Vice President Leni Robredo hopes that the commemoration of the International Human Rights Day serves as a call to action against oppression and inequality.
Robredo, who is running for president in the 2022 elections, said Friday, Dec. 10, that may the commemoration of the 73rd anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights be a call to action to "speak the truth in the face of oppression" and replace inequality with compassion.
"May this commemoration serve as a clear call to action—to defend and uphold our rights; to speak truth in the face of oppression; to replace structures of inequality with systems built on compassion; to build, together, a better normal of true inclusiveness and radical solidarity for all," Robredo said.
The celebration of International Human Rights Day, she said, is a reminder of "our common humanity," stressing "that regardless of race, color, religion, gender, we are a single human family, bound by a shared commitment to build a better and fairer world for all."
The Vice President said this can be accomplished "by relentlessly standing up for our rights, and the rights of others, at every opportunity."
She further said that the celebration also "calls for empathy and fellowship, put into practice by the work of looping those in the margins into the cycle of progress and empowerment."
"It requires embracing solidarity, and the conviction that an injustice committed against a fellow human person is an injustice committed against us all," she stressed.