As the world marks the 61^st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) today, the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) is enraged over the Arroyo administration’s scheming and brazen attempts to elude accountability for its human rights violations and perpetuate itself to power.

For one, the Maguindanao massacre would not have happened if Arroyo did not coddle and connive with the Ampatuans and other local warlords and political kingpins for electoral and other purposes. The atmosphere of lawlessness and impunity used as justification for the Martial Law in Mindanao is an abomination Pres. Arroyo herself helped create.

The culture of impunity and this administration’s human rights culpabilities were products of two related and recurring themes in the entire nine (9) years of Arroyo’s reign; money and power.

Everytime its political survival was at stake like during the Hello Garci and NBN-ZTE scandals, President Arroyo and her cohorts did not vacillate in using repressive tools to quell dissent including declaring a state of emergency, clamping down on media, and banning rallies.

Worse, it also did not hesitate to employ physical elimination of its political opponents. Remember the series of killings and enforced disappearances of political activists just more than two years ago in the guise of anti-insurgency campaign under the Oplan Bantay Laya.

Needless to say, most of the scandals that hounded Arroyo were related to corruption, from multi-million dollar ventures like NBN-ZTE, Northrail and Southrail projects to ‘small-time’ but insulting extravagant dinner in Le Cirque restaurant in New York. Graft and corruption is also a human rights violation because of its adverse effect on people’s access to basic services such as health, education, and housing.

Aside from this, the Arroyo administration, in its eagerness to please its foreign masters including the United States and the international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), have embraced economic and fiscal policies that have debilitating impact on socio-economic rights of its people.

For years, the automatic appropriation for debt servicing has captured a huge chunk of the annual budget to the detriment of allocations for social and developmental spending and investments. Likewise, the privatization trend in education, housing, water and other utilities has gradually freed the government from its obligation to provide these services and allowed corporations to convert these into huge profit-making enterprises.

Also, Arroyo’s adherence to neo-liberal dictates of the World Trade Organization (WTO) through opening our agricultural and industrial markets to well-subsidized products from developed countries has jeopardized the livelihood of our farmers, workers and fisherfolks. Moreover, its desperate pitch to lure foreign investors especially in the extractive industries like large-scale mining has undermined the right to ancestral domains and the right to self-determination of indigenous peoples and local communities.

Clearly, the Arroyo regime, consistently trampled on the civil, political, and socio-economic rights of its people in exchange for its political and economic interests.

Today, on this important day for human rights, PAHRA calls on Filipinos to collectively rage against human rights atrocities and rise up to the challenge of breaking impunity. One clear step is by ensuring that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo steps down next year and make her accountable for her transgressions.

Lastly, we must make human rights an important electoral agenda in the coming May 2010 elections and strongly impress upon aspiring political leaders that never again would we tolerate officials that disregard human rights for personal gains.

Break Impunity! Defend Dignity!

Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA)
Philippine NGO-PO Network for ESC Rights
Citizens' Council for Human Rights (Citizens-CHR)