A multi-sectoral alliance of clergy folk, studentry, indigenous people, workers, and transport groups hold a peaceful demonstration against Charter Change, PGH Oblation Plaza, along Taft Ave. in Manila on February 23, 2024. Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News/File 

MANILA — Rights and activist groups are not expecting much from a special committee on human rights coordination that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has created, saying the body risks being a "mere embellishment" that will not improve the rights situation in the Philippines.  

The President created the special committee, which will be under the Presidential Human Rights Committee, to strengthen rights protection and promotion mechanisms and to broaden access to redress for victims of rights violations.

"With its premise of addressing human rights issues through mere 'coordination,' one cannot expect much from this 'special committee,'" human rights organization Karapatan said in a statement.

The group said that the committee was a "desperate attempt to window-dress the grave human rights situation" in the Philippines.

"Touted as a new mechanism that comes after the UN Joint Program on Human Rights in the Philippines, Marcos Jr.’s human rights coordinating council is viewed as a tactic to evade accountability for the human rights violations committed during the previous and the current regimes," it said.

READ: Special human rights panel created as Marcos underscores need for humane law enforcement

In creating the special committee, Marcos stressed the need to have a human-rights-based approach toward drug control and counter-terrorism.

Karapatan however said "draconian" government policies such as the counter-insurgency program and counter-terrorism laws have resulted in "extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary arrests and detention, bombings and forcible evacuations, and fake surrenders."

It added that the systemic roots that drive state forces to commit "grave crimes with impunity" remained.

In a post on X, Human Rights Watch senior researcher Carlos Conde said the new committee is "fantastic on paper" but he said he fears "it will serve mainly as a propaganda arm to defend government against allegations of rights abuses."

He noted the lack of participation in the committee by the United Nations or by civil society organizations.

Conde also raised concerns about the track record of the PCHR, which he said “has served not only as apologist for government on rights abuses” but has “sought to discredit and undermine rights defenders in the Philippines and in other countries.”

'MERE EMBELLISHMENTS' 

Karapatan fears the special rights committee "will go the way" of the inter-agency committee created under Administrative Order No. 35 that is tasked to resolve extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and other grave human rights violations.

The Administrative Order No. 35 task force, it said, "has a pitiful record of having handled only 385 cases and securing 13 convictions out of thousands of cases." 

It also pointed out that a task force created by Executive Order No. 23 to probe labor-related violations — "has not been heard of again since its establishment a year ago." 

The task force earned early criticism for not including representatives of workers' and labor groups. 

"[T]hese bodies are mere embellishments meant to appease the growing indignation here and abroad against the escalating violations of civil and political rights in the Philippines and gloss over the reality of state responsibility for the extrajudicial killings and other gross human rights and international humanitarian law violations," Karapatan said.

'NOTHING EARTHSHAKING'

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) President Renato Reyes Jr. meanwhile said that "there is nothing earthshaking" from Marcos' rights committee.

He added that the council would be a "mere token response" to the human rights "crisis" unless policies were changed especially on red-tagging, terrorist-labeling, and targeting of civilians.

"So long as groups and individuals face red-tagging, trumped-up terror charges, EJKs, abductions and forced displacement, no amount of 'coordination' and enhancement of current mechanisms will prevent the occurrence of rights violations. The problem is at the policy level," he said.

In his post, Conde said Marcos should ensure that the Commission on Human Rights remains independent in light of the creation of the special committee.

He added the President can help improve the rights situation even without a special committee by ensuring accountability for abuses and by protecting rights defenders and democratic space.

“He can do this, for a start, by ending policy of red-tagging,” Carlos said. — Rowegie Abanto and Jonathan de Santos, ABS-CBN News

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