She Be the Judge: U.S.
Women Lawyers Slam Arroyo Gov’t
The women lawyers
from the U.S. who recently conducted a legal mission to probe the reported
political persecution and human rights violations against women in the
Philippines found “the government’s response to be purely perfunctory,
insignificant and calculatedly confusing.”
BY REYNA MAE TABBADA
Bulatlat
A group of American
women lawyers, belonging to different socio-civic organizations such as
the Center for Constitutional Rights, National Lawyers Guild and
International Association of Democratic Laywers, recently conducted a
legal mission in the country to probe political persecution, repression
and human rights violations against women in the Philippines.
Sponsored by GABRIELA
and Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP), their mission had as one of its
highlights a forum titled “Asserting Civil and Political Rights Amid the
U.S. War on Terror” with the Counsels for the Defense of Liberties (CODAL)
and UP Portia Sorority wherein the four women lawyers discussed their own
experiences in battling human rights violations in their homeland as well
as their observations on the state of abuses that hound the country.
Judging Arroyo
In their press
statement dated May 31, 2006, the four U.S. lawyers – Tina Monshipour
Foster (Center for Constitutional Rights), Rachel Lederman (National
Lawyers Guild), Vanessa Katherine Lucas (National Lawyers Guild) and
Merrilyn Onisko (National Lawyers Guild, International Association of
Democratic Lawyers) – shared the incidents of abuse and repression that
they had and their judgments regarding such matters.
The all-women
lawyers’ group was able to know first hand the stories of human rights
victims and their families, examine the charges made against the Batasan
6, and be informed of the response of the Philippine government on
extrajudicial killings and political persecution.
The conclusion and
analysis that the group gave mirror the same widespread speculation of the
Arroyo administration’s indifference to the extrajudicial killings and
political persecution prevalent nowadays, wherein as of May 2006 there
were more than 600 political killings. They said that “we find the
government’s response to be purely perfunctory, insignificant and
calculatedly confusing.” Also, the evidence in the case of the Batasan 6,
a group of party-list representatives who are hounded by charges of
rebellion, are “baseless and violative of provisions in the Philippine
Constitution and international instruments ratified by the Philippine
government.”
Terror comes full
circle
In the said forum
held at the Balay Kalinaw at the University of the Philippines (UP) in
Diliman, Quezon City last May 31, the four woman lawyers shared their own
encounters of human rights violations and political persecution and
repression.
For instance, Foster
serves as legal counsel of several detainees in US military facilities,
including those in Guantanamo which she specifically discussed. Though her
group’s efforts did not win popular support at first, the tides changed
when photos from Abu Ghraib (a U.S. military facility in Iraq) showing
abuses committed by U.S. military personnel that on June 2004 the Supreme
Court ruled that the U.S. has jurisdiction to hear cases of abuse in
Guantanamo.
After Foster’s
testimony, Lederman imparted her feat in serving justice to victims of
police misdemeanor by winning a million-dollar lawsuit against the city of
San Francisco, with 60 people sharing $1.5 million, and forcing the police
to rewrite their policy on crowd control. The San Francisco Bay Area is
the center of anti-war sentiments and where demonstrations against the
so-called war on terror take place.
On the other hand,
Lucas handles labor, employment and civil rights cases of immigrants, and
lamented that there is less outrage with what is going on with our civil
liberties. She also pointed out the dangers of the proposed Immigration
Bill in her country wherein there would be militarization of borders and
that those who are going to give service to the immigrants, even the
church, would be considered criminals.
Last to speak from
the visiting lawyers was Onisko who had extensive experience in civil
rights cases in the Middle East. She was able to witness the situation of
Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. As an unsolicited advise, she said that
victims of civil rights violations here should get representation from the
United Nations and let the situation here be known.
Other participants in
the forum were lawyers Vicky Avena and Neri Colmenares, both from CODAL.
Avena is a professor at the UP
College of Law while Colmenares is
the spokesperson of CODAL and an associate of the Asian Law Center.
Quiet democracy
Before the forum, a
press conference was held with GWP’s Rep. Liza Maza of the Gabriela
Women’s Party and its secretary-general Emmi de Jesus. The all-women
lawyers group expressed their intention to question their country’s
pouring of military support as they seek the support of international
venues like the U.N. “to ensure that those who have made violations of
human, civil, and political rights for the people in the Philippines be
held accountable”.
The audience asked
them for recommendations in responding to such violations, and they said
that laws should be followed and treaties such as the Comprehensive
Agreement on the Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian
Law (CARHRIHL). They also introduced the Oplan Bantay Laya, placing
stress on the lack of concern in distinguishing between combatants and
non-combatants in war zones.
When asked about what
more the country can do in its continued effort to oust Arroyo, they said
that we should stop being a “quiet democracy” with Foster concluding that
our best instrument for such struggle would be our “ability to spread the
word on what the Arroyo administration is doing.” Bulatlat
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