Groups mark Int'l Human Rights Day

Various militant groups and human rights advocates gathered in Mendiola in Manila to mark International Human Rights Day Thursday.

Human rights group Karapatan and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), among other organizations, staged a rally against the Duterte administration despite the inclement weather and coronavirus pandemic.

The protesters called for the protection of human rights defenders, junking of the Anti-Terror Law, accountability and justice for the victims of human rights violations, and abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

Fisherfolk group Pamalakaya, which also joined the protest, called for the immediate release of activist Amanda Echanis, the daughter of slain Anakpawis leader Randy Echanis. She was arrested in Cagayan last week for illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

They said that the country is in “an epidemic of State terrorism and repression.”

The groups also said they are alarmed that the country is plunging “deeper and deeper into a rapidly deteriorating human rights crisis and fascist rule” under the current administration."

“We commemorate the International Human Rights Day today with strong indignation and as we remain in our struggle for justice,” Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay said.

This year’s Human Rights Day marks the 72th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Philippines was one of the 48 countries which first signed the declaration in 1948.

According to Karapatan, it has documented 353 victims of extrajudicial killings under the government’s counterinsurgency campaign from July 2016 to November 2020. This is on top of thousands who have already been killed under "Oplan: Tokhang," the administration’s flagship campaign on the war on drugs.