Presentation at the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines

Quezon City, Philippines
20 July 2013

PANEL 4. Best Practices: International solidarity campaigns

By Fr. REX REYES
General Secretary
National Council of Churches in the Philippines

Churches have a significant role in the struggle for human rights in the Philippines. Aside from lending their prophetic voice to announce and denounce the human rights violations in the country, they also accompany human rights organizations and basic sectors in mobilizations and fact-finding missions. Churches also utilize their resources to help victims and their families by providing sanctuaries and even funds in their quest for justice and their efforts to rebuild their lives.

Still, one of the most important contributions of the churches in the human rights struggle is in tapping its international ecumenical friends and partners. This is the church’s historical role in international solidarity since the 1970’s. The influence and resources of these partners enable Philippine churches and the broader human rights community in the country to gain access to governments like the US and Canada and intergovernmental bodies like the United Nations and the European Union. Significant efforts in relation to this are encapsulated in the following:

• Hosting International Ecumenical Solidarity Visits. Tthe extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances intensified with the implementation of the then Arroyo government’s counter-insurgency program called Oplan Bantay Laya in 2002, reached an alarming rate by 2005. One person was killed or disappeared for political reasons every other day. Alarmed by the situation, the NCCP called to its international ecumenical partners. The World Council of Churches (WCC) and Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) responded by forming a Pastoral Ecumenical Delegation Visit to reach out to the victims and their families and to personally witness the sufferings of the Filipino people. The high level delegation from Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Norway, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, and United States joined hands with prominent church leaders in the Philippines, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, and visited Eastern Visayas, Hacienda Luisita, and Mindanao from July 14-21, 2005. It was one of the first international delegations on human rights in the country during the period. It encouraged other church institutions to speak out against the killings. Other church institutions also sent delegations like the United Methodist Church (UMC) Connectional Table, the UMC-California Nevada and California Pacific Conferences and United Church of Canada. The UMC California Pacific Conference delegation in February 2010 was one of the first international entities covered by the media that spoke against the illegal arrest and detention of the Morong 43.
• The release of “Let the Stones Cry Out: An Ecumenical Report on Human Rights in the Philippines and a Call to Action”. This report was submitted to government and inter-government bodies in North America and Europe and the United Nations Human Rights Council. The said report was later published along with the chronicles of its submission to the aforementioned institutions in the book “Let the Stones Cry Out: The Continuing Search for Justice”. The book was hailed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno as the “embodiment of everything the human rights revolution stands for”. The book not only records what the ecumenical response to the impunity but also can serve as a resource book for continuing human rights advocacy.
• Ecumenical Voice for Peace and Human Rights in the Philippines. The NCCP spearheaded the formation of a nine-member delegation of Protestant and Roman Catholic bishops and clergy, Christian and Muslim human rights defenders called the Ecumenical Voice for Peace and Human Rights in the Philippines. The Ecumenical Voice sought to let survivors or relatives of victims of the culture of impunity to testify before international audiences. This is one of the outstanding features of the campaign to Stop the Killings. Thus, for instances and on hindsight the testimonies of Dr. Chandu Claver, Dr. Edith Burgos, Mr. Jonathan Sta. Rosa, Pastor Berlin Guerrero, Mr. Raymond Manalo, Ms. Melissa Roxas and Hon. Ernan Baldomero, among others, were powerful and real stories.

The delegation submitted the abovementioned report in March 2007 to: Members of Parliament in Canada, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Canada, the sub-committee on foreign relations in the US Senate, the Minister and Deputy Permanent Representative of the Permanent Mission of Germany to the Office of the United Nations at Geneva (the delegation also met with the minister in Germany’s capacity as President of the European Union), Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

In the US, a hearing on the extra judicial killings in the Philippines was held chaired by Sen. Barbara Boxer where two members of the delegation spoke. I would like to mention at this point that the UMC California Nevada Conference was one of those who lobbied the office of Sen. Boxer to conduct the said hearing upon their return from their solidarity visit. The said hearing was the banner headline of the Philippine Daily Inquirer the next day.

These efforts we could say contributed to the decrease in the number of killings by 2008.

• Philippine UPR Watch. A delegation convened by the Ecumenical Voice, with the help of international ecumenical partners engaged in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The UPR was then a new mechanism under the UNHRC where member states’ fulfilment of its obligations to international rights treaties is assessed by their peers. The Philippines was among the first batch of countries reviewed. In January 2008, representatives of the Asia Working Group of NGOs at the United Nations (AWG) and the Philippine Working Group (PWG) within the Asia Pacific Forum of Church World Service (APF/CWS), along with human rights groups based in Hong Kong met with representatives of the NCCP and two of its partner organizations, CONTAK and Karapatan, to prepare for an organized international response to the UPR. Foremost among the responses that were planned was the lobbying during the UNHRC session in Geneva in March 2008 and during the actual UPR.

A seven member multi-sectoral delegation coming from the Philippines was sent. The multi-sectoral delegation was composed of church leaders, human rights defenders and victims/families of victims. There was also a two-person team that went to the US to speak at events in the US. This included Dr. Edita T. Burgos, whom you of course know very well and Mervin Toquero of the NCCP. The tour covered nine (9) different cities to raise awareness about the cases of politically motivated extrajudicial killings and disappearances as well as other forms of human rights abuses and repression.

The Geneva delegation reiterated that the Philippine government with its appalling human rights record does not deserve its seat in the UN Human Rights Council. Rep. Teddy Casiño, Mr. Jonathan Sta. Rosa and myself followed Atty. Edre Olalia of NUPL and Ms. Marie Hilao-Enriquez who were the advance team who did some prior lobbying in Geneva. There, we were joined by Donnie Mapanao of Migrante Switzerland. The delegation that went to Geneva for the UPR was not able to present oral interventions during the actual UPR session, but through other venues and actions was able to present an alternative report on the actual situation on the ground in contrast to the rosy human rights picture that the Philippine government painted. The continuing national and international campaign coupled with our lobbying among a number of the Permanent Missions paid off. Delegates from 17 countries took the Philippine government to task for its failure to address the problems of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, especially in the prosecution of perpetrators. They also scored the Philippine government for its failure to address equally important issues such as the protection of migrant workers, the trafficking of women and children, and corruption. Onthe 8^th Session of the HRC that following June, civil society organizations were allowed to give oral interventions.

These efforts in relation to the Universal Periodic Review were successful. We were able to do lobby work with various missions, some of whom raised critical questions to the Philippine National Report especially on the issue of extra-judicial killings. We held two well-attended side events, one was at the WCC Ecumenical Center and the other was at the United Nations.

We were also able to deliver oral interventions in relation to the human rights report of the Philippine Government and the report of Prof. Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. We even delivered a statement during the consideration of the UPR Report on the Netherlands regarding the violation of the human rights of Filipino exiles, asylum-seekers and refugees. We presented the objective realities prevailing in the country before the international community and it was very effective in countering the glossy human rights picture projected by the government before the world.

After those efforts, the cases of extra-judicial killings have gone down. However, to paraphrase Prof. Alston, the decrease in number while a cause to congratulate, is likewise a cause to condemn because it merely shows clearly who are behind the extrajudicial killings. The decrease was a result of the pressure to the Philippine government brought about by the widespread national and international condemnation. But it does not mean that the human rights violations stopped altogether.

In all these, the media in the Philippines was provided updates and copies of press releases and statements.

The UPR Watch was reconvened in 2011 during for the second UPR on the Philippines in 2012. This time, the human rights record of the government of Pres. Benigno Aquino was also assessed. A four-person delegation went to Geneva during the 19^th session of the UN Human Rights Council from 27th February – 23rd March 2012, in preparation for the actual UPR in May 2012. The delegation brought the compilation of reports of the different organizations under the Watch and conducted lobbying and other related activities to show to the international community the continuing human rights crisis in the country.

At about the same time, a delegation was sent to the US and then to Canada. The delegation in the US was composed of Angelina Bisuña Ipong or Angie, of the Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (Association of Ex-Detainees Against Detention and Arrest), Bishop Reuel Norman Marigza, General Secretary of the UCCP and Bishop Felixberto Calang of the IFI and Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao. For Canada, Ms. Ipong and Bp. Marigza were joined by Dr. Merry Mia Clamor of Health Alliance for Democracy and one of the Morong 43. The US and Canada tour was a success, and they were able to speak cumulatively to around 2,000 people and with good coverage. They were also able to lobby successfully with members of the US Congress and Canadian Parliament. In Canada the tour jumpstarted networking and organizing and helped reinvigorate the work for human rights issues in the Philippines. The tour organizers committed to sustain the momentum by inviting people to be part of the organizations under the Stop the Killings network.

Another Philippine UPR Watch delegation went to Geneva in May 2012 for the actual UPR. The 12 member delegation was joined by members of the International Committee on the Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines, Bayan-USA, and Migrante-Switzerland.

The efforts of the UPR Watch were again successful. They were able to able to talk to 47 missions in Geneva and 10 missions (embassies) in Manila. Again, many countries put the Philippine government to task for its failure to curb if not to stop the human rights violations in particular the extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. Around 69 countries quizzed the Philippine government on its human rights record during the UPR session. One after the other, at least 22 countries expressed concerns on the continuing spate of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture in particular, and impunity in general. After the UPR, the delegation was also able to meet with representatives of the Sub-committee on Human Rights of the European Parliament (DROI) in Brussels, Belgium. The EU Parliament later released their resolution on impunity in the Philippines.

The Philippines state’s UPR came up for adoption on the 21^st session of the Human Rights Council which fell on September 20, 2012. The Philippine UPR Watch again sent a delegation to the said session and delivered oral interventions in the plenary hall during the adoption of the Philippine UPR working group report. Karapatan chairperson Marie Hilao Enriquez, head of delegation, and Dr. Rommel Linatoc of the (NCCP), delivered oral interventions. The other members of the Philippine UPR Watch were Ms. Melona Daclan of Defend Job Philippines, Rev. Michael Yoshii, a leader in the Isaiah Circle of the UN and International Affairs ministry of the General Board of Church and Society of The United Methodist Church, and Ms. Maribel Mapanao of the International Coordinating Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICCHRP) in Europe.

In retrospect, what we did is to bring the voices of the suffering but struggling people to the world. Without the accompaniment and solidarity of our international partners, we could not have done this. However, despite these efforts, human rights violations continue as Oplan Bayanihan, the government’s new counter-insurgency program, is still being relentlessly implemented. Justice remains elusive and impunity reigns. The Philippine government made commitments during the UPR. Thus, the task now, with the international community, is to keep watch and ensure that the commitments made by the government are followed to the letter, especially on the ground and to tirelessly call for the scrapping of Oplan Bayanihan and the resumption of the formal peace talks to address the roots of the armed conflict. There is reason to believe that there will be more repression in the coming months or years. This solidarity must be maintained as it has been rightfully maintained that “human rights violations here is human rights violations everywhere”. We must also point out at this point, that our international advocacy is not focused on civil and political rights alone. We are also very active in international initiatives in relation to migrants and indigenous peoples’ rights as well as in issues related to food and trade.

The Ecumenical Voice is now a formal alliance of the organizations involved in that above-described international lobbying. We are ready to share our experiences with other faith bodies and people’s organizations in the name of solidarity.

Presentation at the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines

Quezon City, Philippines
20 July 2013

PANEL 3. Struggle for just and lasting peace

By JOSE ENRIQUE AFRICA
Executive Director, IBON Foundation

Magandang umaga.

It is a privilege to speak today before all of you, among the closest friends from around the world of the Filipino people. Your solidarity and support is so important and appreciated.

And it is an honor to have been asked to speak about something that is so close to the heart of every Filipino activist, of whatever generation, and that drives and consumes us – the struggle for a just and lasting peace, and for the humane society that is the only thing that can bring that about. This struggle is everywhere.

Poverty and inequality

The Philippines is a country of some 100 million people. We are the 2^nd largest country in Southeast Asia and 12^th largest in the world.

We have vast natural resources: over 10 million hectares of agricultural land; billions of tons of mineral resources that rank us among the most mineral-rich in the world (ranked 3^rd in gold reserves, 4^th in copper, 5^th in nickel and 6^th in chromite by mineral intensity); extensive energy resources (including natural gas, geothermal sources, hydropower, wind, wave, solar energy, biomass and even some oil); and rich biodiversity where we rank 25^th worldwide in the number of plant and animal species. Our Tubbataha reefs which the US 7^th fleet vessel USS Guardian intruded in and destroyed is part of the Coral Triangle which is recognized as the global center of marine biodiversity with some 40% of the world’s coral reef fishes and 80% of its corals.

These are more than enough resources for a life of dignity for all within a just and peaceful society. But despite this – or indeed because of our riches and potential – we are poor, backward and underdeveloped. This is our national condition.

The president gives his state of the nation address (SONA) before the country’s elite on Monday. He will say many things but not the true state of the nation, nor of the people. For some months now much has been said about the economy – the fastest economic growth among the major countries of East and Southeast Asia, consecutive record highs in the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) index which is among the best performing in the world, record gross international reserves, investment grade ratings from two major international credit ratings agencies, and going up world competitiveness rankings. True perhaps, but not the truth.

The truth is this. Job creation has been falling and we now have the most number of unemployed and underemployed Filipinos in the country’s history: 11.9 million in April 2013 consisting of 4.6 million unemployed and 7.3 million underemployed. Our jobless includes the 822,000 farmers, fisherfolk and workers and the 21,000 professionals who lost their jobs in the year leading up to April 2013.

This is why some 12 million Filipinos have been forced abroad to find work with 4,924 Filipinos leaving the country each day last year. We are all familiar with the horrible abuses migrants suffer on top of the separation from their families. It is worst for those with irregular or undocumented status and they have been growing in record numbers in the last years.

This is the breadth of poverty in the Philippines: we estimate some 68 million poor Filipinos which is the worst scale of poverty in the country’s history. The government officially counts only some 27 million poor which is already a huge number. But to do this they use an absurd poverty threshold of just Php52 per person per day. So the government expects that for just US$1.20 a day – or the price of a 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola here – a Filipino will be able to provide for all of his or her food, shelter, clothing, medical, education, utilities and other needs.

This is the depth of poverty in the country: each member of the country’s poorest 1.9 million families, or the poorest decile, try to live off just Php22 per day. For the next poorest 1.9 million, or the second decile, they have Php35 per day. Then it is Php45, Php55 and Php67 for the succeeding deciles.

This is the severity of inequality: the income of the top 1% of families (185,000 families) is equivalent to that of the poorest 30% or 5.5 million families. But the survey that gives these figures does not capture the super-rich. The net worth of the richest 40 Filipinos equals the combined income in a year of the poorest 70 million Filipinos.

Amid all this – others would say because of all this – corporate profits and the wealth of the few continue to rise. The combined profit of Philippine stock exchange-listed firms rose 17% last year to Php501 billion. The combined profit of the country’s Top 1000 corporations – nearly half of whom, by revenue, are foreign transnational corporations – grew 8% in 2011 to Php868 billion. The combined net worth of just the 40 richest Filipinos grew 38% to US$47 billion in 2012; this is equivalent to over one-fifth of the economy (measured by GDP for the year).

Oppression and exploitation

There is extreme poverty and inequality in the Philippines. More precisely, there is severe oppression and exploitation. The social and economic rights of the broadest number have been methodically subordinated to narrow economic interests for many decades and have affected generations of Filipinos.

The economic policies in place systematically create the conditions for increasing the profits and wealth of a few. These are not accidental outcomes – much less due merely to corruption or rent-seeking – but are rather the inevitable result of long-standing and accumulating economic policies aimed at creating favourable conditions for foreign capitalists and domestic big business interests to profit and to flourish.

The Filipino people suffered hundreds of years of Spanish then American colonial rule. After sham independence in the 1940s came the decades under the American-designed neocolonial system. US imperialism has made sure that their economic and political domination of our economy, politics, military and culture remain intact.

In the last three decades the cutting edge of imperialist plunder in the Philippines has been the free market policies of neoliberal globalization. The first and biggest wave were trade and investment liberalization, privatization and deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s. The 2000s continued these policies but with increasing attention to the nuts-and-bolts of capitalism – corporate governance, financial codes and standards, and the like. Today we also have social protection and targeted poverty reduction including a multibillion peso conditional cash transfer program to create political legitimacy and fabricate popular support for continued neoliberalism.

So-called globalization was promoted especially in the post-Cold War era and upon the supposed discrediting of Socialist and Communist alternatives as the way to development. Yet after three decades the Philippines still has a rural economy where seven out of 10 peasants are landless and a third of landowners own or control more than 80% of agricultural land, mandated minimum wages are not even half needed for decent living, six out of ten workers don’t have written contracts, 30 workers a day suffer trade union-related rights violations, over 1,500 urban poor families are displaced monthly by commercial projects, three-fourths of households are food insecure, three million families or 15 million people do not have access to clean water, infant and maternal mortality are ten times worse for the poorest than the richest, government spending on debt payments is thrice what it spends on education and fifteen times on health, and there are two million child laborers.

Imperialism grossly and disproportionately benefits from Filipino labor and natural resources. We are plundered for our labor, agricultural and fisheries resources and minerals, exploited through overpricing of oil, power and water, and are denied opportunities even in our own domestic markets. Half of approved investment in the country in the last decade is foreign rather than Filipino; this is aside from the capital of the local comprador enterprises who are their domestic collaborators. Our economy has paid out over US$150 billion in debt servicing and over US$25 billion in profit remittances since 1980. We have exported over US$30 billon worth of mineral exports since the 1970s while our local industry remains stunted and our mining communities are among the most ecologically destroyed and impoverished in the country.

The country’s elites have reproduced this system through their control over the formal mechanisms of traditional political power including especially the brutal armed forces of the reactionary State – the police, military and paramilitaries. This is the Philippine face of neoliberal Western electoral democracy.

Struggles

All this is intolerable and the Filipino people have always risen up against their oppressors. Our current struggle draws its lineage from the Katipunan-led uprising against Spanish colonial rule in 1896 – the first successful anti-colonial revolution in Asia that set up, briefly, the First Philippine Republic in 1897. We have fought US imperialism since the turn of the century, battled Japanese military occupation during the Second World War, fought neocolonial rule by landlords and compradors, struggled against the Marcos dictatorship, and are waging struggles to this day.

We tackle every issue that pertains to the rights and welfare of the Filipino masses: agrarian reform, jobs, wages, mining plunder, health privatization, public education, housing, the oil cartel, ancestral land, water privatization, power privatization, violence against women, free trade agreements, the World Trade Organization, militarization, human rights and many many others. The Filipino masses are fighting for their rights and welfare.

We know that the market and constantly giving priority to private profits will never eliminate poverty and reduce inequality. We seek national development and to uphold the people’s welfare through radical redistribution of wealth and assets, through modernizing our economy via agrarian reform, rural development and national industrialization, and through sustained public provision of education, health and housing. We know these require a democratic and pro-people government so we work to build this as well.

We fight in every possible realm using every possible combination.

We work on the basis of an understanding of the structural problems of the country and the crisis of capitalism. We give primacy to working class politics as the building blocks for wider social change which means a great emphasis on ideological work and organizing peasants, workers, national minorities and other oppressed groups into people’s organizations and mass movements towards claiming political power for the people.

We also engage in the legal and parliamentary realms – legitimate arenas for gains victories, big and small. While we are fully conscious that any even these will ultimately depend on the political power we have built outside in the mass movement.

Our struggles have had successes and will reach even more and greater heights in the decades to come. Workers’ trade unions of the KMU have eked out higher wages and benefits at the firm level while fighting for a nationwide across-the-board wage hike; peasants of KMP have seized or won land struggles across the country including a historic, if yet partial and incomplete, victory in symbolic Hacienda Luisita; national minorities in Mindanao have resisted the incursion of big mining firms into their communities and ancestral lands; multi-sectoral struggles have opposed oil monopolies; and much more.

The situation especially in our vast backward countryside is so intolerable that even armed revolutionary movements have emerged and flourished. The currently active forces with parallel governance structures in large portions of the country’s territory include the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP) that operates in 70 of 79 provinces, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front-Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (MILF-BIAF) which is active in 14 provinces in the southern Philippines though currently in peace talks with the Aquino government. Such radical alternatives are objectively the strongest counterpoint to neocolonialism and capitalism in the country.

We are peasants, fisherfolk, workers, migrants, national minorities, women, youth, students, health workers, teachers, scientists, cultural workers, government employees, church workers, human rights workers, environmentalists, urban poor, drivers, entrepreneurs, lawyers and other professionals. And we are organized and collective and democratic in our struggles.

Repression

And because we are strong and growing stronger we are repressed violently and systematically.

The current Aquino administration professes to respect human rights, has supposed progressives and civil society leaders in government, and is internationally praised for its ‘good governance’. Yet it has seen 142 extrajudicial killings (EJKs), 12 enforced disappearances, and 148 additional political prisoners. There are thousands of victims in just the last decade since 2001 – 1,345 EJKs, 222 enforced disappearances and 430 political prisoners – with zero accountability.

These human rights violations of EJKs, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detention and others continue. And because they are State-sponsored they continue with impunity.

Defiance

But because we are unafraid, we are defiant. We are hundreds of thousands of activists, organizers, campaigners. We are millions of people believing in, mobilizing and taking action for a truly free and democratic Philippines.

This is the arc of our struggle: resistance, defiant struggle, and victory for the people!

Maraming salamat at magandang umaga sa ating lahat.

Presentation at the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines

Quezon City, Philippines
20 July 2013

PANEL 3. Struggle for just and lasting peace

By ANNA MORRIS and RICHARD HARVEY
Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
NDFP International Legal Advisory Team

This paper will deal with three distinct but inter-related topics, the right to self-determination, the right to rebel and the right to freedom from exploitation. It will seek to offer some global perspectives on each of these three topics and suggest ways in which international law can be used by citizens, activists and lawyers to enforce the basic rights of peoples here in the Philippines and abroad.

1. The Right to Self-Determination

Over 15 years ago in The Hague, the “City of Peace”,¹ the Government of the Philippines and the NDFP signed the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (“CARHRIHL”). The Agreement between begins with these fundamental words:

“Respect for human rights and international humanitarian law is of crucial importance and urgent necessity in laying the ground for a just and lasting peace.”

It correctly affirms that:

“[T]he principles of human rights and international humanitarian law are universally applicable.”

And, by Article 2(1) of CARHRIHL the parties agree:

“[T]o confront, remedy and prevent the most serious human rights violations in terms of civil and political rights, as well as to uphold, protect and promote the full scope of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including:

1. The right to self-determination of the Filipino nation by virtue of which the people should fully and freely determine their political status, pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and dispose of their natural wealth and resources for their own welfare and benefit towards genuine national independence, democracy, social justice and development.

Human rights are indivisible and universal. In order to guarantee and enforce those rights, fighting for the rule of law is the first duty of the people’s lawyer. Those of us who have worked with those struggling for human rights, whether in South Africa or Palestine, in Colombia or Ireland, in Puerto Rico or East Timor, know from first-hand experience that there can be no just or lasting peace without the right of peoples to self-determination. Without self-determination there is no guarantee of human rights at all. It is that right to self-determination I would like to focus on here.

A just and lasting peace has to be negotiated in good faith. When our colleagues in South Africa negotiated with the criminal apartheid regime, they were told to sign up to a new constitution before the first free elections were held. They rightly refused, saying ceasefires may be up for negotiation; a timetable for the transition of power may be up for negotiation; but human rights belong to all the people by right, they are never up for negotiation. It was only after the new Parliament was elected that a new constitution was written by all the people and for all the people. That is self-determination in action. And it produced arguably the finest constitution the world has yet seen.

Former colonial powers like Britain and France and neo-colonial powers like the United States sometimes act as though they had invented the whole idea of human rights. They support repressive governments and military regimes when they want to do business with them. They send arms to rebels in other countries that they want to undermine. They tell us that the rebels they arm are fighting for democracy and human rights while the regimes they back are preventing states from collapsing into anarchy.

Their idea of democracy has little to do with self-determination of peoples. Their policies are shaped by the determination of transnational corporations to make a profit from people, whatever the price in blood and suffering. The right to self-determination has crystallised into customary international law with the help of declarations and resolutions of the United Nations. But, as the World Court has recognised, this right was not granted by beneficent colonial powers. Instead, that right: “had first been written painfully, with the blood of the peoples in the finally awakened conscience of humanity. And without those same peoples, mainly of Asia and Africa … would it have been possible to have achieved that impressive number of declarations and resolutions whereby the great principles they had helped to consecrate have been translated into law and applied to the reshaping of international relations?”²

You here in the Philippines know what that judge meant when he spoke of a right, written painfully, with the blood of the peoples. You know how hard it is to finally awaken the conscience of humanity; how difficult it is for the people to “fully and freely determine their political status, pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and dispose of their natural wealth and resources for their own welfare and benefit towards genuine national independence, democracy, social justice and development,” to come back to the words of the CARHRIHL.

But that is what the Government of the Philippines signed up to over 15 years ago. They did not agree out of the kindness of their hearts. They agreed because the people had fought for – and won – those rights. They agreed because they do not have any option: to deny those rights would be to violate the basic principles of international law enshrined in Common Article of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights which reads, in part:

Article 1

1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

To violate CARHRIHL, in other words, is to violate international law. CARHRIHL is not up for renegotiation because human rights are not up for renegotiation. Any government that deprives its people of the right to self-determination gives them a new right: the right to rebel. International law clearly proclaims that: “the denial of fundamental human rights … is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations,” and that:

Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples … of their right to self-determination, freedom and independence. In their actions against and resistance to, such forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of their right to self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and receive support in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.

In other words, if a state uses force to deprive peoples (i.e. you) of their (your) right to self-determination, freedom and independence, not only do those peoples (you) have the right to take action against such a state, they (you) also have the right to call on the international community (us) for support. These are not the words of some radical lawyer from the other side of the world trying to stir up a revolution with fiery rhetoric: this is customary international law, binding upon all States by the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations (the “Friendly Relations Declaration”).³

2. The Right to Rebel: Do Rebels have Rights?

Parks and squares in Turkey and Brazil have been thronged in recent weeks with peaceful demonstrators and rioting police. In Egypt, millions flocked to Tahrir Square to the excitement of the international media, resulting in what some call a coup d’état and others the continuation of a revolution. Meanwhile, unnoticed by most western media, similar events in Bulgaria forced one government to resign in February and the government that replaced it looks set to collapse as the country has been in turmoil for months.⁴ The people are rebelling.

The “Arab Spring” embraced so enthusiastically by the Western media two years ago has turned distinctly wintry in parts of North Africa and the Near East. Syria is descending the same spiral of death and dismemberment as Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States and EU use phrases like “humanitarian intervention,” and “responsibility to protect,” not to prevent the sufferings of innocent victims of war crimes but to advance the geopolitical interests of great economic powers and transnational corporations. It seems that some rebels must be supported and armed while others must be repressed and crushed.

Human rights belong to all. They belong equally to those who demonstrate against political and economic injustice; to those who rebel against the oppression of military-backed regimes and to those who struggle for self-determination against companies that seek to pollute their environment, corrupt their ecology and destroy the lives and livelihoods of indigenous peoples.

Those of us who stand in solidarity with people struggling for self-determination have a duty to bear witness to violations of their human rights. Where people are driven to believe there is no alternative but to take up arms as part of the struggle for self-determination, it is not for us, as outsiders, to judge whether that belief is correct or to what extent this or that armed action is justified. Our duty is to stand up clearly and unequivocally for the rights of those who rebel. When a woman decides to join the armed struggle to protect her ethnic group, her village, her children; she doesn’t thereby give up her human rights. When a revolutionary soldier is taken prisoner by the armed forces of the government he is fighting against, he is entitled to the full protections of international humanitarian law.

In affirming this principle, we affirm our support for Article 6 of the CARHRIHL:

The Parties are aware that the prolonged armed conflict in the Philippines necessitates the application of the principles of human rights and the principles of international humanitarian law and the faithful compliance therewith by both Parties.

We, as human rights defenders, are called to bear witness; to gather evidence and present it to human rights bodies; to name and shame those responsible for unlawful killings, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment; and to call to account the corporations who violate the right of people to a clean and healthy environment, fair working conditions and other social and economic rights.

In 1980, as soon as Optional Protocols I and II to the 1949 Geneva Conventions came into force, the ANC filed with the Red Cross a declaration that the liberation movement considered itself bound by the terms of the Protocols. This bold strategy enabled lawyers representing ANC fighters before the apartheid regime’s courts to assert that their clients’ actions were protected by international law.

In the same way, here in the Philippines, the NDFP issued its Declaration of Undertaking to Apply the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I on 5 July 1996. By doing so, the NDFP has assumed rights and duties under Protocol I, on top of those provided for under common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and under its Protocol II. Members of the armed forces of the Government of the Philippines who are taken prisoner are entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions and the same rights are claimed for combatants of the New People’s Army and its allies.

In the context of an armed struggle, it is particularly important that to protect the most vulnerable. In that respect, the NDFP’s Declaration on the Rights of Children provides a model that any country should be proud to adopt. As we so often find, it is the oppressed themselves who are best placed to articulate what rights they are fighting for and who show the greatest concern for future generations.

3. Freedom to Exploit or Freedom from Exploitation?

History shows that if we leave it to the mining multinationals, the oil corporations and the logging companies to determine what rights future generations will have, then they will destroy the planet in the long term in order to maximise their profits in the short term.

As we have seen, international human rights law gives to all people the rights asserted under the CARHRIHL to pursue not only the political status of peoples, but also “their economic, social and cultural development,” and their right to “dispose of their natural wealth and resources for their own welfare and benefit towards genuine national independence, democracy, social justice and development.”

In practice, this right is meaningless unless multinationals are held to account for their crimes against the people. In 1992, the United Nations “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro highlighted the need for a global response to the actions of those industries which have a global impact. Illegal logging and other forms of ecological destruction in the Philippines have an environmental impact on the whole planet. It should concern us as much in London as it does you in Manila.

International environmental law has established principles that must be enforced against those industries and the ways they operate. For example, the “Polluter Pays” principle requires cleaning up oil spills, repairing scarred landscapes and paying reparations to people forced from their lands. But this is not enough. Some environmental disasters cannot be simply “cleaned up,” like Fukushima and Chernobyl. So the “Precautionary Principle”⁵ requires governments to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. This shifts the burden of proof onto industries. Environmentalists do not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the environment will be seriously or irreversibly damaged. Once it is shown that there is a reasonable likelihood of such a threat to the environment, the burden shifts to industry to show in advance that its actions will not damage the environment. After all, a major oil spill in the Arctic would trigger untold and irreversible damage on a global scale.⁶

At the same time as the 1992 Rio Earth Summit was discussing the wording of these principles of environmental law, our colleagues in South Africa were putting them into practice. They were writing a new constitution, the first in the world to adopt “ecologically sustainable development” as a right. Section 24(a)(iii) of that Constitution provides:

“Everyone has the right to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development.”

We have read the 2012 Year-end Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Philippines by the respected human rights NGO KARAPATAN. We have seen the documentation on murders of environmental activists in the Philippines. Your natural wealth and resources do not belong to mining and logging companies that murder, terrorise and steal the land from indigenous people with impunity.⁷ As international human rights activists, we also bear witness to the shocking record of human rights violations around the world by corporations such as BHP Billiton, Exxon-Mobil; Xstrata; Anglo-American and Rio Tinto, to name but a few. Why do we name them? Because all these giant extractive industries are here in the Philippines, in Mindanao, which holds more than half the estimated mineral wealth – your mineral wealth. KARAPATAN has called on us in the international community to:

Investigate complaints and reports of human rights violations, including adverse environmental impacts, of mining and other extractive industry projects of corporations operating in Mindanao and with primary listing under [inter]national stock indexes and headquartered in [our countries]⁸

KARAPATAN’s report on human rights violations stands as a devastating indictment of the Government of the Philippines, as well as of those transnational corporations that benefit from the destruction of your environment.

The Government of the Philippines is bound by international law to respect its commitments in Article 2 of the CARHRIHL “to pave the way for comprehensive agreements on economic, social and political reforms that will ensure the attainment of a just and lasting peace.”⁹

As you move forward along the road to attaining that just and lasting peace, you will be travelling a path similar to that taken by our colleagues in South Africa, in Ireland and elsewhere. Just as we have worked with them, we promise to work with you, to be there for you, to bear witness with you and to celebrate with you the inevitable triumph of your people’s struggle.

RICHARD HARVEY & ANNA MORRIS
LONDON, JULY 2013

1. CARHRIHL was signed 16 March 1998 in The Hague, Netherlands
2. Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) Notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970) 1971 I.C.J. 16, 74. Judge Ammoun.
3. UN General Assembly Res. 2625 (XXV): Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. The [Declaration] “Solemnly proclaims the following principles:
   …The principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples…“[B]earing in mind that subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a violation of the principle [of self-determination], as well as the denial of fundamental human rights, and is contrary to the Charter.…“Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples referred to above in the elaboration of the present principle of their right to self-determination, freedom and independence. In their actions against and resistance to, such forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of their right to self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and receive support in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.”
4. “Bulgaria’s president has said another early election should take place to deal with daily anti-government street protests”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23201170.
5. See Article 3.3 of the Rio Convention (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992)): “The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost‐effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost.” (Emphasis added).
6. The risks from Arctic oil exploration were highlighted by BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf. The precautionary principle requires companies to show – before such a disaster occurs – that it won’t. See: http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2012/12/05/commission-releases-report-on-arctic-oil-spill-research/; http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/shells-arctic-failure-obamas-chance-act-20130301; http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/risky-business-how-shareholders-pensions-and-councils-are-being-exposed-risks-arctic-oil-20130521
7. 2012 Year-end Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Philippines, p.40, Table 1, Profile of Extrajudicial Killings in Mindanao.
8. 2012 Year-end Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Philippines, Recommendations addressed to the International Community, p.51
9. Article 2. The objectives of this Agreement are: (a) to guarantee the protection of human rights to all Filipinos under all circumstances, especially the workers, peasants and other poor people; (b) to affirm and apply the principles of international humanitarian law in order to protect the civilian population and individual civilians, as well as persons who do not take direct part or who have ceased to take part in the armed hostilities, including persons deprived of their liberty for reasons related to the armed conflict; (c) to establish effective mechanisms and measures for realizing, monitoring, verifying and ensuring compliance with the provisions of this Agreement; and, (d) to pave the way for comprehensive agreements on economic, social and political reforms that will ensure the attainment of a just and lasting peace. (emphasis added)