more than 900 extrajudicial executions and forced disappearances in the name of the fight against insurrectionists supported by the United States. Victims include activists, peasants, indiginous populations, unionists, and religious leaders. Marie Hilao Enriquez, the Secretary General of Karapatan, has taken the initiative to bring the human rights violations to international attention.

Your country was recently the object of Universal Periodic Review or UPR. What role did Karapatan play ?

We tried to take maximum advantage. We submitted a five page report, along with other Philippine NGOs, we lobbied diplomatic missions and (UN) member states so that they would ask questions of the current Philippine government and I think that we succeeded in some respect. The problem is that the Philippine government has not ceased with its lies. It says that everything is fine, that there are no problems, that it has ratified the conventions. As if the fact of ratifying conventions makes one a good defender of human rights ! Ratification means nothing if it is not put into effect.

Has the US, which has assisted the Philipine government it its fight against insurrectionists, raised the issue of extrajudicial executions ?

Yes, but you know, the State department has talked to us. And we have given testimony before a US Senate Commission, something that made headlines in the Philippines. It’s the habitual duplicity of countries. That being said, between January 2001 and March 2008, 23 religious leaders were killed in the Philippines, which mobilized the American churches who put pressure on their government. And I think that this lobbying is perhaps not unknown to the current US administration. It revealed the importance of pressure exercised by NGOs or civil society associations on their governments in the context of these examinations.

Why have you decided to come before the Human Rights Council ?

In 2003, we submitted an alternate report to the Human Rights Comitte to expose the extradudicial executions that were taking place in the Philippines. Following that, the Commission asked our government to make a report on how it intended to remedy the situation. That report should have been submitted in 2006 but has not been done. But in that year there was a considerable increase in the number of extra judicial executions. We therefore decided to contact the Human Rights Council. Moreover, by chance – what an irony – the Philippines was elected [to the Council].

We entered into contact with the Special Rapporteur on extra judicial executions, Philip Alston, who submitted a first report in March 2007. At that session, we asked the World Council of Churches, of which I am a member, to use their three minutes of speaking time because we were not accredited. But there was Burma and Darfur – considered as much more important dossiers. Everything must be raised at the session in September.

What do you think in general of the Human Rights Council ?

It is an important organ that we must use to attract attention to certain issues. Furthemore, Philip Alston made a very good report. Notably, he recognized that extra judicial executions took place within the context of the Philippine fight against the insurrectionists. That was more than we hoped for from a UN official. But the Philippine government is trying to discredit his report. That is why, when the Council returns to Alston’s report at the June session, we must be there for support and to try and obtain, if possible, stricter controls.

What are you expecting concretely ?

Our objective is to have the Philippines ejected from the Council. It should not be there, it is not the place for them. We believe that if a country that has signed conventions does not apply them, it should be sanctioned. The UN should be more strict. That being said, it is no the UN that will solve our problems. I think that is for the Philippine people, by their actions, to undertake.

Translated from French by Pamela Taylor

Alston Report on Philippines