Emerging from the hell of World War II, which saw the unspeakable evil of the Holocaust and the unleashing of nuclear bombs for the first time on two cities in Japan, the international community drew up an extensive list of human rights. On Dec. 10, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Today, the world marks 75 years since that declaration of freedom, equality and justice for all with two wars raging – one between Israel and Hamas, and the longer one, Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine.
The theaters of war, however, aren’t the only places where human rights are under threat. Civil liberties are undermined even in places where there is no full-blown war. The Philippines has had a first-hand experience with this, during the long years of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos’ conjugal dictatorship, when political dissent was crushed and thousands were tortured, arrested at will, executed and involuntarily disappeared. Human rights victims of the first Marcos regime have received some reparations, but there is still no closure for many other victims.
Democracy, whose restoration in 1986 was so hard-won, remained fragile and institutionally weak. Extrajudicial killings, torture by security forces and enforced disappearances continued. The worst case of election violence, and the worst attack on journalists, was perpetrated in 1989 by the political warlords of Maguindanao, the Ampatuans. Activists and journalists continue to be targeted, not only through armed violence but also through cyber bullying and legal cases. In the previous administration, the country’s largest broadcasting network, ABS-CBN, lost its franchise after incurring the ire of then president Rodrigo Duterte.
The Philippines drew the global human rights spotlight under Duterte, who remains unapologetic about his bloody crackdown on the drug menace that left over 6,200 drug suspects dead, based on the official police count. Rights activists say the drug killings continue, although not on the same scale as in the previous administration. There is a continuing debate on how much civil liberties can be relegated to the back seat in the interest of public safety. The landslide victories last year of Marcos’ only son and namesake and Duterte’s daughter indicate what Filipinos think of human rights issues.
There are other aspects of human rights, with significant progress achieved in the past 75 years for the rights of women and children as well as workers and the LGBTQ+ community. But the current situation of the world shows that freedom, equality and justice for all, along with economic freedoms, are a work in progress. Nations can reaffirm commitment to these objectives on the 75th year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.