MANILA, Philippines - Two years have passed: Can the Arroyo government claim to have a cleaner human rights record? Alarmed by continuous reports of escalating violence against members of the legal profession in the Philippines, the Dutch Lawyers for Lawyers Foundation upon the initiative of the Dutch Foundation Lawyers without Borders and with the support of the Netherlands Bar Association, the Amsterdam Bar Association and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) organized the International Fact Finding Mission two years ago, from June 15 to 20, 2006.
They held interviews and conferences in Quezon City, Manila and Tacloban City, Leyte with lawyer-victims, the families of slain lawyers, the Integrated Bar of the Philippines, human rights advocates, concerned government agencies, among them the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), the Philippine National Police (PNP), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the judiciary.
From November 4 to the 12th, the Dutch Lawyers for Lawyers Foundation will conduct a follow-up verification and fact finding mission (IVFFM) to be held in Manila and Mindanao.
This time around, the National Host Committee is the National Union of Peoples' Lawyers ( NUPL) in collaboration with the Counsels for the Defense of Liberties (CODAL), which hosted the first Mission which took place two years ago.
"Since 2001, many human rights lawyers and judges have fallen victim to serious harassment, intimidation and even extrajudicial killing for the practice of their profession. These attacks have further exposed the brutal orientation of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration when it comes to human rights. Those who defend human rights and stand up against those who violate them become victims themselves. This is an alarming development that has struck a chord even in the international community of law practitioners, and thus the IFFM was held in 2006," said NUPL secretary–general Atty. Neri Colmenares, said.
"It's been two years since the first IFFM. It's high time that we find out if anything has changed or if the attacks against members of the legal profession continued and even escalated. It's simply impossible, not to mention fool-hardy, to take the Macapagal-Arroyo government's word that the human right situation in the country has improved. We have yet to hear that the cry for justice by the victims and their families has been answered , or that the perpetrators have been made to account for their crimes. What's worse is that the government has remained stiff-necked in its refusal to scrap Oplan Bantay Laya and its campaign of political persecution against its legitimate critics, including progressive human rights lawyers and judges. Systemic impunity remains in place," he said.
Colmenares said that it the attacks against human rights advocates continue and the government remains relentless in its implementation of its campaign of political repression. Case in point, he said, is the abduction and arrest of labor lawyer and human rights advocate Remigio Saladero, Jr., on charges that are undoubtedly politically motivated.
Atty. Saladero was abducted on October 23, 2008, at his law office in Antipolo City, in Rizal province. The arresting officers used a 2006 arrest warrant for trumped up charges of multiple murder and attempted murder in Oriental Mindoro. . They also illegally confiscated Atty. Saladero's personal belongings including his, laptop and mobile phone and refused his request to contact his family and colleagues to inform them of his abduction until very late that evening.
"The Arroyo government and its various agencies speak with forked tongues when it comes to human rights. Atty. Saladero has done nothing but ably perform his duties as a progressive people's lawyer and a legal defender of the poor and exploited, but this government has seen it fit to persecute him, slap him with obviously fake charges, and put him behind bars. In the meantime, the very criminals – members of the government's security and armed forces – who are behind the abduction and killing of innocent civilians and human rights advocates continue to enjoy their freedom," he said.
According to Colmenares, the follow-up IVFFM aims to verify the status of cases of harassed or killed lawyers and judges investigated by the IFFM in June 2006; verify and collect as many findings as possible regarding several new cases of threats, harassment and killings of human rights lawyers and judges and how the Philippine authorities have addressed (or not addressed) the issue; verify and collect as many findings as possible regarding the effectiveness of the measures the Macapagal-Arroyo government claims to have taken to address the problem of extrajudicial killings, and inform the appropriate Philippine authorities and the international community regarding the same. Participants to the Mission will once more visit the same offices and institutions they did in 2006, and determine if there have been significant developments.
"It's been two years. Has the Macapagal-Arroyo government done more than lip service and gone after the killers of human rights lawyers and judges? Can this government now boast of having a cleaner human rights record? Can human rights lawyers now practice their profession without the threat of being abducted or killed looming over their heads? These are some of the questions this IVFFM seeks to answer," he said.
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