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Philippine human rights umbrella Karapatan kicked off the campaign on human rights defenders with a Benefit Dinner held at the Quezon City Sports Club during the commemoration of the International Women Human Rights Defenders Day on November 29, 2008.

The verdict is out.  More than two years after the families of slain human rights defenders Eden Marcellana and Eddie Gumanoy filed a complaint against the Arroyo government, a United Nations body ruled that the latter is guilty of violating primarily the right to life of said human rights defenders and was negligent in providing remedy.


The UN Human Rights Committee, the UN treaty body monitoring the States parties' compliance to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), states that it "is of the view that the facts as found by the Committee reveal violations by the Philippines of article 2, paragraph 3 (the right of violated persons to effective remedies and the State ensuring that such remedies are provided and enforced); article 6, paragraph 1 (the right to life of every person); and article 9, paragraph 1 (the right to liberty and security of persons) of the Covenant."

The UN Human Rights Committee, the UN treaty body monitoring the States parties' compliance to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), has found the Philippine government guilty of violating primarily the right to life of human rights defenders Eden Marcellana and Eddie Gumanoy. The Committee's Views were put out on October 30, 2008 in its 94th session held in the UN in Geneva.

The human rights alliance Karapatan is outraged by the recent legal offensive of the Macapagal-Arroyo administration against the legal democratic organizations particularly in Southern Tagalog, including two of its officials namely Karapatan-Southern Tagalog Secretary General Doris Cuario and Karapatan-Batangas Coordinator Dina Capetillo among those falsely accused.

Anthropologists today (October 14, 2008) found pieces of burnt human bones in the vicinity of the former detachment of the 24th IBPA (Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army) in Brgy. Bliss, Limay, Bataan.

The bones where found at the site where witness-survivor Raymond Manalo said he saw farmer Manuel Merino being burned by soldiers sometime in June 2007.