Watchdog's first Philippine human rights report calls on UNHRC, ICC for more actions

The first report of the Independent International Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Violations in the Philippines (Investigate PH) is recommending more actions from international authorities.

Based on its 198-page report, Investigate PH recommends that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC) should urge its member states and agencies to use its mechanisms to address the "human rights crisis" in the country.

It adds that the UNHRC needs to create commissions of inquiry, fact-finding missions, or investigations to help improve the situation, exert accountability, and deliver justice to victims.

Investigate PH also asks the International Criminal Court (ICC) to receive initial and succeeding reports from the global probe and “expedite the process of bringing the preliminary examination to a conclusion.”

The report says the human rights violations by state forces became more institutionalized, orchestrated, and entrenched with the establishment of several programs by the government.

These programs, it says, include the drug war, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the supposed militarized response to COVID-19.

Investigative PH said the remedies for many cases of human right violations in the Philippines are "insufficient and illusory" amid the "deepening human rights crisis."

“There is a sense of urgency here. The killings and degradation of human dignity are escalating as seen in the Report,” said Investigate PH Commissioner Rev. Dr. Susan Henry-Crowe of the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church.

“The UNHRC and the world has to rise to the challenge of putting an end to this. We have to act now and save innocent lives while we still can,” she added.

The report identifies 10 indicators for the supposed failure of domestic remedies on the human rights crisis in the Philippines:

• obstruction of state authorities on investigations
• investigations of violations are not impartial
• available mechanisms for civilians to hold police and military accountable are failing
• court protections are inaccessible, slow, and discriminatory;
• government’s NTF-ELCAC constricts recourse to government agencies;
• counter-insurgency activities are targeting lawyers, denying victims access to independent counsel;
• efforts to challenge unjust laws through legal channels are being dismissed in court or repressed;
• opposition political voices providing a check on the armed forces and executive power have been eliminated from the Supreme Court and Congress
• independent institutions and alternative platforms for accountability have been eviscerated or made practically inoperative;
• even when remedies are secured, they are inadequate justice.

The report and recommendations of Investigate PH were presented to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in Geneva on Monday.

In December last year, a coalition of international human rights, faith, and civic groups announced it is conducting an "independent, people-led" investigation of human rights violations in the Philippines.

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/768410/coalition-launches-independent-people-led-probe-of-human-rights-violations-in-philippines/story/

Investigate PH aims to further substantiate the United Nations human rights office's report on the rights situation in the country earlier this year.

The global probe said it intends to present its findings to the ICC and UN bodies like the Human Rights Council, the Security Council, and the General Assembly. —KBK, GMA News