PGMA's Speech during the International Human Rights Week Celebration

PGMA's Speech during the International Human Rights Week Celebration

Heroes Hall, Malacañang (08 December 2004)

Thank you Karina, CSC chairperson.

Chairperson Quisumbing, Mr. Naka, Mary Ann, members of the Cabinet, excellencies of the diplomatic corps, justices, officials and staff of the human rights commission, guests, ladies and gentlemen

Our nation joins the rest of the world in observing international human rights week. And on this occasion, I enjoin all Filipinos to be conscious of our rights as well as our responsibilities as citizens.

The theme of your celebration, our celebration is "good governance is human rights." but in what you submitted to me, there are ten other themes. And I like one of the themes especially "people's rights first in the realization of millennium development goals."

Health, education, a sustainable environment dwell in human rights as well as in shared prosperity.

The millennium development goals fall squarely beside the 10-point agenda of my administration that Chairperson Quisumbing mentioned. Human rights are imperative for human survival and in the pursuit of the millennium development goals.

Illegal loggers are violators of the right to a sustainable environment. This morning I gave Secretary Mike Defensor, General Victor Corpus and Secretary Raul Gonzalez one month to identify, investigate and prosecute the big-time illegal loggers, starting from the hardest hit disaster areas. I am very grateful for their quick response. This morning, they filed cases against those that they caught in seven pre-dawn raids on illegal logging establishments in Mauban, in Quezon.

We shall prosecute the wrongdoers and restore the dignity of victims of oppression. Not only in the case of illegal logging but in the classic human rights violations cases as referred to by Chairperson Quisumbing.

One of my priority legislative agenda is precisely to exact just compensation for human rights victims during the martial law years. We cannot claim to be a just and compassionate society if we can't indemnify those who suffered during the darkest days of our country's history.

Also fresh in our people's minds are the recent killings of journalists. This, too, is about human rights.

Suspects in recent cases have fallen. Six of the eight cases that happened during the term of General Aglipay have already been solved. But we will not stop until we bring the murderers of the journalists to justice.

The labor department is doing its best to obtain a fair and peaceful settlement of the Hacienda Luisita dispute. Labor problems must be solved at the negotiating table. All parties must act responsibly so that tragedies can be averted.

I commend the commission on human rights and the armed forces for their quiet but unremitting cooperation in the human rights education of our military personnel.

Two years ago in 2002, we also celebrated human right day here. And on that occasion we celebrated human rights with the memorandum of understanding between the Human Rights Commission and the Armed Forces of the Philippines on human rights education. Ging Deles, the head of our peace process is not here, but she tells me and also the visiting experts on transitional justice tell me that they are so impressed with how our soldiers have internalized the matter of human rights.

No wonder as Karina pointed out, in the list of supposed violators of human rights, there's hardly any case that's been filed against anybody in the military. I congratulate everyone for that effort.

On another plane, there should also be a proper mechanism to receive and process complaints of human rights abuses against insurgents and terrorists. Human rights propaganda leans heavily on our soldiers and policemen, when we all know that the worst violators belong to the New People's Army.

While they extol human rights by words, they engage in illegal logging, cultivate marijuana, push drugs, burn buses and murder civilians. And that is what we must also address when we are celebrating, commemorating human rights.

The spirit of the constitutional provision guaranteeing full respect for human rights lies within us. We must unite in preserving a universal framework of human decency and social justice that guarantees political and economic security.

Human rights are worth fighting for, they are even worth dying for. These are the rights that make us different from the terrorists hiding in the trenches; from the loggers that wreak havoc on our environment; from the corruptors that wield patronage and ill-gotten wealth to exploit and oppress the weak.

On this special day, I call on all our people to exercise vigilance against those who run roughshod over the ramparts of our democratic way of life.

Our future depends on how strong we uphold our freedom, unify our nation and fight poverty.

So I thank the human rights commission for reminding us that good governance is human rights. And we must remind everyone and ourselves that if we want to reach development in the early part of this millennium then we must also respect and recognize human rights.

Thank you.

[HOME]