#EndImpunityPH

OVER the weekend, I was preparing a column with a sarcastic take on Sen. Ronaldo Bato dela Rosa’s “s**t happens” comment on the death of three-year-old Kateleen Myca Ulpina.

However, I received a far more important statement from the Philippine UPR Watch, which I thought trumps anything that I planned to write.

Therefore, I have decided to cede my column space for their statement. Please do read on:

The resolution tabled by Iceland and supported by many States at the current 41st session of the United Nations Human Rights Council to comprehensively and methodically address the horrendous extrajudicial killings and the plethora of rights violations in the Philippines is a highly significant international initiative.

It is a big step in stride with other parallel measures and contemporaneous efforts that merits the full support of an intergovernmental body that is mandated to ensure the promotion, protection, and respect for human rights at the global level. Despite desperate efforts of the Duterte administration to package its violations as worthy of praise and emulation, the evolution of the firm resolution emphasized the futility of attempts to evade accountability on the human rights violations committed by State actors and the international community’s acknowledgment of the grave human rights situation in the Philippines. We likewise appreciate all other current diplomatic initiatives that express concern on the dire situation in the Philippines.

Under the banner of the Philippine UPR Watch, human rights defenders from Karapatan,  National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers, National Council of Churches of the Philippines, and Iglesia Filipina Independiente conducted intense lobby and advocacy activities on the human rights situation in the Philippines during the current session of the Council in Geneva.

The Philippine NGO delegation met and conversed with several State Missions, some UN Special Procedures and various international human rights organisations to provide direct testimonies and documentation on the killings and attacks against human rights defenders, church workers and lawyers, on the atrocious climate of impunity with the implementation of the Philippine government’s  bloody and cruel “drug war” and counterinsurgency program, the use of draconian policies and measures including martial law in Mindanao, and the failure of domestic institutions and mechanisms to provide real succor and effective redress for victims of human rights violations.

The NGO delegation also addressed the misleading theatrics and gross disinformation rants of apologists of the Philippine government in Geneva, which are riding in tandem with the orchestrated propaganda blitz in the country and junket roadshows in the US and Europe. Measured against reality and hard facts, such as PR stunts, however, are empty rhetorics and desperate efforts to evade accountability.

We invite the international community of nations and peoples to see through all these charivaris by nervous officials.

Spin #1: The Philippine government refutes the data and reports on the number of victims of extrajudicial killings in the drug war by citing statistics of the Philippine National Police which are “merely” 6,000 deaths. This is not a numbers game to be wagered over human lives. The numerous cases and consistent reports have indicated that what appears to be a  “shoot first, justify later” tendency of the Philippine National Police has resulted to the mad slaughter of poor Filipinos deprived of their right to basic due process. It bespeaks of the cold callousness that has possessed our authorities when a newly-elected senator, who was among the primary implementers of the bloody “drug war,” has derided and trivialized the recent killing of 3-year-old Myca Ulpina, with his “shit happens” comment most insensitive.

Spin #2: The Philippine government misleads the international community in saying that majority of Filipinos approve Duterte’s drug war, citing a 2018 survey and the results of the midterm elections. Lost in translation is another recent survey result released in March 2019, where 78% or 4 out of 5 Filipinos have expressed worry and fear that they would be the next victims of extrajudicial killings. Also brushed aside are the various outstanding questions and complaints concerning fraud, machination, and violence during the recent elections and which unfortunately still prey on many of our people.

Spin #3: Filipino diplomats and officials have senselessly berated Iceland and other States supporting the proposed resolution as “colonizers,” once again invoking the country’s sovereignty, in a hypocritical attempt to evade its commitments to international human rights conventions and declarations. Indeed, the “sovereignty” card has been repeatedly misused by the Philippine government to duck accountability, while it has allowed repeated violations on the country’s patrimony and territorial integrity by foreign governments, at the expense of the rights of Filipinos.

Spin #4: Philippine authorities have repeatedly maligned civil society organizations and human rights defenders as “terrorists” and “traitors to their country,” in a vicious attempt to sow misinformation on the facts and issues on the ground and to get back at critics and political dissenters. Contrary to the vilification fetish and smear campaign of the Philippine government, Filipino human rights defenders have been killed, arrested on trumped up charges, maligned, threatened and harassed due to their work of exposing the State’s gross violation and abdication of its sworn duty to uphold the rights of its citizens. Aren’t the real traitors those in power who subvert international human rights instruments and the Philippine Constitution to justify their repeated and relentless violation of people’s rights?

Spin #5: Master fake news purveyors of the government have been boasting about a working and vibrant justice system in the Philippines, citing it as among the main reasons why international scrutiny or investigation is not needed. They touted the number of police personnel facing complaints, the conviction of Gen. Jovito Palparan and the revival of the task force on extrajudicial killings as dubious evidence. What is glaring are the following facts: one, that government officials have magnified rare minute cracks on impunity and showcased them but remained mum on the number of police personnel or soldiers convicted for committing extrajudicial killings; two, the conviction of Palparan has been widely attributed to the grim determination of the relatives of the disappeared female students, witnesses, lawyers, human rights defenders, and the international community, and not due to the Duterte administration’s efforts; and three, the task force on EJKs created by virtue of Administrative Order No. 35 has turned out to be a government body that has failed in exacting accountability for crimes perpetrated by State actors. 

Spin #6: The Philippine government tries to hoodwink the international community when it invokes adherence to international human rights instruments and cites its purported cooperation with UN human rights mechanisms, doing so cynically with tirades of vitriol and verbal insults against UN special procedures, high commissioners and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court and its repeated rejection of any international investigation or inquiry on reported human rights violations. The government has also barely responded substantially to most, if not all communications by special procedures and has made a mockery of the UN Universal Periodic Review process by abusing it as a platform to deodorize its deceptive claims on respecting human rights.

We know it will get worse before it gets better. And we are bracing for panicky reprisals. But we will stand our ground and will continue to stand in the way to stop the impunity. We ask the international community of nations and peoples: stand by us before it is way too late as it is already much too much.

‘Fight for love’

JULY is the birth-month of Mindanao Gold Star Daily. Thirty years ago yesterday, the very first copy of GSD circulated in the city and gave Cagayan de Oro City its very first daily newspaper that defied the one-year test.

Frankly, I really didn’t know the more intimate details of the paper’s history until my return to it on June 27, 2015, and served as its associate editor. Years before that, I used to be a staff reporter of another daily newspaper in the city. That didn’t pan out well because that paper had a penchant for delayed salaries and payments of my social remunerations.

So, I decided to be a freelance news correspondent.

Like all fledgling news correspondents, I was struggling to make ends meet. But as a freelance news writer, I could sell my stories to any news media organization, be it domestic or international.

Herbie Gomez, this paper’s editorial jefe, offered me to submit stories to GSD since I’m not officially connected with the other paper anymore. He had only one request, though, that I submit my story first to GSD before I submit it to other media outfits I was writing for. Well, at least three hours of lead time from other outfits. The day I started contributing stories to GSD was the day my journalistic career turned serious.

Before, with the other paper, I had 50 percent of my story is the paper’s banner story. It was not because I was an enterprising or “Boombastic” writer. It was because there were only two of us as staff reporters in the other daily. Being one of many correspondents across the island, in GSD, you had to battle it out to byline the banner story.

Don’t worry, it was a friendly competition. Each correspondent had to out-scoop each other. The end result was we had the most comprehensive banner story on any given subject because at least two correspondents worked on the same story. The story would have covered all the bases, so to speak.

Also, if I was struggling to make ends meet before, now I can make ends meet on time, albeit still struggling. But I was paying my bills on time, this time. This is because in all my years working with GSD, it has always made it a point to pay its people on time, a thing that I, unfortunately, could not say for the other outfits I wrote for before, be it domestic or international.

It was when I worked as a correspondent for GSD that I learned how to view news events more critically. I wasn’t going to slack off and submit a haphazard article and be relegated to the inside pages. I concentrated more on the whys and hows. In other words, I was more invested in the context rather than the political intramurals on the surface of an event. I shied away from the “he said, she said” or more popularly known locally as “sabong” journalism.

It was because of this internal competition in GSD that I dare say I improved my writing. At least, it caught the attention of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, for one. I owe a lot to GSD to my journalistic career.

So, after a four-year stint with PCIJ, it was only proper to return to the paper that gave me my break into serious journalism. Not “new,” but just serious journalism. The decision was fairly simple to make. I wanted to apply all the learning I acquired from PCIJ to THE paper that gave me the opportunity to have opportunities opened to me.

It was at this time that I got to know GSD a little more. I did not know of it in a classroom sort of discussion, mind you. I learned about the paper’s history through informal chats with president emeritus Ernesto Chu.

He would tell us about the days when he drove across the island to personally establish the paper’s bureaus. Yes, you read it right. Imagine, establishing your paper’s presence in at least 20 cities and 24 provinces. He was on the road most of the time. And does he rest on his laurels? No. Now, he wants to establish a strong presence on the internet superhighway. And we will be right there beside him in that undertaking.

When you get to know what the paper has gone through to get where it is at right now, you simply feel pride and love. I am proud and grateful to be with Gold Star Daily.

This paper is a product of love and perseverance. Marketing executive Amor Barlisan suddenly blurted in the middle of the newsroom years ago: “Fight for love!” It has since become the paper’s unofficial motto.

Here’s to 30 years more. “Fight for love!”

Recto Bank incident

“Satire is a very effective way of exposing the falsity of positions issue by issue and politician by politician.” -Barney Frank

POLITICOS and government functionaries always have their own ways of wiggling in and out of arguments. But they are most entertaining when they paint themselves into a corner, so to speak.

I am, of course, talking about the functionaries who have taken up the cudgels for the President who was woefully quite days after a Chinese boat (which would later be identified as a militia vessel) rammed a Filipino fishing boat and were left for dead well within our country’s exclusive economic zone — Recto Bank.

I loved seeing the social media cussing foreign affairs secretary who joined in the fray with his “collision-allision” difference analysis. Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. argued that no collision happened since boats on water will always move with the waves even when they are anchored. Hence, an allision happened rather than a collision.

Merriam-Webster defines allision “as the action of dashing against or striking upon or the running of one ship upon another ship that is stationary — distinguished from a collision.”

So, based on the definition, a boat can be stationary at sea. For whatever intent or purpose of the good secretary, it did not change the fact that Filipino fishermen were left for dead after the collision or allision or any thingamajig you want to use. My point being is that Locsin’s analysis was never near concerning our fisherfolk’s welfare. It was just a display of random factoid that doesn’t help the situation.

I also loved seeing Palace Spokesman Salvador Panelo try to slither and slide his way through an interview with an unrelenting anchor of ANC, who kept on poking holes at his every argument.

Panelo insisted that the Palace has been consistent with its stand on the Recto Bank incident. But when the anchor unfurled Panelo’s statements in a corresponding timeline, Panelo was visibly irked and went on to ramble that what he said was consistent on that particular time as more information came in about the incident. Nice try but not good enough.

Sports commentator turned politico turned functionary Emmanuel Piñol was also entertaining during the unraveling of events in the past days.

His response to the incident was ostentatious. First, a phalanx of anti-riot police was deployed outside the house of the Filipino boat’s captain. Second, he gave boats that could not venture anywhere near the fisherfolk’s usual fishing grounds. Third, he gave the fisherfolk a loan. Let me repeat that, a loan and let that sink in.

After all these fisherfolk have gone through by now, a loan is the last thing on their minds.

I find it funny that Piñol belabored the point that since fisherfolk and farmers are under the purview of his department that he should have a first crack at the aftermath of the incident.

These functionaries held different, nay conflicting stands on the Recto Bank incident. Unfortunately, the same could not be said with the President’s and the Chinese envoy’s statement which were almost copy-paste statements. The Chinese envoy came out with a statement first, that the incident was a “simple maritime accident.” After days of silence, the President released his statement which eerily echoed what the foreign diplomat said — “simpleng banggaan ang nangyari.”

What all three of the above-mentioned functionaries failed to zero-in on is the simple fact that the incident involved foreign vessels inside our country’s exclusive economic zone. Our coastguard and Marina should only come in if two Filipino boats collided in our EEZ. This is a matter for the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea (period).

***

While all that drama has been unfolding in the national scene, here, the Capitol’s legal counsel is doing such a bang up job of promoting Gov. Yevgeny Vincente Emano’s pro-poor brand: “Basta taga Misamis Oriental ka, secure ka!”

The evacuees of Mincamansi, Lagonglong certainly didn’t feel secure when they were shooed away from the capitol grounds. Misamis Oriental officials turned its back on the people who needed them most.

It based its decision on some mundane definition of what a temporary and permanent “structure” is. A local paper (not this paper) even had the incident live streamed. In the video, a certain representative from the Office of the Building Official read a decision that the evacuees’ “structures” would be demolished for violating, I guess, the building code.

However, city administrator Teodoro Sabuga-a Jr. denied that the OBO issued an order to demolish the temporary structures the evacuees built in the capitol grounds.

Sabuga-a pointed out that even though the capitol grounds are located right smack at the center of the city, it is under the control of the provincial government.

Well, I guess this is the change that this administration has been bannering about.

Exacerbating the aggravation to this highly divisive issue on the evacuees are supposed friends who are so quick to dismiss the evacuees as if it were their fault that their ancestral land holds riches that moneyed firms covet. Pfft.