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Investigate PH: Initial Report (Live Stream)
#InvestigatePH is sharing initial findings on human rights violations in #Filipinas under #Duterte. Please join us in launching our First Report initially presented today to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. # HRC46
Posted by Investigate PH on Tuesday March 16, 2021
MANILA, Philippines – Changes in culture, not just government policy, are needed to curb rights abuses, according to Dr. Agnes Abuom, commissioner of Investigate PH, an independent body made up of various civic groups from around the world tasked with to investigate rights. situation in the Philippines.
“Even if we need policy changes and maybe constitutional changes, it is not enough. It has to do with a culture that needs to be changed, ”Abuom said in the online forum held on Tuesday with the participation of the media and various human rights groups.
“It has to do with the leadership that needs to understand that they are part of the global community, and the global community has a set of values by which we are governed, and we need to defend, work and lead with those values,” he added.
Abuom, who is also moderator of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, presented the first Investigate PH report on the state of human rights in the Philippines at the forum.
According to Abuom, the report, which has been sent to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (HRC), is very urgent because it appears that even evidence-based reports are being ignored and neglected.
“This is an urgent matter. It is an issue that has been going on for a long time in terms of violations, and I think it is an embarrassment to the global community that even when we have evidence-based information, it is still not enough to drive transformation, “he said. explained.
“Therefore, I think it is important to point out from the outset that this Commission is concerned that it brings evidence-based information from the ground to the various UN bodies, particularly human rights, and that it may help them to really understand reality on the ground, “he added.
Investigate PH was launched on January 28 as a group based on an initiative that would collect and report on alleged rights abuses in the Philippines, especially those that occurred during the term of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Investigate PH said last January that it was launched after the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) decided to withdraw suggestions to carry out a full-blown investigation in the Philippines, which ultimately came down to a resolution calling for member states of the UNHRC to extend technical assistance to the country.
The Rev. Dr. Chris Ferguson, Commissioner of Investigate PH and general secretary of the World Communion of Reformed Churches, said during the online forum that one of the report’s recommendations was for the group to determine how many Filipinos are against a possible authoritarian government. . .
“I think we have to immediately go to some of the concrete recommendations of this dramatic situation, and one of them, of course, is to place what we are doing in terms of a rising world. We are gathering energy to see people who are saying no to authoritarian governments and no to the erosion of the mechanisms of international law, ”Ferguson said.
“In all things, take advantage of these cases to shed light on the deeper meaning of extrajudicial executions, torture, unjust detentions, political repression through threats and red labeling, forced evacuation, violations of freedom of the press and assembly, other violations of humanitarian law, those same structures are at stake ”, he added.
After the publication of the HRC resolution, the Philippine government created a task force that would investigate allegations of extrajudicial executions committed during the drug war, along with other rights violations.
However, local groups say the government task force is all for show, as controversies over alleged rights abuses, such as the police operation that led to the deaths of nine activists on March 7, still continue.
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