Climate of timidity, fear: Former CHR chair cites lessons of June 12, 1898

By: DJ Yap - 8 years ago

Former Commission on Human Rights chair Etta Rosales. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

The incoming administration of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte is creating a “climate of timidity and fear,” a human-rights advocate said on Friday as the Philippines prepared to celebrate Independence Day.

In a message to the Inquirer, Loretta Ann Rosales, former chair of the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), said the incoming Duterte administration ought to be reminded of the lessons of June 12, 1898, and to refrain from policies and pronouncements antithetical to democracy.

Duterte, the foul-mouthed mayor of Davao City who takes office as the 16th President of the Philippines on June 30, has announced an explosive anticrime campaign that includes the summary killing of criminal suspects, especially drug dealers, and warned the incoming Congress “not to make the mistake” of investigating his administration’s law-enforcement actions.

The brash former prosecutor has also vowed to restore the death penalty, with hanging as the preferred method of execution.

READ: Davao Death Squad to go national?/Duterte favors public executions of criminals

Rule of fear

“It is an old adage that has been said over and over again: A government that rules in a climate of fear does not make the place safer for its citizens. It only makes the citizens weaker before the government,” she said.

READ: Duterte endorses killing corrupt journalists

Rosales, a survivor of human rights abuses during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, lamented what she called a creeping climate of self-censorship, noting that so few political leaders seemed willing to challenge Duterte on his views on human rights and free speech.

“We experienced this in 14 years of dictatorial rule under Marcos where citizens were cowed into timidity and fear. We learned to liberate ourselves from fear and timidity when we gradually understood the meaning of our basic rights and responsibilities the way our forefathers did,” she said.

“We were able to overcome the dictatorship. Let us learn our lessons from the past that we may not be cowed into timidity and self-censorship before it is too late,” she said.

Intolerance for reminders

Rosales said Duterte’s promise to eradicate crime was welcome, but his lack of tolerance for reminders about the observance of human rights was alarming.

“While the entire nation fully supports a relentless drive against crime, illegal drugs and corruption, the incoming Duterte administration expresses little tolerance or none at all for those who remind him that the rule of law, including the human rights law, must govern policies in the pursuit of criminals while due process must prevail in dealing with those arrested,” she said.

“The daily news of buy-bust operations arresting suspected drug pushers and drug lords by an energized Philippine National Police is an encouraging sign that there is much resolve in the drive to eradicate crime. But to keep silent in the face of summary killings without benefit of investigation is to abdicate responsibility as law enforcers, making a mockery of the rule of law and civilized governance,” she said.

Standing up to Duterte

Rosales said this was the reason why it was so important to make the human rights issue known to the public and to air the side of the CHR against the “current attitude of arrogance and condescension drawn from the might of the popular vote.”

She was alluding to the statements of her successor, CHR Chair Jose Luis Martin Gascon, one of the few officials who dared to stand up to Duterte, earning him a stinging rebuke from the President-elect.

READ: Duterte calls CHR chair idiot

In May, in response to a CHR report finding him liable for violations of the Magna Carta for Women for his outrageous remark about the gang-rape and murder of an Australian missionary during a prison riot in Davao City in 1989, Duterte told Gascon to shut up and called the CHR chief an idiot.

At a CHR event on Wednesday, Gascon spoke about the promises and threats made by the incoming Duterte administration, vowing to respond only to events and facts instead of speculations and rumor.

“If the events and facts suggest there’s repression rather than promotion of human rights, the CHR is prepared to stand firm in the defense of or promotion and fulfillment of human rights for all people,” Gascon said.

READ: CHR braces for rights cases under Duterte

The CHR chief said his role was only that of a “referee.”

“As referee, our job is to call out if the line has been crossed. Let’s not take offense. This is not personal,” he said.

“If there are abuses in word or deed, we will say ‘this goes against the Constitution,’” he said.

“All leaders of the nation, from the President to the barangay tanod, has the responsibility to act according to the Constitution,” he said.

Human dignity

Rosales said Independence Day could be a reminder to Duterte and his people about their moral obligation to respect human dignity.

“Today, we commemorate the greatness of our forefathers as martyrs and heroes who did not hesitate to offer their lives that their sons and daughters and the generations thereafter would enjoy the freedom to be alive and live freely, to be respected and enjoy one’s human dignity, to pursue their development and self-worth through the full enjoyment of their human rights,” she said.

These treasured principles, she said, are now enshrined in eight of nine international human-rights treaties the Philippines has ratified and that oblige the country to comply with international human rights standards and norms.

Duterte has said that human rights is a Western concept that does not apply to the Philippines.

He has been linked to so-called death squads that have killed more than 1,000 criminal suspects in Davao City.

He has denied any role in the killings and no charges have been brought against him.

But during the campaign, Duterte vowed to kill tens of thousands of criminals and dump their bodies in Manila Bay, where the fish would grow fat from feeding on the corpses. TVJ