In almost 3 years of a UniTeam governance, the people are also watching its record of human rights violations. And this focus is understandable while Congress has its special focused on its investigation of confidential funds spent particularly those of VP Sara Duterte by her Office of the Vice President (OVP) and Office of the Department of Education (DepED). Significantly, two impeachment raps have been filed against her by various groups and individuals, and backed up by some lawmakers.
Such attention by government on confidential funds is actually highly important because from the time VP Sara’s father Rodrigo Roa Duterte became president, more than 30,000 Filipinos, including innocent children and youth, became victims of extra judicial killings (EJKs).
Bloody Anti-Drug Program
Such killings in fact have been attributed likewise by human rights defenders, most especially the well-known human rights watchdog, Karapatan, to the former president’s “Kill Kill Kill” policy under his “War on Drugs” program and aggressively implemented nationwide, most likely with confidential funds, by his then PNP Chief Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa.
This bloody anti-drug program was reportedly promoted and implemented by Sarah Duterte herself when she was the mayor of Davao City.
These killings are still ongoing, given the creation by the former president of the National Task Force – to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), and the refusal of President Bongbong Marcos to abolish this notorious body that has continued red-tagging activists and even civil society organizations serving the poor and marginalized. And this was despite demands being made to abolish this NTF-ELCAC, particularly by the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion Irene Khan, and most especially by the fact that the Supreme Court in May 2024 ruled that red-tagging, the NTF-ELCAC’s reason for being, is a threat to a person’s life, liberty and security.
P1,000 for CHR
It must be mentioned that the government office, Commission on Human Rights (CHR), has not neglected its role as the human rights watchdog of government.
The people cannot forget how the allies of the former president in Congress shamelessly budgeted only P1,000 for for the year.
Such was quite a clear signal by then President Rodrigo Roa Duterte that under his administration he could throw aside the constitutional human rights of Filipinos.
Karapatan Monitoring
Sadly, this current top leadership of the Uniteam tandem of Bongbong and Sara has practically pursued the same brutal Rodrigo Roa Duterte policy and program of threats and harassments, illegal arrests and imprisonment with trumped-up charges, enforced disappearances, and killings of people they suspect as worth being red-tagged.
KARAPATAN, among the most active human rights watchdogs in the country, fortunately has faithfully continued to monitor and document human rights violations nationwide. It’s January – June issue of KARAPATAN MONITOR reported that “In Marcos Jr.’s counter-insurgency war, there were 6o extrajudicial killings in 2023 compared to 41 in 2022.
The biggest hike was in the number of enforced disappearances – four victims in 2022 as opposed to 11 in 2023…KARAPATAN also noted the 66 percent rise in the number of victims of indiscriminate firing from 12,263 in 2022 to 20,391 in 2023.
Victims of bombing attacks by the AFP also markedly rose from 2,354 in 2022 to 20,391 in 2023, for a monstrous 766 percent increase. Documented reports of fake surrenders likewise rose from 153 in 2022 to 402 in 2023, for an upsurge of 162 percent.”
Indeed, not to mention their long clamor for real economic recovery, even if only to be able to buy P20/kg of rice among other food items, the Filipino people are asking why such human rights violations are rampant under this Uniteam administration of President Bongbong Marcos and VP Sarah Duterte, whose mandate is “to give justice to everyone” and “to create a just and humane society”? Why?!
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