By Hannah Torregoza
Opposition Senator Leila de Lima on Monday slammed Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Teodoro “Teddyboy” Locsin Jr.’s move to question the validity of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) resolution saying his rants “confounds logic and good sense.”
“Locsin’s posturing confounds logic and good sense. It’s so off!” De Lima said in a statement.
Senator Leila de Lima (JANSEN ROMERO / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO)
Locsin earlier criticized the UNHRC for adopting the Iceland-led resolution and its call for an investigation into the human rights situation in the Philippine’s drug war.
The foreign affairs chief, in response, recalled the crimes against humanity committed in the past by the countries who voted for the resolution and at the same time, reminded them of the supposed “unblemished” human rights record of the Philippines throughout history.
"This resolution was not universally adopted. Therefore, its validity is highly questionable. It does not represent the will of the Council, much less that of the developing countries who are always the target of such resolutions,” Locsin said in a speech read on his behalf during the UNHRC's 41st regular session in Geneva, Switzerland.
"Western countries pushed for this resolution in the confidence that the world has forgotten what they did and what should have been done to them had there been a Human Rights Council. It was pushed with the arrogance that developing countries must not stand up to them even if we can and as we hereby do. There will be consequences," Locsin added.
De Lima, however, said Locsin’s line of argument and digging up the past atrocities committed by Western countries is nothing but “fascist thinking to the core.”
“The history of the formulation and recognition of the alienable rights of human beings is a product of the history of the crimes against humanity committed in the past by the colonizers against the colonized. This is the historical basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),” she said.
“Indeed, we must remember and not forget the atrocities of the European powers of the 19th and 20th centuries committed against the rest of the world. In not forgetting, the world will not allow its repeat,” De Lima added.
Locsin, she said, should remember that the Philippines also has a track record of human rights violations.
“He only has to remember the Marcos dictatorship and martial law that he proudly reminds everybody he fought and struggled against,” she said.
“Of course, Locsin now accepts the murder of suspected criminals as the necessary consequence of the State defending itself, the same pretext used by the dictatorship he once fought to cover up the thousands of murders, tortures, and abductions being repeated by the Duterte regime he now speaks for,” she reiterated.
The senator further stated that whether the crimes against the Filipino people were committed under Marcos or Duterte, Locsin “cannot be ignorant of this.”
“What he is actually telling the West and those who voted for the UNHRC Resolution is this: ‘You had your own human rights violations perpetrated in the past by your own countries, we, therefore, reserve our right to commit the same human rights violations against our own people’,” she pointed out.
She stressed this “what-aboutism” attitude Locsin displayed betrays the hypocritical and self-serving nature of his argument against the UNHRC Resolution.
“He posits that States have a right to murder their own people and that Europe and the West should adopt a quid-pro-quo attitude now that it is third world countries who are committing the same crimes against their people,” she lamented.
“This is fascist thinking to the core, and it disappoints us so much that Locsin has gone so far down the rabbit hole he can no longer recognize the character he actually plays in this nightmarish ‘Wonderland’ created by his boss,” de Lima emphasized.
Read more: UNHRC adopts Iceland’s resolution by a slim margin of votes