Marcos forms panel to fine-tune probe of human rights violations

THE GOVERNMENT of President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. has created a special panel to address human rights issues in the Philippines, but civic groups said the public should temper its expectations give the poor track record of agencies that govern it.

Under Administrative Order No. 22 signed on May 8, the Special Committee on Human Rights Coordination will fine-tune the investigation and data-gathering on human rights violations by law enforcement agencies.

It will also engage the private sector and “expand civic space.”

The panel is in keeping with the United Nations (UN) for the Joint Program on Human Rights, a three-year program set up in October 2020 amid extrajudicial killings under then President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s deadly drug war.

The new committee headed by Executive Secretary Lucas P. Bersamin and Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla will enforce a human right-centered approach to campaigns against illegal drugs and insurgency.

It should also facilitate access to redress mechanisms by human rights victims and ensure effective implementation of programs aimed at upholding the rights of prisoners.

The state should not subject anyone to torture and other cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment, according to the Marcos order.

The panel is under the Presidential Human Rights Committee, which has downplayed abuses under the Duterte government. Its members include the secretaries of the Foreign Affairs and Interior and Local Government departments.

Carlos H. Conde, a senior researcher at the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, noted that while the committee talks about accountability, it is “not an accountability mechanism per se” like the Commission on Human Rights.

“It has no UN or civil society organization participation and is going to be led by the Presidential Committee on Human Rights, which has zero record on accountability for rights abuses,” he said in an X post.

“My fear is that it will serve mainly as a propaganda arm to defend the government against allegations of rights abuses,” he said. “Some of the committee members are government agencies with their own poor human rights record.”

“With its premise of addressing human rights issues through mere ‘coordination,’ one cannot expect much from this special committee,” Karapatan Secretary-General Cristina Palabay said in a statement.

“It will go the way of the inter-agency committee created under Administrative Order No. 35 tasked to resolve extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other grave violations of human rights, which has a pitiful record of having handled only 385 cases and securing 13 convictions out of thousands of cases.”

Karapatan also cited the poor performance of a task force created under Executive Order No. 23 issued over a year ago, to probe labor-related violations.

The International Criminal Court has been investigating drug-war related killings under Mr. Duterte when he was mayor of Davao City from November 2011 to June 2016 as well as cases during his presidency up until March 16, 2019, the day before the Philippines withdrew from the court.

The government estimates that at least 6,117 people were killed in the drug war between July 1, 2016 and May 31, 2022, but human rights groups say the death toll could be as high as 30,000.

There were 11 reported drug-related killings in the country from May 1 to 7, one of which had no known drug ties, bringing the total cases since Mr. Marcos assumed office in 2022 to 652, according to the Dahas project from the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center.

Of the 652 drug suspects, 270 were killed by state and 94 by nonstate agents, it said. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza