Lawmakers set up Makatao, bulwark against rights abuses

Lawmakers from the House of Representatives crossed party lines on Monday to announce the formation of a new human rights-focused coalition, the Mambabatas para sa Karapatang Pantao, or Makatao.

According to its lead convenor, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, Makatao will take on the mantle of human rights defenders in the halls of Congress by creating and expediting “quality human rights legislation” and acting as a brake on laws that curtail human rights.

The group’s first priority, Lagman said, would be the enactment of the Human Rights Defenders Protection Law, which was introduced in the House last year by Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate, a Makatao member.

‘Regional pariah’

During the group’s launch at the University of the Philippines Diliman campus in Quezon City, its members did not conceal their disdain for the state of human rights in the country, which had made it a “regional pariah.”

Proof of the Duterte administration’s “brazen derogation of human rights” is the President’s abandonment of the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute, the “global bastion for adherence to and enhancement of human rights protection,” Lagman said.

Broader movement

“The bigger problem now is the erosion of the values of democracy, freedom, human rights and decency, which all of us should have in common,” said Akbayan Rep. Tomas Villarin, also a Makatao member.

Zarate said the coalition should be part of a broader movement to resist a crackdown on human rights.

“The cause to defend human rights is not a crime. Human rights activism is not terrorism. [To be a] human rights defender is a noble cause because we are fighting for the cause of our people,” the lawmaker said.

Senators Leila de Lima and Risa Hontiveros, former Commission on Human Rights Chair Loretta Rosales, widows of the government’s drug war and relatives of political prisoners expressed support for Makatao, saying it should act as a key to jump-start justice that had stalled within and beyond Congress.

“Let us hold accountable through legislation, court proceeding and mass action all perpetrators of human rights violations, from the President down to the rank-and-file of the military, police and civil service,” said Lagman, who also decried the country’s “flawed definition” of an extrajudicial killing, which excludes suspected common criminals.

Another Makatao member, Act Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio, cited Congress’ approval of martial law in Mindanao, the death penalty and the national identification system as proof of its distorted perception of human rights, and said Makatao was ready to fight them despite being in the minority.

Include senators

The group is hoping to expand its membership to include senators and local legislators from various Sanggunian across the nation to assist in its objective of being a “militant watchdog for the protection and promotion of human rights.”

Other charter members of Makatao in the House include Gabriela Representatives Arlene Brosas and Emmi de Jesus, Ifugao Rep. Teddy Baguilat Jr., Dinagat Islands Rep. Kaka Bag-ao, Quezon City Rep. Jose Christopher Belmonte, Capiz Rep. Emmanuel Billones, Cebu Rep. Raul del Mar, Siquijor Rep. Ramon Rocamora and Amin Rep. Amihilda Sangcopan.