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OHCHR Press conference: Report on Human rights in the Philippines
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Edited News , Press Conferences | OHCHR
OHCHR Press conference: Report on Human rights in the Philippines
Shot list ot the edited story:
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Rory Mungoven, Chief Asia Pacific Section, UN Human Rights Office, Geneva: “Although the government opposed the Human Rights Council resolution that mandated this report. We have been pleased that there has been a surprising degree of cooperation from the government in the preparation of the report.”
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Rory Mungoven, Chief Asia Pacific Section, UN Human Rights Office, Geneva: “So as a result, much of the material in the report is, in fact drawn from government sources, from official documents, from official statements and from the information and responses they provided to us.”
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “And also, we were able to meet with many of the government representatives here in Bangkok, myself and a colleague who was working on the report. And we had two very intense, full days of candid discussions about the human rights situation in the Philippines, where we heard their perspective. We put allegations to them. And it was it was a very rich exchange.”
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “What we have found is that even by the most conservative figure, and which our government estimates at least eight thousand six hundred and sixty three people have been killed since mid 2016. In the context of this, some so-called war on drugs. This includes five thousand six hundred people who were killed in police operations and a further 3000 that the police say were killed in drug related homicides.”
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “This issue of red tagging has been a longstanding one in the Philippines. Now, this is very damaging and very dangerous, particularly because in the Philippines, we have documented that, at least two hundred and forty-eight human rights defenders, lawyers, trade unionists and journalists have been killed over the past five years. This is not a small number. And a lot of these individuals were ranked red tagged prior to their killing.”
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “The widespread killings, detentions, red tagging and score settling by state actors, including in the campaign against illegal drugs, suggests that these public comments may have incited violence and may have had the effect of encouraging backing or even ordering human rights violations with impunity. The use of such language could amount to a violation of the prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of life, as has been set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “And the International Criminal Court, for its part, is conducting a preliminary examination of the situation in the Philippines.”
- SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “The High Commissioner again emphasizes the need for independent, impartial and effective investigations into the killings and stands ready to assist credible efforts towards accountability at the national and international level.”
Storyline of the edited story:
At a virtual press Conference Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok and Rory Mungoven, Chief Asia Pacific Section, UN Human Rights Office, Geneva, briefed journalist on Release of report mandated by UN Human Rights Council (Resolution 41/2) on the situation of human rights in the Philippines.
A heavy-handed focus on countering national security threats and illegal drugs has resulted in serious human rights violations in the Philippines, including killings and arbitrary detentions, as well as the vilification of dissent, a new report by the UN Human Rights Office said Thursday. Persistent impunity and formidable barriers to accessing justice need to be urgently addressed, the report said.
The report, which was mandated by a UN Human Rights Council resolution, noted that many of the human rights concerns it has documented are long-standing, but have become more acute in recent years.
SOUNDBITE (English)— Rory Mungoven, Chief Asia Pacific Section, UN Human Rights Office, Geneva: “Although the government opposed the Human Rights Council resolution that mandated this report. We have been pleased that there has been a surprising degree of cooperation from the government in the preparation of the report.
SOUNDBITE (English)— Rory Mungoven, Chief Asia Pacific Section, UN Human Rights Office, Geneva: “So as a result, much of the material in the report is, in fact drawn from government sources, from official documents, from official statements and from the information and responses they provided to us.”
SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “And also, we were able to meet with many of the government representatives here in Bangkok, myself and a colleague who was working on the report. And we had two very intense, full days of candid discussions about the human rights situation in the Philippines, where we heard their perspective. We put allegations to them. And it was it was a very rich exchange.”
There has been near impunity for these killings, with only one conviction for the killing of a drug suspect in a police operation since mid-2016, the report stated.
SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “What we have found is that even by the most conservative figure, and which our government estimates at least eight thousand six hundred and sixty three people have been killed since mid 2016. In the context of this, some so-called war on drugs. This includes five thousand six hundred people who were killed in police operations and a further 3000 that the police say were killed in drug related homicides.”
The phenomenon of “red-tagging” – labelling individuals or groups (including human rights defenders and NGOs) as communists or terrorists – has posed a serious threat to civil society and freedom of expression.
SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “This this issue of red tagging has been a longstanding one in the Philippines. Now, this is very damaging and very dangerous, particularly because in the Philippines, we have documented that, at least two hundred and forty-eight human rights defenders, lawyers, trade unionists and journalists have been killed over the past five years. This is not a small number. And a lot of these individuals were ranked red tagged prior to their killing.”
SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “The widespread killings, detentions, red tagging and score settling by state actors, including in the campaign against illegal drugs, suggests that these public comments may have incited violence and may have had the effect of encouraging backing or even ordering human rights violations with impunity. The use of such language could amount to a violation of the prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of life, as has been set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights”
SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “And the International Criminal Court, for its part, is conducting a preliminary examination of the situation in the Philippines.”
SOUNDBITE (English)— Ravina Shamdasani, Ravina Shamdasani, Philippines Report Team Leader, UN Human Rights Office, Bangkok: “The High Commissioner again emphasizes the need for independent, impartial and effective investigations into the killings and stands ready to assist credible efforts towards accountability at the national and international level.”
The report is based on 893 written submissions, substantial input from the Government of the Philippines, analysis of legislation, police reports, court documents, videos, photos and other open source material, as well as interviews with victims and witnesses. It is due to be discussed at the next UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva.
Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
To all the journalists who've come on to this call on.
To this press conference.
So the two.
Presenters in the press.
Conference are Raveena Shamdasani who's.
Led the team that.
Produced the report on the Philippines that was published three hours ago and in Geneva, the chief of the Asia.
[Other language spoken]
Section of the UN ****.
Commissioner for Human.
Rights Rory Mongolven I'm the moderator and the spokesperson of the **** Commissioner, but I'll be not speaking simply moderating today in order to to make this go smoothly, we've we're just going to take the questions from you.
If you can enter your question in the chat and I'll convey it to to either Rory or Ravina.
Rory will basically handle more questions about the wider.
Process if you like how how it works with the Human Rights Council.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
And so on.
And Ravina will do deal more with the the content of the report.
So they will just say a few words each to start with and then we can.
Move on to the questions.
So if you can, make sure you've identified your.
Media organisation you work.
For in your name that would help us.
Identify who's who's asking the.
[Other language spoken]
So, Rory, I think you were going to.
Start with just a little overview of the the.
Process the wider process.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Good afternoon everyone, and thank you for joining us even in this unusual format.
But it's a great opportunity to present the report to you.
This report was mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, which as you know is the leading intergovernmental body for human rights.
Within the UN Resolution 41.
Two of the Human Rights Council last year requested the **** Commissioner to prepare a comprehensive report on the situation of human rights in the Philippines and present this to the 44th session of the Human Rights Council which is upcoming.
Maybe if I just say a few words about the the, the, the context and the engagement between OHHR and the Philippines over the years and especially around this report.
The Philippines has always been very actively engaged with the UN human rights mechanisms and is currently a member of the Human Rights Council.
It has ratified 8 of the core human rights conventions as well as many of the ILO conventions on labour and indigenous issues, and it's reported regularly to the different treaty committees.
It's also submitted a lot of information during its three Universal Periodic Reviews, which is a regular process by the Human Rights Council and most recently in 2017 and a lot of the special procedures.
The Special rapporteurs on different issues have visited Philippines over the years.
Unfortunately, this has stopped since 2015 when the government objected to a private visit by one of the rapporteurs.
The system has been very fortunate over the years to have many highly qualified Filipinos themselves serve on these Treaty committees and their special Rapporteurs.
But unfortunately, some special rapporteurs have been singled out for very harsh personal attacks by the president and senior government figures in recent years.
And there have also been a lot of reprisals against Filipino civil society activists for their cooperation with the UN human rights mechanisms.
The point is that this report didn't come out of nowhere, and it builds upon a lot of the information and the reports and the recommendations that have been made by the different human rights mechanisms over many years.
Secondly, although the government opposed the Human Rights Council resolution that mandated this report, we have been pleased that there has been a surprising degree of cooperation from the government in the preparation of the report.
The government made at least two lengthy submissions.
[Other language spoken]
It it provided us with perhaps 1000 pages of information and material.
And while we were not able to visit the Philippines as we would have liked, we have been able to hold dialogue and exchanges with Philippines government officials at different points during the process.
They were also able to comment on the report before it was published today.
So as a result, much of the material in the report is in fact drawn from government sources, from official documents, from official statements and from the information and responses they provided to us during this process.
We were also able to explore a number of areas where the government and OHR might be able to cooperate further to address some of the issues in the report and implement some of the recommendations.
These include strengthening domestic investigative and accountability measures, improving data gathering on alleged police violations and adopting human rights based approaches to drug control.
The **** Commissioner has signalled that we stand very ready to assist the Philippines and so we hope that some work can develop around these areas.
Lastly, on the next steps, the **** Commissioner will present the report in the 44th session of the Human Rights Council, which was due to start this month.
There will also be a discussion of the report with an expert panel and the Philippines government will participate in that.
There are still discussions about the timing and the format for the session in light of the COVID-19.
Once the report is presented and discussed, it will be up to the member states to decide on any follow up.
But let me stress again that OHGHR and the human rights mechanisms have been engaged with the Philippines over many, many years and this of course, will continue.
Thank you, Rupert.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Overview of of the report.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Thank you, Rupert, and thanks Rory.
Thank you everyone for for being with us here today.
As Rory mentioned, the the UN Human Rights Office was mandated by the Human Rights Council to prepare a comprehensive written report on the human rights situation in the Philippines.
Now to try to get as comprehensive a picture as possible of the situation, we issued a public call for submissions.
Anybody out there was free to send us submissions on the human rights situation in the Philippines.
And we received nearly 900 written submissions from civil society organisations, from individuals, mostly from within the Philippines, but also in the region as well as from international organisations.
We, some of these submissions actually were joined submissions by dozens of human rights organisations in the Philippines, which then had their own networks throughout the country.
So we were very pleased actually with the level of engagement that we received from, from, from, from a wide range of, of people and organisations.
And as Rory mentioned as well, we were very welcoming of the engagement that we received from the government.
They made a series of submissions, including in response to extensive questions that we had sent.
And also we were able to meet with many of the government representatives here in Bangkok, myself and a colleague who was working on the report.
And we had two very intense full days of candid discussions about the human rights situation in the Philippines where we heard their perspective.
We put allegations to them.
And it was, it was a very rich exchange.
Now, as you can imagine, the thousands of pages that we received contained information about a wide range of human rights issues in the country, many serious concerns.
And while the the the human rights office, human human rights office has very strict methodology in only using corroborated information, information that we are able to corroborate.
So a lot of this information could not be included in this report because of constraints that we faced in, in being able to corroborate the information.
So it's just because information is not included doesn't mean it's not credible.
But whatever information is included in the report, rest assured that it has been carefully corroborated, including, as Rory mentioned, through the extensive use of government documentation, police reports, Supreme Court records, government statements, statements and findings of the Independent Commission on Human Rights in the Philippine, you know, reliable sources.
Now, just moving quickly into the findings, we found that while there have been important human rights gains in recent years in the Philippines, particularly in the fields of economic and social rights, there has been a heavy-handed focus on countering national security threats, both real threats and inflated threats.
Now, this overarching focus has led to serious human rights violations, including killings and arbitrary detentions.
It has also seen a vilification of dissent, a vilification of any attempts to criticise or question government policies.
And we have seen this in in a lot of the rhetoric and been employed at at **** levels of government.
And this focus on national security has permeated the implementation of existing laws and policies.
And it has also led to the adoption and the proposal of new laws and policies, often at the expense of human rights, the rule of law, due process and accountability.
We've of course looked in depth into the campaign against illegal drugs, as we were mandated to do by the Human Rights Council resolution, and we've examined the key policy document that relates to the campaign against illegal drugs, and we found that there is a troubling lack of due process in the the policy document itself.
We found that the document provides for house visitations that raise important due process concerns because, for example, they do not require arrest warrants and they could be conducted solely on the basis of a person's inclusion in a drugs list and this person is not able to challenge their inclusion in the drugs list.
We've also found that these house visitations seem to be designed to force the suspects to make self incriminating statements or risk the use of lethal force against them.
There are terms such as negation and neutralisation that are used in this policy document, this command circular.
And while these terms are not specifically defined, when you couple the use of such ominous language with the kind of **** level rhetoric calling for the killings of of suspected of of drug offenders, we find that this may amount to permission to ****.
This may be interpreted by police as a permission to ****.
Now there are reports of widespread drugs killings, killings in the context of the police operations against illegal drugs, but also vigilante killings.
We have been unable to verify the number of people who have been killed both in police operations and by so-called vigilantes.
And unfortunately government data has also been conflicting there.
It's very difficult to pin down the numbers, but what we have found is that even by the most conservative figure and which are government estimates, at least 8663 people have been killed since mid 2016.
In the context of this so-called war on drugs.
This includes 5600 people who were killed in police operations and a further 3000 that the police say were killed in drug related homicides.
This is a very large number of people, but there are estimates out there that the number could actually be triple as much.
And what's very important to note is the the near impunity for these killings.
So far we have seen only one conviction of police officers for the killings of killing of a drug suspect and this was in the case of Kian de Los Santos.
We've also managed to examine some police reports in relation to these operations and and we've made two findings that are very troubling.
1 is that in our examination of some of these reports, we found that very similar language was attributed to the drug suspects prior to their killings.
So there was a by bust operation and police would go and the the drug suspect would suddenly discover that this is an undercover police officer and then the drug suspect would say, so you're a police officer, *** ** * *****.
And in many different operations, we found exactly the same utterance mentioned in these post operation reports.
Now, of course this raises the question of whether this was a cut and paste operation and that these post operation reports were just filled out pro forma or whether this was actually, you know, done with with care and and really reflected the circumstances of the kidney.
In another set of police operations that we looked into, we found that the serial numbers of guns that were found on the bodies of drug suspects matched in in different crime scenes, which led to the concern that these guns may have been planted and that the self defence narrative that's being used by police to justify the killings may actually be incorrect.
There has also been, you know, widespread detention of drug personalities.
Government figures indicate that more than 220,000 and our drug personalities have been arrested between July 2016 and December 2019.
Now the prison congestion rates in the Philippines go as **** as 534%.
In such an environment, the arrest of so many individuals in relation to the campaign against illegal drugs has worsened these horrible congestion conditions.
And this of course is very troubling.
And in many cases, given the the lack of due process that is apparently characterised these arrests, we are worried that these may amount to arbitrary detentions in many cases.
Now, what we've also found is that this approach, alongside this intensified campaign against illegal drugs, the state has also scaled up its response to terrorism and conflicts.
Now there are real challenges that the Philippines is facing, real national security threats and and other challenges that they are facing.
However, what we've found is that much of the approach to these kinds of national security threats has a disproportionate impact on civil society.
We've looked into some of the key legislation and policies on national security, including the anti terrorism law, the Human Security Act, which was already declared problematic by UN human rights mechanisms many years ago.
Now as you may be aware, the Human Security Act has is now in the process of being replaced by a new Anti Terrorism Act which I believe was passed by the House of Representatives just yesterday.
And this new act is even more problematic.
In fact the previous act or the current act contains a very broad definition of terrorism and the new proposed Anti Terrorism Act takes that even further.
There is even more discretion provided to state authorities to designate individuals or organisations as terrorists and the number of days that suspects can be held without warrant in detention has could be expanded if this law is passed from 3 to 14 days, extendable by another 10 days.
Among among the other emergency measures that have been taken are the state of emergency that was declared in the aftermath of the bombing of Davao City.
This state of emergency remains in place more than three years after it was declared.
There was also the declaration of martial law in Mindanao, the enactment of Memorandum Order 32 on ****** Samar and some other islands.
And we have found that these policies have also contributed, according to credible reports, to serious human rights violations.
One particular policy that that I'd like to get into in a little bit of detail is Executive Order 70, which is an executive order to institutionalise a whole of nation approach to end the insurgency.
Now this the stated aim of of this policy is an inclusive and sustainable peace and economic vitality in hundreds of communities that are still vulnerable to or under the grips of the NPA's influence.
The NPA is the national new people's army of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
It's a non state armed group now.
While this is a holistic policy and this departure from a predominantly militarised response to preventing and countering violent extremism is encouraging, what we are concerned about is that the implementation of this executive order appears to be going in the opposite direction.
In fact, it appears to be mobilising the administration from the highest national levels to the most local levels to root out suspected Communist sympathisers.
And we have found that in this in the process, there have been a lot of civil society actors who have been red tagged who have been labelled as supporters of the communist terrorist groups.
According to the government, this this issue of red tagging has been a long standing one in the Philippines.
This goes back at least two decades or or probably much more than that, where human rights advocacy and dissent is sometimes equated with insurgency or with sympathy for terrorist causes.
Now that the Philippines has a robust tradition of human rights activism and advocacy, there are 60,000 registered non governmental organisations in the Philippines, according to the government.
However, the attacks against human rights defenders have been pervasive online and offline and persistent.
You will see in the report, in the annexes to the report, we have some images of red tagging of civil society organisations.
In one case, they were compared to the COVID virus in in terms of spreading hateful ideology.
Now this is very damaging and very dangerous, particularly because in the Philippines we have documented that two at least 248 human rights defenders, lawyers, trade unionists and journalists have been killed over the past five years.
This is not a small number and a lot of these individuals were red, red tagged prior to their killing.
So the the tagging of civil society actors as communist advisors has real dangerous consequences for them in in some, in some circumstances, we go into the attacks on dissent, whether they, the dissent comes from political opponents, journalists, human rights defenders, trade unionists, lawyers and just a very orchestrated campaign to to discredit this kind of dissent.
Now, while there were welcome steps, we were very much welcomed the conviction of 43 people in December 2019 in relation to the 2009 killings of 32 media workers in Maguindanao province.
We very much welcome that.
However, when it comes to freedom of expression, unfortunately there are still serious concerns, particularly given the attempts to shut down some very prominent media outlets including the Rattler and a BSCBN most recently.
We then get into the situation of indigenous peoples and internally displaced peoples in the Philippines.
Now as of the 31st of March this year, there are 359 1941 individuals who remain displaced.
So that's nearly 360,000 individuals who remain displaced, and some 127 thousand of these still remain displaced 3 years after the siege of Morawi, as a result of the siege of Morawi.
And there are serious concerns about the lack of progress in rebuilding Marawi.
And there are concerns that this could contribute to a radicalization.
It could provide fertile grounds for radicalization.
Regarding the situation of indigenous people, we note that indigenous people I've again for decades been caught in a tug of war between the armed forces of the Philippines, the New People's Army, as well as powerful business and political interests that are very much entrenched in some of these areas.
We go on to also examine the abuses and violations that have been alleged to be committed by the New People's Army.
We've received a lot of individual submissions alleging that this group has carried out killings, abductions, recruitment of children, as well as extortion through the imposition of revolutionary taxes on communities.
Now, we haven't been able to verify many of these reports also because we were not granted access to the country.
However, there are UN reports on the situation of children and armed conflict where there have BeenVerified attacks affecting children in particular, and the United Nations does list the NPA among parties that commit grave violations affecting children in situations of armed conflict.
The Government of the Philippines has also informed us that they are looking into 80 incidents allegedly perpetrated by the MP.
And finally, we, we, we speak about the incitement to hatred and violence.
Now there are, you know, very clearly, very publicly, there have been statements made by **** level officials, including the President, which have been deeply damaging.
Now, while numerous statements by the president are subsequently clarified as not to be taken literally, the widespread killings, detentions, red tagging, and score settling by state actors, including in the campaign against illegal drugs, suggests that these public comments may have incited violence and may have had the effect of encouraging, backing, or even ordering human rights violations with impunity.
The use of such language could amount to a violation of the prohibition against the arbitrary deprivation of life as has been set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In conclusion, the **** Commissioner has expressed, as Rory said OHCHRS, the UN Human Rights Office's readiness to continue it's positive engagement with the Government of the Philippines, including through the provision of technical assistance and capacity building, particularly in the implementation of the the recommendations of this report on accountability.
Given the widespread and systematic nature of these alleged killings and the failure of domestic mechanisms to ensure accountability, thus far, there have been strong calls for an international accountability mechanism.
Last year, a group of 11 special procedures mandate holders, UN Independent Experts, called on the Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigation and the International Criminal Court for it's part is conducting A preliminary examination of the situation in the Philippines.
The **** Commissioner again emphasises the need for independent, impartial and effective investigations into the killings and stands ready to assist credible efforts towards accountability at the national and the international level.
We set out another set of recommendations in the reports that that Rory had also alluded to and we'd be happy to walk you through any of them if you would like us to.
I'll I'll stop here.
[Other language spoken]
We have quite a number of questions coming in.
Some of them are a bit overlapping, so I'll perhaps begin.
There's a, there's a bunch of questions on the ICC.
So Rory, maybe you would take these questions.
The first one is, do you think this report will impact on the IC C's investigation?
And the chances of it bringing formal?
Charges against President Duterte and along with the same lines we have, does OHHR believe that the rhetoric possibly amounting to incitement to violence by president Duterte and other.
Senior officials should be prosecuted by the ICC.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Look, this is not a report about President Duterte.
It's a report about the Philippines.
Ultimately, this is about state responsibility and it's about patterns of violations that actually go back over a long period of time under successive administrations.
So I really want to stress that point that that this is about the responsibility of the Philippine state for human rights violations and some non state actors.
And the first and foremost responsibility to deal with that is with the Philippine state institutions.
You know, the Philippines has investigative mechanisms, that has criminal justice mechanisms.
The problem is they're not working effectively in these cases.
And as the report shows, we have very few examples of successful prosecution of human rights related crimes.
So in the absence of success with the domestic mechanisms, of course, people begin to look towards the international accountability options when it comes to the ICC, The ICC has begun preliminary examination of the situation and the ICC is an independent institution.
You know, it wouldn't be appropriate for us to comment on it.
I'm sure it will look at, at, at, at, yes, similar kinds of information that we have used in this report.
But, and the **** Commissioner has made it clear that she's willing to support both domestic and international accountability processes.
But I, I think it's, it's premature to, to, to comment on, on the IC CS examination of the situation.
Thank you, Rory.
There's another question which.
Began on the ICC.
And I think you've.
More or less answered it, but the second.
Part of the question is.
What would be the next step?
After releasing this comprehensive.
Report of human rights violations in the Philippines and what are the.
Chances that President Duterte will actually be charged.
And go on trial for his alleged crimes?
[Other language spoken]
You've kind of answered that, but.
If you want to make any further comments and, and describe the next step now, well, I mean, we very much hope that the next step actually will be on the Philippines side.
We hope that this report and the recommendations will kind of kick start the system in the Philippines to begin to address these violations and, and, and, and systemic problems more effectively.
And, and the report makes a number of recommendations that that that could improve that When it comes to the Council, I think that, you know, the Human Rights Council members ultimately will need to decide what, what follow up there should be, whether there should be further investigation of this.
I think, you know the the primary interest now will be very much in terms of how the Philippines responds to the report and takes forward some of the important recommendations.
[Other language spoken]
I think the next question would probably be for Ravina.
This is.
Have you touched on the effects?
Of the repression of violations of the lockdown in the.
Philippines during the.
Pandemic, the effect on human rights.
And could you tell us?
More on that.
Yes, The short answer is yes.
We now this was the mandate we received was do a comprehensive written report on the human rights situation in the Philippines.
So we had a lot of issues to cover.
And as I said, we haven't even managed to cover all of those.
Where COVID came in was what we found is that the violations that we've documented in the report are very much ongoing.
The killing in the campaign against illegal drugs are not over, even in the context of the COVID pandemic.
They're continuing attacks against human rights defenders, raids on the houses of civil society actors, the filing of sedition charges against political opponents, the criminalization of dissent on social media.
So you know that there have been quite a number of reports of people posting comments on social media critical of the the government's response.
And these people are being held criminally liable for the their posting of these comments.
In one case, there was actually an overseas foreign worker in Taiwan who was threatened with deportation from Taiwan for posting comments on social media critical of the government's response and critical of the president.
So a lot of the kinds of violations that we have seen are ongoing during the COVID pandemic.
There are also concerns about the use of force in the enforcement of quarantine, the enhanced community quarantine.
We've seen worrying reports of people being humiliated.
There was one report of young people being held in dog cages in the sun.
So there is quite a bit on the the use of force as well in the context of this pandemic.
[Other language spoken]
Next question is says the report reads like an indictment.
For serious human rights violations.
Including extrajudicial killings.
Under President Duterte's anti drug ********* agreed to like as if it was being presented by.
[Other language spoken]
In your.
Experience How can governments accused.
Of such abuses be forced.
To comply with international law and human rights obligations if they don't.
Follow UN injunctions and what?
Other legal remedies are available for those who accuse the Philippines.
Government of gross rights violations.
[Other language spoken]
To first crack at that.
And Rory, you might have.
Something to to add on that one as well.
[Other language spoken]
As Rory said, I mean, this report is not not meant to be an indictment.
This is not a criminal investigation into the, you know, conduct of of individuals or on a particular situation.
This is meant to be a comprehensive report on the human rights situation in the Philippines.
What we've done is we've gathered facts, we've substantiated and corroborated them, we've analysed them and we've presented them in an objective and fair manner.
We have given credit where credit is due, where there are policies and laws that have been positive advances in human rights.
And we have presented the facts where there are serious human rights violations that have been committed and it's clear domestic remedies have failed.
There is, you know, almost near total impunity for killings in the drug that the campaign against illegal drugs.
And with regards to the killings of human rights defenders and lawyers as well, we've seen very little accountability.
Now there are mechanisms in the Philippines, as Rory said, that that can be drawn upon for justice.
What we have found is that a lot of people are reluctant to seek justice, whether it's because of the stigma associated, for example, with having a family member who might have been involved in drugs and was killed, or whether it's because a lot of these individuals come from lower socio economic backgrounds.
So they're already not very empowered.
They already don't have a very strong understanding of the system or whether it's due to fear of reprisals before trying to seek justice from the very perpetrators of the injustice there.
There's a lot of obstacles and some almost insurmountable barriers to justice.
But in our recommendations, we do talk about how OHCHR stands ready to support credible efforts towards accountability, be they national or international.
We are ready to support the strengthening of domestic mechanisms.
We're ready to support the better collection of data in relation to these kiddings, which of course is the first step towards accountability.
We're also ready to support in law reform and ensuring that the laws in the Philippines comply with their international human rights obligations.
So this is really an attempt as well to, to make a real difference to the human rights situation on the ground in the Philippines.
I'll I'll pass the floor to Rory as well in case he has something to add on that.
No, I, I think, I think that is well covered by Ravina.
I would just, I'd come back to this point that I think the journalist made that, you know, President Duterte doesn't cooperate with the UN mechanisms.
I think the Philippines cooperates with the UN mechanisms.
And, you know, we even see that in the, the, the, the preparation of this report.
So I think you, you have to, you have to see this in the kind of web of engagement that the Philippines has with the UN, with the international community.
And increasingly, you know, member states are applying international law and International Criminal law in new ways, exercising universal jurisdiction, applying it in their their own policies.
So, so I think there are multiple levels and multiple tracks that you know could be explored in the absence of outcomes from the domestic process.
Thank you very much.
The next question is on press freedom.
That that's covered quite.
Extensively in the courts in in the report so.
[Other language spoken]
This one what?
Can the UN or other international?
[Other language spoken]
Do to stop the Duterte administration from going after and attacking the supposedly Free Press in the Philippines.
Recently ABSC.
BN is being forced.
To totally shut.
Down by keeping ABSCBN off the air and by dragging the company in court on false charges.
Rattler and Inquirer both suffered similar attacks in the past.
How come the?
Philippines keep its press free.
Thank you for that question.
We have in the past as well expressed concerns about the the situation with Rattler.
We've expressed concerns about the charges filed against the CEO, Maria Ressa, as well as the revocation of their licence now and and UN special rapporteurs as well have have raised their concerns about that.
The case of a BSCBN was also very concerning because their the suspension of their broadcasting came after the President had threatened publicly to shut them down.
And then it followed the petition, the filing of a petition by the Office of the Solicitor General to revoke the franchise.
And then in the midst of the the COVID pandemic, their franchise expired.
The renewal of the franchise is up for discussion in congressional hearings.
And there was a real expectation that their franchise would be provisionally renewed until Congress could finish deliberations on that.
But suddenly, overnight, the National Telecommunications Council Commission decided to suspend operations.
And this came as a real shock and we understand from many journalists and and organisations that we've spoken to that this had a real chilling effect on journalists in the Philippines.
Whether it was intended to send this message or not, the message came across that independent journalism and the the criticism of government policies comes with a price.
So we were very concerned at the the suspension of operations of of a DSCBN.
Another question, I guess this would be Ravina as well.
Who are the main victims?
Of this drug war.
Do many of these acts.
Amount to crimes against humanity.
And should.
[Other language spoken]
I think that's been answered.
Already held accountable?
Sorry, what is the government?
'S response to the report.
Maybe we'll spread that in two so that the main victims and do these acts.
Amount to crimes against humanity.
So Ravina, perhaps if you could take that in the second part?
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Is the government's response to the report or maybe you could deal with that as well?
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The the main victims of the killings in the campaign against illegal drugs.
Now there is limited data and this is part of the problem that there's very limited data available.
I mean, even the, the number of total, the total number of killings, there's conflicting data about how many people have actually been killed.
And then there's a real dearth of available disaggregated data on who these people were, what their socio economic backgrounds were, you know, the gender, the where they lived and even whether they were users of drugs or involved in the drug trade, for example.
Now our position is clear, people who use drugs or sell drugs do not lose their human rights.
In fact, the UN advocates for the decriminalisation of the possession of drugs.
So that that's very clear.
Having said that, the limited data that is available on the profile of those killed demonstrates that most of the victims were men, Most of them were from urban communities living in poverty.
And this is this is data that that's an open source information that we've seen and submissions received by us in the course of compiling this report confirm this pattern.
And this also drives home the the impact of the the killings not only on, of course, the immediate victims, but on their families.
When you're already coming from a background where you're living in poverty and in some cases your breadwinner is killed, this can have a vast trickle down effect of human rights violations against the entire family.
The lack of access to justice being a big one, of course, but also the lack of access to education to to, you know, economic survival has been a problem.
And thank you, Rory, could you maybe just make a comment on what the government?
'S response to the report has been so far.
Well, we haven't, we haven't seen an official response today since the release of the report.
I think it's important to note that the report was shared with the government last week according to our normal practise, and they did provide, you know, quite substantive comments on the 1st draught of the report.
And we examined those very carefully and incorporated or partially incorporated many of their points.
I mean, of course, there are some areas where, you know, the government would disagree, but certainly at this stage of the process, you know, we've had, you know, this first feedback on the report.
I think that was the question.
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Well, right with you if you can answer it.
Want to go ask if you had a chance to look at the anti?
Terror law which Congress just passed yesterday in Manila.
And if yes, what?
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In fact, the anti terrorism law is mentioned in the report in paragraph 42.
We're very worried the currently the there's the Human Security Act, which is in place, which is effectively the the Anti Terrorism Act.
The UN human rights mechanisms have already expressed concerns about the current law in that it gives too much discretion to the authorities and the definition of terrorism is too broad.
Now this new proposed anti terrorism law makes it much worse.
There is much more discretion given to the authorities in the designation of individuals and organisations as terrorists and there is really not the opportunity for subjects to present their case.
There's no explicit provision mandating a hearing.
The period of detention without warrant has also been increased in the proposed legislation from 3 to 14 days.
So previously, you could be detained if you were suspected terrorist, You could be detained without a warrant for three days.
If this new law is signed by the president, you will be detained for 14 days and this is extendable by another 10 days.
So if you take the broad definition of terrorism, the broad discretion given to the authorities to designate individuals as terrorists and then their ability to conduct surveillance and to detain these individuals for up to 24 days, these vague definitions may violate the principle of legality under international law.
And they are very worrying.
And now you add to this the context in the Philippines where a lot of human rights organisations are routinely labelled as terrorists.
This is very worrying.
[Other language spoken]
Do you see a shift from the war on drugs to the War on Terror in terms of?
Human rights violations.
Or is the government, current government, just adding an extra layer of state violence?
[Other language spoken]
Without accountability on on.
What was there already?
Ravina, I think that's probably for you.
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And then if, if Rory has anything to add, in fact, I think in the report, we what we say is that we see a continuum.
We see that this there's there's just this long standing.
And again, this is not a report card on the current administration by any means.
This is a report on the human rights situation in the Philippines.
And what we've seen is over a continuum with through progressive administrations, there has been an overarching focus on public order and national security at the expense of human rights.
And this includes the campaign against illegal drugs, campaigns against terrorism, campaigns against, you know, the, the the tackling of armed conflict.
So we see it more as a continuum rather than a shift from one to the other.
And this is very worrying because while these are legitimate challenges that the government does need to address, of course, prevention and countering of violent extremism is important, and tackling the impact of illicit drugs and crime in society is very important.
But it is essential that this be done in line with the international human rights obligations of the state, in line with the due process rights of individuals.
Otherwise, you're trying to to resolve 1 issue by perpetrating massive human rights violations.
Rory, anything to add to that or we've got.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
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To the next one.
So I think this would.
Be for Rory, How important is it for international mechanisms to be able to conduct a visit to the Philippines?
The report says the government.
Participated by.
Responding to a list of.
[Other language spoken]
And what was the reason provided?
For that, thank you.
I firstly, as I mentioned in my introduction, I mean that, you know, different special rapporteurs have visited the Philippines, you know, over the years, unfortunately not since 2015.
And I think you know, one of the one of the recommendations of the report and our hopes is that the Philippines government would resume invitations to the special rapporteurs in terms of our visit.
Yes, of course, we would have liked to make a visit to the Philippines as part of the preparation of the report.
Certainly we requested access for such a visit from late last year.
We we were in quite active discussion of this with the government in the early part of the year.
As I mentioned, we had several meetings and exchanges with government officials around this.
At a certain point the, you know, the COVID situation, you know, also rendered that impractical.
So really I think the, the question of the visit was, was unresolved.
You know, look, of course we would have benefited from the opportunity to visit Philippines to meet with further with the government officials, you know, to, you know, follow up on on on some of the information that we had received.
But I think at the end of the day, you know, thanks to the huge number of submissions received from a very wide spectrum of of of organisations, thanks to the extensive information provided by the government, thanks to the backwards and forwards and dialogue that we've been happy to have the government on the report.
I think, you know, the report stands as a very, you know, solid piece of research.
[Other language spoken]
And the last?
[Other language spoken]
Follow up to an earlier.
1 basically wasn't answered earlier.
Do do many of these acts on the drug war amount to crimes?
Against humanity and should deter to be held.
Accountable I think.
You have answered the second part, but do many of these acts on the drug?
War amount to crimes against.
Humanity.
In in our report, we've we've described a pattern of widespread and systematic killings in the context of the anti drug operations.
We haven't qualified that further as crimes against humanity that would require, you know, closer and more careful examination to reach that judgement.
We have anything to.
Add on that one.
No, no, that's that's it.
It would require further examination.
Another one.
Well, again, it's repeating.
The the questions on.
On President Duterte and the prosecution and so on, which has been answered several times, but the.
Second part of the question.
Is there any particular part of this report?
That you'd like to highlight.
What's the strongest case that could be made using the report?
So an open question to you Arena to close the press conference.
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After having reviewed some 900 submissions with such a vast array of issues, in fact, we're struck struck by the number of issues that we couldn't cover as well in the report.
I think one thing that is that is very stark is the there are a few things actually.
So #1 the persistent impunity.
And this is an impunity that goes back decades.
There has yet to be accountability for violations, human rights violations that were perpetrated decades ago, you know, even under the Marcos administration up to the present day.
So there's a real pervasive impunity, real climate of impunity in the Philippines that needs that the country needs to to work very hard to extract itself from.
That was 11 finding that was just very stark.
And it doesn't just apply to the campaign against illegal drugs, but you know, it applies very much across many different human rights violations.
Another thing that that struck us as well was the, the, the campaign against illegal drugs.
When we were looking at it, the policies themselves and some of the laws, you know, such as the anti terrorism law, the, the violations of human rights and the violations of due process and the rule of law are built into these policies and built into these laws.
And so it's very difficult to, to extract yourself from that.
So there's a real need for reform of these laws and policies in order to be able to address the, the serious human rights situation that, that the Philippines is facing.
And, and the last thing that I'm going to say is, is 1 situation that we didn't manage to cover in sufficient detail was the situation around Marawi.
And in that region where, as I said, a lot of people, you know, more than 120,000 I believe was the number people remain internally displaced.
There's a real lack of of progress in reconstruction, and there are real worries about that situation becoming difficult to handle and becoming a, you know, fertile grounds for radicalization.
[Other language spoken]
We've come to the.
End of our time.
I'd like to thank.
Both both presenters.
[Other language spoken]
Shamdasani, Rory McGovern.
[Other language spoken]
Thank all the journalists who.
Very patiently been in this press.
Conference and have asked the.
Many questions and onward and upward.
Thank you very much.
And that's the end of it.
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