Philippines Human Rights

Human Rights Situation in the Philippines

• There has been a slight improvement in the human rights situation in the Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
• "Drug war" killings have become less frequent, though impunity persists.
• The government has refused to cooperate with the International Criminal Court's investigation into possible crimes against humanity.
• Despite assurances, abuses like extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and harassment/intimidation of critics through "red-tagging" continue.

Extrajudicial and Summary Killings

• Extrajudicial killings, often by police during drug raids or unidentified assailants, continued throughout 2024.
• Dahas monitoring shows 332 killings between January and November 15, 2024, with security forces responsible for over 50%.
• Since Marcos took office on July 1, 2022, 841 have died in drug-related killings.
• Killings by death squads or hired assassins on motorcycles are frequent in Metro Manila and other urban areas.
• Political violence targeting local officials increased in the second half of 2024, ahead of the 2025 mid-term elections.

Enforced Disappearances

• Karapatan reported 14 enforced disappearances under President Marcos, with four new cases in 2024.
• Recent victims include James Jimenez and Felix Salaveria Jr., reportedly abducted in Tabaco City in August.
• Victims often include activists, particularly land rights and environmental defenders.

Red-Tagging, Terror-Tagging of Activists

• Red-tagging (accusing individuals/organizations of being communists) remains a serious problem, shrinking freedom of expression and association.
• Government officials and proxies use red-tagging to intimidate critics, often leading to physical violence.
• Targets have broadened from leftist activists to Indigenous leaders, land rights defenders, and educators.
• Labor leaders are harassed for union activities.
• "Terror-tagging" involves using the Anti-Terror Act to file charges (often for alleged terrorist financing) against activists and civil society groups.
• Some individuals are facing charges, but at least 22 cases have been dismissed for lack of merit.
• In May, child-rights activist Maria Salome Ujano was convicted of terrorist financing.

Attacks Against Journalists, Freedom of Expression

• The Philippines remains one of the deadliest places for journalists.
• In September, former Palawan governor Joel Reyes surrendered for allegedly ordering the 2011 killing of a journalist and environmental defender.
• In May, a Manila court sentenced the gunman in the 2022 murder of radio commentator Percival Mabasa to 16 years in prison, but the alleged mastermind remains at large.
• In April, police arrested suspects in the 2023 murder of broadcaster Juan Jumalon, who was shot while live on air.
• In July, a court cleared Maria Ressa and Rappler of their last tax evasion case.

Filing of Charges, Arrest, and Detention of Critics

• In July, a court convicted two leftist legislators and 11 teachers for alleged child abuse related to rescuing Indigenous children from a military operations area.
• The charges appear politically motivated.
• In August, police arrested and detained four land rights and environmental activists for alleged illegal possession of firearms and explosives; they allege torture in detention.

Accountability and Justice

• Accountability for "war on drugs" killings remains insignificant.
• Four police officers were convicted in June for the murders of a father and son; only three other cases have resulted in convictions for extrajudicial killings.
• The International Criminal Court's investigation into possible crimes against humanity in the "drug war" is ongoing, but the Marcos administration refuses to cooperate.
• The Philippine Congress investigated extrajudicial killings in the "war on drugs" for the first time.
• Police officials disclosed that the Duterte administration ordered the "elimination" of drug suspects.

Laws on Discrimination and Civil Partnership

• Congress has not enacted legislation to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics.
• It has also not passed a civil partnership bill to protect rights for same-sex couples.

Introduction to Human Rights

• Human rights protect individuals from governmental power.
• These rights ensure government doesn't infringe on life, liberty, property, religious beliefs, conscience, etc.
• Rights such as the right to work, education, and healthcare are "programmatic norms" or political goals.
• These serve as policy goals but can't be legally demanded from the government.
• Human rights originate from the inherent dignity of every human being.
• Human rights are universal, inviolable, and inalienable.
• Human rights are not granted by humans or the state; no one can be deprived of them.
• Individuals must respect other persons' human rights, and public authority must guarantee them.
• The Church proclaims human rights, seeing it as an opportunity to recognize and promote human dignity as a characteristic from God.
• Demanding rights only for oneself is selfish.
• The Church emphasizes the link between rights and duties.
• Claiming rights for oneself while denying them to others is contradictory.
• Every right carries a corresponding responsibility.
• Excessive affirmation of rights can lead to individualism that ignores the common good.
• The Church affirms that minorities have rights and duties, especially the right to exist.
• Minorities have the right to maintain their cultures, languages, and religious beliefs.

Types of Human Rights according to Pope John XXIII’s encyclical Pacem in Terris

• Linked to human dignity is the principle of rights and responsibilities.
• A right is a claim to live a full, human life.
• Rights are inherent, not earned, due to being made in God's image.
• Rights are universal (for every human), inviolable (untouchable because they come from God), and inalienable (inherent and beyond challenge).
• No one can take rights away because they are due as children of God.
• Responsibilities are the flipside of rights.
• Exercise rights responsibly and respect the rights of others.
• Pope John XXIII enumerated fundamental human rights in Peace on Earth (1963).
  • Right to Life: Includes bodily integrity and necessities for proper development (food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, social services) and security during hardship.
  • Moral and Cultural Rights: Respect for one's person, reputation, freedom in seeking truth, expressing opinions, pursuing art, being truthfully informed, and sharing in cultural benefits through basic education.
  • Right to Worship God: To honor God according to one's conscience, practicing religion privately and publicly.
  • Right to Choose Freely One's State of Life: To choose one's state of life, including marriage (with equal rights/duties), or religious vocation. The family, based on freely contracted, monogamous, indissoluble marriage, is the essential unit of society, requiring economic, social, cultural, and moral support. Parents have the primary right in the support and education of their children.
  • Economic Rights: Opportunity to work without coercion and the right to private property.
  • The Right of Meeting and Association: The right of assembly and association arises from the social nature of human beings.
  • The Right to Emigrate and Immigrate: Freedom of movement and residence within one's country, and the right to emigrate to other countries with just cause.
  • Political Rights: Active participation in public affairs and contributing to the common good.
• Rights and responsibilities are interconnected.
• The right to life demands care for one’s own life.
• The right to a decent standard of living requires a responsible lifestyle.
• The right to seek truth entails the duty to search for it.
• Ignoring responsibilities while claiming rights diminishes human dignity.

Lent

• Lent prepares for the celebration of Easter.
• The Lenten liturgy readies catechumens for Christian Initiation and the faithful to recall Baptism and do penance.
• Lent spans 40 days, from Ash Wednesday to the Mass of the Lord's Supper (exclusive), omitting Alleluia.
• Ash Wednesday marks Lent's start, with ashes distributed as a fast day.
• "Lent" Derivation:
  • Lencten (Old English): "springtime, spring," coinciding with new life, hope, change, prayer, penance, and conversion.
• Langitinaz (West Germanic): means “long-days, or lengthening of the day”
• Lent lasts 40 days due to the traditional biblical significance of the number 40.
  • Moses on Mount Sinai: Moses stayed on the Mountain of God forty days (Exodus 24:18 and 34:28).
  • Spies in the Land: the spies were in the land for forty days (Numbers 13:25).
  • Elijah's Journey: Elijah traveled forty days before his vision (1 Kings 19:8)
  • Nineveh's Repentance: Nineveh was given forty days to repent (Jonah 3:4)
  • Jesus in the Wilderness: The most important event of ministry was when Jesus spent forty days in wilderness praying and fasting (Matthew 4:2).
• Lent includes prayer and fasting to imitate Christ within a forty-day period.
  • Christ used a forty-day period of prayer and fasting to prepare for his ministry
• Ash Wednesday initiates Lent, occurring six and a half weeks before Easter (February 4-March 11).
  • Ash Wednesday is a solemn reminder to human mortality and the need for reconciliation with God
• Ashes Symbolize:
  • Grief, humility, mourning, penance, and mortality.
  • Examples: Job repenting in dust and ashes, Daniel seeking help with fasting and ashes, Nineveh's king in sackcloth and ashes, and the Maccabees army fasting and wearing sackcloth sprinkling ashes on their heads and tore their garments
• Ashes were originally imposed on catechumens preparing for baptism and confessed sinners.
• Ashes are imposed with the words: "Remember man that you are from dust, and unto dust you shall return.”
  • A reminder of Genesis and the original sin that brought death into the world.
• We must realize what death means ... "You are dust"... "Repent!... Believe in the Gospel"!”
• Admitting our own finitude, we see God’s infinitude, confronting death brings us new life, knowing our limits gives us freedom, and through the mess of dust, we come to know the holy.”

Preferential Option for the Poor and the Vulnerable

• The "preferential option for the poor and the vulnerable" is a key biblical and Church teaching emphasizing solidarity.
• The life of Jesus revolved around the poor
• As followers of Christ, we must do the same.
• Pope Paul VI described this Christian calling concretely.
• 1 Jn 3:17 states: "He who has the goods of this world and sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?"
• St. Ambrose stated: We are not making a gift of what is yours to the poor man, but you are giving him back what is his...Everyone knows that the esteemed leaders of the Church laid down the duty of the rich toward the poor in no uncertain terms.
  • "...You have been appropriating things that are meant to be for the common use of everyone. The earth belongs to everyone, not to the rich.”
• Archbishop Oscar Romero’s canonized as a saint in Oct 2018 and whose feast day we are celebrating on March 24 shared of El Salvador uses a powerful image to explain this.
  • Relates it to the feeling of wanting to rescue one’s mother and sister from a burning building
• Because Archbishop Oscar Romero took the side of the poor against the dictatorial regime in El Salvador, he was slain by an assassin’s bullet while celebrating Mass.
• The Church doesn't see marginalized groups as a problem but as those who can create a more humane future.
• Pope John Paul II taught that charity is to give the essentials to a poor person
  • He challenged leaders to serve the needs of the poor in society
• Justice, which can be realized by exercising a preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, not just charity, is the goal of the Church
• Journeying with the poor:
  • Respecting their capability to define their needs and provide solutions to their own problems,
  • Fighting for and working towards bringing about a society that gives everyone equal access to social, cultural, political and economic opportunities
• How will this happen?
  • A need to recognize that marginalized groups often experience multiple levels of suffering.
  • Means putting the needs of the marginalized and excluded at the center of any development agenda.
  • Promote the common good as the preferential option for the poor and vulnerable is exercised.
  • For development to be authentic, it needs to be well-rounded
• Government and the Church, as well as individuals are obligated to help the poor

Emotional Intelligence

• Emotional intelligence is the key to success, character, happiness, and lifelong achievement
• Emotional intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to perceive, express, understand, and manage emotions.
• Emotional Inteligence helps one to recognize and influence the emotions of those around you.
• The term was first coined in 1990 by researchers John Mayer and Peter Salovey but was later popularized by psychologist Daniel Goleman
• Daniel Goleman's Four Quadrants:
  • Self-Awareness: Understanding your strengths, weaknesses, emotions, and their effect on you and others.
  • Self-Management: Managing emotions in stressful situations and maintaining a positive outlook.
  • Social Awareness: Accurately noticing others' emotions and reading situations, using empathy.
  • Relationship Management: Influencing, coaching, mentoring, and resolving conflict effectively.
• Emotionally intelligent students are better equipped to deal with negative emotions that might disrupt learning
• Emotional Intelligence helps you to develop good relationships, leading to a good, meaningful and happy life
• Enhancing Emotional Intelligence:
  • Daily Reflection: Journaling and praying. Questions to ask yourself are: 1) How have my emotions influenced my decisions and interactions today? 2) What has brought me joy or satisfaction? 3) What can I do better next time?
  • Pausing Before Reacting: Acknowledge emotions as guides but pause before reacting to avoid being overwhelmed.
  • Positive Self-Talk: Reframing mindset.
  • Practicing Empathy and Compassion: Showing compassion with the person. Ito ay pakikiramay sa kapwa.
  • Empathy: Understanding and sharing the feelings of another. Ito ay paglulugar ng sarili sa sitwasyon ng ibang tao.
  • Active Listening: Focus on what the person is saying, and show you’re engaged by paraphrasing and using other non-verbal cues like nodding (Landry, 2019).
• Emotional intelligence is a life-long skill that needs to be practiced consistently.