Phl’s bid for seat in UN Human Rights Council hit

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines – Human rights group Karapatan yesterday slammed the Philippine government’s bid for a seat in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) from 2016 to 2018.

In a statement, Karapatan said the government has no right to be in any mechanism that deals with human rights.

“It has not done anything substantial to improve the country’s human rights situation,” the group said.

The UNHRC monitors how UN-member states comply with their obligations on international treaties and agreements on human rights.

“The Philippine government has nothing to be proud about its ‘superbody’ tasked to investigate extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and other rights violations,” Karapatan secretary-general Cristina Palabay said.

“The creation of the superbody did not deter human rights violations by state security forces,” she said.

She cited that when the superbody was created in the last quarter of 2012, there were reportedly 114 documented victims of unexplained killings.

“Now, there are 169 documented cases of extrajudicial killings and 179 frustrated killings,” she said.

Karapatan added that for the first six weeks of this year, there had been seven victims of unexplained killings and “not one perpetrator was punished for these crimes.”