On June 30, 2020, Fr. Christian Buenafe, O.Carm., presented an oral intervention during the Interactive Dialogue on the report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the widespread violations human rights and persistent impunity in the Philippines during the 44th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva”The OHCHR has confirmed the systematic and widespread violations of human rights, specially the deprivation of the right to life that continued even amidst one of the most severe lockdowns imposed in any country,” Fr. Buenafe said.
Fr. Buenafe, who chairs the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP), a mission partner of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (AMRSP), said that in the three months of the lockdown, they monitored 153 cases of human rights violations “ranging from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment to extra-judicial killings.”
He highlighted the case of Sr. Mary John Mananzan, a Benedictine nun who is a survivor and a veteran of the Marcos dictatorship, and Mr. Ritz Lee Santos III, executive director of Balaod-Mindanao, who were red-tagged by the government. Sr. Mananzan, 80, was red-tagged by Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy who in a Facebook post described her as a “Catholic nun given a place of honor in a communist terrorist organization.”
In the report of the UN Human Rights experts it said: “The human rights situation in the Philippines has now reached a level of gravity requiring a robust intervention by the UN. The Human Rights Council must do everything in its power to prevent the continuation of widespread and systematic human rights abuses against the Philippines (sic) people.”
The UN Human Rights experts urged the Human Rights Council to: 1. Establish an on-the-ground international investigation into the human rights situation in the Philippines; 2. Strengthen the OHCHR mandate to continue its monitoring and reporting on the human rights violations in the Philippines; and 3. Call on the ICC to expedite and prioritize the completion of its preliminary examination of the situation in the Philippines.
“We implore the Council to heed the recommendation of the OHCHR and establish a commission of inquiry,” Fr. Buenafe said.
“It will be a gigantic step forward in our common quest for accountability and justice,” he adds.
Fr. Buenafe is convenor of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation- Social Action Commission of the Order of Carmelites in the Philippines and a member of the International General Commission on Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation of the Order of Carmelites. (By Ritche T. Salgado, O.Carm.)