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▲ Joanne Vasquez, chair of Philippine
Women Centre of Quebec, discussed her two week experience in the
Philippines last August while joining the Women’s International Solidarity
Affairs (WISAP) organized by GABRIELA-Philippines |
▲ Roderick Carreon, national chair of
SIKLAB – the national organization of Filipino migrant workers in Canada,
shared his experience of participating in an international observers’
mission during the last May elections in the Philippines. |
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Philippines-Canada Task Force on Human
Rights
Eastern Canada Steering Committee for the Stop the Killings in the
Philippines Campaign (STKP)
Profs. Noumoff and Choussodovsky Join Roundtable Discussion on Human
Rights in the Philippines
Montreal, Canada
14 October 2007
Joining Profs. Sam Noumoff and Michel
Chossoudovsky, over 25 academics, youth and students and members of the
Filipino community came together at McGill University last October 11th to
deepen understanding of the escalating human rights violations in the
Philippines. The event was sponsored by the Filipino Solidarity Committee
at McGill University and the Eastern Canada section of the Philippine
Canada Task force on Human Rights (PCTFHR) under the internationally
coordinated campaign to “Stop the Killings in the Philippines” (STKP).
The roundtable discussions are part of
PCTFHR’s continuing effort at raising awareness about the human rights
situation in the Philippines through public education, research and
advocacy. Its immediate campaign is to pressure the Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo government to stop the political killings in the Philippines.
Cecilia Diocson, Eastern Canada coordinator
of the PCTFHR, opened the roundtable by introducing the PCTFR as a
response to the urgent need to address the deteriorating human rights
situation in the Philippines. According to Diocson, there have been over
880 extra-judicial killings attributed to the Philippine military and
other state agents since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo came to power
in 2001. There has also been an alarming increase in enforced
disappearances and political repression, particularly against progressive
people’s organizations and political parties and their members. Diocson
also emphasized that besides lobbying efforts, the most important aspect
of our work is the education, organization and mobilization at the
community and grassroots level around various issues related to human
rights including support for the right of the Filipino people to struggle
for national and social liberation.
One of the speakers, Dr. Constancio Claver, who survived an assassination
attempt in July 2006 that resulted in his wife’s death was not able to
come but sent in his message which was read before the crowd. In his
message, Dr. Claver recounted how he continued to be hounded by his
would-be assassins that finally forced him and his three kids out of the
country and to seek refugee status in Canada last March. He further added
that he continues his advocacy for justice while he is staying here in
Canada. He appealed to Canadians to support the activities of HUSTISYA in
the Philippines. This is the national organizations of victims of human
rights violations that their families and relatives last year had formed
to help, according to its founding statement, their “quest for justice,
especially since no government institution assists those of us who fear
for our lives and have been internally displaced.”
Roderick Carreon, national chair of SIKLAB – the national organization of
Filipino migrant workers in Canada, shared his experience of participating
in an international observers’ mission during the last May elections in
the Philippines. He talked of seeing in one polling place the process of
election cheating and blatant cases of military intimidation to help
secure the election of candidates favorable to the current Arroyo
government. He further said that members of the observers’ mission who
were spread out all over the Philippines came together and agreed that the
election was indeed characterized by massive vote buying, fraud and
intimidation and it did not truly represent the mandate of the Filipino
people. For their mission, the presence of “guns, gold and goons” makes
the whole election a farce.
Joanne Vasquez, chair of Philippine Women Centre of Quebec, discussed her
two week experience in the Philippines last August while joining the
Women’s International Solidarity Affairs (WISAP) organized by
GABRIELA-Philippines, the largest coalition of grassroots women in the
Philippines. She showed a brief slide show of Luisa Posa, a 55 year-old
mother who was abducted by the agents of the Philippine military for her
political activities. Posa continues to be missing together with another
community organizer, Nilo Arado, who was also abducted together with her.
Prior to her abduction, Posa had been a community organizer for 44 years
and was imprisoned four times for this since the 1970s. Vasquez also
mentioned that Posa serves as inspiration to overseas Filipinos and women
who are concerned with the human rights situation in the Philippines.
Retired McGill Professor Sam Noumoff gave his analysis of the current
state of affairs in the Philippines. He talked of his previous trip to the
Philippines and mentioned that the economic and political conditions are
far worse now than before. This is the same pattern that has happened in
other countries in Central America such as El Salvador where the United
States played prominent role in the human rights violations by its client
states against their own people. He singled out the Dutch government’s
current efforts at persecuting Jose Ma. Sison, the consultant of the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in the peace
negotiation with the government of the Republic of the Philippines. He
said that it is Dutch economic interest, particularly oil, that drives its
support for the current Arroyo government. The presence of Sison in the
Netherlands has become a thorn to the growing Dutch interest in the
Philippines thus, the arrest of Sison to please the Arroyo government.
Prof. Michel Choussodovsky from the University of Ottawa, on the other
hand, expressed his criticism of human rights groups that try to mask the
reality of repressive states such as the Arroyo government and the
domination of foreign powers like the United States over the Philippines.
For Prof. Choussodovsky, human rights issues in these countries are
inserted into the geo-political process and foreign policies of dominant
state powers and use them to perpetuate their hold on their client states.
For him, the term “extra-judicial killings” is actually a misnomer because
the military state apparatus of countries like the Philippines had already
made “extra-judicial sentences” against human rights and progressive
activists prior to their killings.
Both Noumoff and Choussodovsky are in agreement that killings and
repression will hardly abate in client states because human rights issues
act as impediments to capital accumulation and existing geopolitical power
politics dominated by the United States.
The subsequent questions and answers deal with global issues and their
impact on human rights in the Philippines. Both Noumoff and Choussodovsky
were helpful in further deepening our understanding of various issues
particularly, the attempts by dominant states and their state institutions
to use human rights and “civil society” groups to camouflage their
continuing exploitation of and imposition of their self-interest upon
other countries of the world. They also gave their own appraisal of the
state of the progressive or left movement in North America which today,
could only be described as dismal though there are signs or outbursts of
resistance against the present global situation from time to time. They
further helped us appreciate that the issue of human rights and other
problems in the Philippines are part of the global picture of imperialist
globalization that is wracked with its own internal contradictions. They
warned us to be critical of, while working with, groups and institutions
that claim to be for human rights but whose funding are coming from
sources that tend to water down or even outrightly oppose genuine
resistance to imperialist globalization. For us in the progressive
movement in the Filipino community, these are lessons that were learned
very well during the 1980’s and early 1990s when “civil society” groups
almost dictated the people’s resistance and set it back for several years.
In its post roundtable assessment, PCTFHR resolved to continue with its
education and advocacy campaign on human rights in the Philippines. We
will continue to build alliances and solidarity with other groups and
individuals who are concerned with human rights in the Philippines. We
will follow up the campaign for the resumption of the stalled peace
negotiation between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and
the Government of the Republic of the Philippines through the third party
mediation role of the Norwegian authorities between these two parties.
And finally, PCTFHR will continue its effort of publicly engaging
Parliament of Canada to conduct public hearings on the state of human
rights in the Philippines considering Canada’s increasing role in that
country, its avowed concern for human rights and democracy and its growing
number of Filipinos immigrants and migrant workers.
--
British Columbia Committee for
Human Rights in the Philippines (BCCHRP)
"Celebrating 25 years of solidarity with the Filipino people for genuine
peace, democracy and freedom!"
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