Groups urge Aquino to pursue ‘zero rights violation’

As President Benigno Aquino III prepares to deliver his first State of the Nation Address (SONA) this coming Monday, human rights groups challenged him to pursue “zero human rights violation" during his term. According to Nymia Pimentel Simbulan of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA), Aquino “should put human rights at the heart of his governance" and adopt policies to stop killings and forced disappearances of militants and journalists. For his part, Teody Navea of the NGO-PO Network for ESC Rights stressed that the Aquino administration should also give equal importance to economic, social, and cultural rights particularly food, housing, education, work, and health. Simbulan expressed fears that extra judicial killings that had marred the human rights record of the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration would persist under Aquino's watch. She cited the killings of a political activist and a former broadcaster, barely a week after Aquino assumed the presidency. She noted that on July 3, former radio broadcaster Jose Daguio was shot and killed by an unidentified man in his house in Tabuk town in Kalinga province. Two days later, Fernando Baldomero, a town councilor and provincial coordinator of the militant party-list group Bayan Muna, was also shot dead in Kalibo town in Aklan. Simbulan urged Aquino to certify as urgent human rights bills such as the Commission on Human Rights charter, compensation for Marcos victims, enforced disappearances and extra-legal killings, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and protection for human rights defenders. Meanwhile, Navea reiterated that hunger among four million households, as shown in the latest Social Weather Station survey, should be considered a human rights violation that requires immediate attention from the government. He added that the problems of forced evictions of urban poor families, labor contractualization, and other socio-economic deprivation must also be addressed, as these are violation of ESC rights. Both groups bat for the unconditional release of political prisoners, full implementation of the ani-torture law increased government spending on social services, repeal of automatic appropriation for debt servicing, passage of the reproductive health bill, repeal of the 1995 mining act, and ratification of the optional protocols to the covenants on torture and ESC rights. — LBG, GMANews.TV