| 8 September 2010 |
| Church leaders share publicly their north American mission |
Ms. Sharon Rose Joy Ruiz-Duremdes, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and Bishop Eliezer Pascua, General Secretary of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines returned to the Philippines early this week from the North America, where they went to popularize the issue of human rights violations in the country, as part of a church-led nine-member delegation.
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The other members of the Philippine delegation proceeded to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva to do the same.
Ms. Ruiz-Duremdes and Bishop Pascua held a press conference on 21 March, to publicly share the activities of the delegates in North America.
In Canada, though the House of Commons is in recess, the delegates individually spoke to Members of Parliament (MPs) to encourage them to give a strong statement about the extra-judicial killings in the Philippines. The MPs seem to be keen in responding to the issue. In the United States, they presented the report, “Let the Stones Cry Out: An Ecumenical Report on Human Rights in the Philippines” in the International Conference on Human Rights in the Philippines. They also attended a hearing before the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee headed by Senator Barbara Boxer. At the hearing, the team urged the Foreign Relations Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives to urge the Philippine Government to stop the killings, bring perpetrators to justice and to rescind labeling human rights activists as “enemies of the state”.
In the press conference, they reiterated these calls because there has been too many who have been killed. According to Bishop Pascua, “One life is too many and we are talking about hundreds here since 2001.” Because of the apparent culture of impunity under which these human rights violations happen, Ms. Ruiz-Duremdes rhetorically asked, “Does the government really have the political will or the sincerity to investigate?” Hence, they reiterated the call to create an independent body to investigate these extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances and other human rights violations.
In response to a reporter’s question regarding the position or the lack thereof of the opposition block running for the May 2007 Senatorial elections on the spate of extra-judicial killings, Bishop. Pascua said that he is “dismayed by the opposition for not carrying the issue of political killings.” Ms. Ruiz-Duremdes adds that the political killings will not stop especially with the coming elections. She went on to share a quote from the statement of Eugene Martin of the United States Institute for Peace. This statement was submitted to the Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for its hearing on the state of human rights in the Philippines. According to Martin, Philippine National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzalez said on 8 March 2007 that “such candidates (political left) must not be allowed to win seats in congress”. Ms. Ruiz-Duremdes points out that this is the reason for what they did to Rep. Satur Ocampo. Satur Ocampo was arrested for allegedly giving the orders to murder 15 communist cadres in a purge during the 1980s. This charge is absurd because at the time when that happened, Satur Ocampo was in prison.
The trip to North America accomplished to put the human rights issues in the Philippines in the consciousness of the international community. Church leaders in the Philippines continue to hope and pray that through their efforts as well as the pressure coming from the international community, the Philippine government will address this issue and the killings will cease.
Katrina Divina S. de la Cruz
21 March 2007
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