As the nation commemorates the 27th anniversary of the People Power 1 uprising, human rights group Karapatan today said that “the Noynoy Aquino government’s commemoration is completely an empty exercise meant as a window-dressing for the administration’s dismal human rights record.”
As the nation commemorates the 27th anniversary of the People Power 1 uprising, human rights group Karapatan today said that “the Noynoy Aquino government’s commemoration is completely an empty exercise meant as a window-dressing for the administration’s dismal human rights record.”
Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said 27 years after Edsa 1, human rights violations continue to be committed with impunity through Aquino’s counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan, which resulted to 137 victims of extrajudicial killings, 14 cases of enforced disappearances, 498 victims of illegal arrests, among others.
“It is appalling that Aquino projects himself as a promoter of human rights and democracy, while those under his command, especially in the military and police, commit human rights abuses to quell the Filipino people’s growing discontent over his administration’s anti-people economic and social policies,” Palabay said.
Karapatan notes that notorious human rights violators since the Martial Law period up to present have not been fully made accountable for their grave crimes against the people and that they have instead sustained their hold onto powerful positions in government.
“The signs that impunity prevail are very visible – from the Marcoses and Martial Law implementor Juan Ponce Enrile, the non-arrest of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Gen. Jovito Palparan Jr., and Aquino’s promotion of torturers and abductors such as Gen. Eduardo Año,” she added.
Palabay said that the “Edsa 1 uprising is a cumulative articulation of the Filipino people’s aspirations against the Marcoses’ tyrannical rule, the utter disregard for human rights, the sheer greed of the society’s ruling class for money and power, and the hapless bludgeoning of the poor Filipinos into the mire of poverty.”
“Edsa 1’s most relevant and significant lesson teaches us that meaningful and thoroughgoing societal change does not mean the mere change in the names and faces of tyrants but the claim of the majority of the poor and marginalized Filipinos to the arduous struggle for human rights, justice, freedom and national democracy,” she concluded.