Church, CHR launch drive for human rights awareness

Two institutions fiercely critical of extra-judicial killings have teamed up for a human rights awareness initiative at the grassroots level.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines is producing a human rights module as part of its awareness campaign in parishes and communities in collaboration with the Commission on Human Rights, lawyers’ groups and members of the academe.

The human rights module aims to help educate people on the principles of basic human rights, and the available actions and remedies they can resort to if their human rights are violated.

“We want to make people in the communities and parishes knowledgeable of their human rights, since they may not be fully aware of it,” said Fr. Jerome Secillano.

Secillano, the executive secretary of the CBCP’s Permanent Committee on Public Affairs, was part of a meeting of representatives from various sectors on Monday.

Representatives from the CHR, the Akbayan partylist, lawyers’ groups, as well as former CHR chairperson Loretta Rosales attended the meeting at the CBCP office in Intramuros, Manila.

“This group is formed by different agencies and groups. We really want other agencies to get involved in this,” Secillano said, adding that some lawyers’ groups have also pledged their help to the initiative.

The human rights module was conceptualized even before the Duterte administration came to power, given that extrajudicial killings have been present even in the past.

Since July, more than 7,000 have been killed in police operations and summary executions believed to be carried out in the name of the government’s war on drugs.

The module, which is being drafted, will tackle human rights, extrajudicial killings, poverty, health, unemployment and other related issues.

Aside from providing information on human rights awareness, the modules will include available interventions to victims such as legal, psychosocial and spiritual interventions.

“There will be pointers on legal interventions to pursue, what forms of redress are possible, psychosocial interventions. So that if you’re a victim, there are ways to make you whole,” Secillano said.