Page 26 - Hello Philippines December 2015 'B' ISSUE

24 www.hello-philippines.com
BOPeINyIOoNnd the bloodshed: The Aquino
administration’s socioeconomic rights violations
THE Aquino administration has the
duty to uphold, protect and promote
the human rights of all Filipinos. This is standards of physical and mental
the responsibility of every government.
The administration’s civil and
political rights violations are already
well-documented and widely known.
But it should be as well known that
that the Aquino administration is also
the biggest violator of economic, social
and cultural rights in the country.
After five years and nearing
the end of its term, the Aquino
government is directly accountable
for how the overwhelming majority
of Filipinos still struggle in chronically education and culture—are adequately
poor socioeconomic conditions. It
keeps the neoliberal “free market”
globalization policies that open the
economy to foreign plunder and
enrich a few oligarchs at the expense
of real economic development. And
more than that, it keeps pushing for
programs and international economic
deals that entrench and expand these
destructive policies.
International and domestic law.
There is a legal basis for the Filipino
people to hold the Aquino government
accountable. At the global level is the
International Bill of Human Rights
used by the United Nations. This has
three texts: the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (1948), the
International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (1966), and
the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (1966) and its two
optional protocols. The International
Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights is particularly relevant.
The ICESCR is approaching its
50th anniversary after being adopted
by the UN General Assembly on
December 16, 1966. It contains some
of the most significant international
legal provisions establishing economic,
social and cultural rights, including
rights relating to work in just and
favorable conditions, to social
Chinese, 2 others yield P30M
worth of shabu in Parañaque
AUTHORITIES have arrested a
Chinese and two other suspects
in a buy-bust operation that also
yielded 10 kilograms of suspected
shabu in Parañaque City, GMA’s
Marisol Abdurahman reported on
“Balitanghali” on Saturday.
In the report, Quezon City
Police District District Anti-Illegal
Drugs Chief C/Insp. Enrico Figueroa
estimated at P30 million the worth of
the seized contraband.
Figueroa admitted police
operatives had difficulty apprehending
protection, to an adequate standard
of living, to the highest attainable
health, to education, and to enjoyment
of the benefits of cultural freedom
and scientific progress. There are also
various other pertinent Conventions,
General Comments, and Resolutions.
International human rights law
declares the principle of protecting the
full range of human rights required for
people to have a full, free, safe, secure
and healthy life. It maintains that the
right to live a dignified life can never be international human rights treaties
attained unless all basic necessities of
life—work, food, housing, health care,
and equitably available to everyone.
The Philippines ratified the Covenant
without reservation on June 7, 1974
and thereby voluntarily undertook to
implement its norms and provisions.
At the national level is our own
1987 Constitution, which mandates
the government to promote the general
welfare of the Filipino people and to
enhance their socioeconomic rights.
There are for instance two important
provisions in Article XII on the National
Economy and Patrimony:
Section 1. The goals of the national
economy are a more equitable
distribution of opportunities, income
and wealth; a sustained increase in the
amount of goods and services produced
by the nation for the benefit of the
people; and an expanding productivity
as the key to raising the quality of life
for all, especially the underprivileged.
Section 6. The use of property bears
a social function and all economic
agents shall contribute to the common
good. Individuals and private groups,
including corporations, cooperatives,
and similar collective organizations,
shall have the right to own, establish and
operate economic enterprises, subject
to the duty of the State to promote
distributive justice and to intervene
when the common good so demands.
the members of the drug syndicate as
they kept on changing the venue of the
drug deal.
“Yun po ‘yung usapan na titingnan
muna nila ‘yung pera kung may pambili
tayo tsaka po nagkaroon ng kasunduan
na sa labas ng Quezon City ibibigay,”
Figueroa said.
Finally, the suspects agreed to have
the transaction in a location along
Macapagal Avenue, and authorities got
a chance to aprehend the suspects who
were on two vehicles.
“Organized na sila, may mga contact
NEWS
In other words, the 1987
Constitution recognizes that the
national economy exists to serve
the needs of the Filipino people and
that the government has the duty
to intervene when the common
good so requires. The ratification of
and the 1987 Constitution itself make
the Aquino administration accountable
to the Filipino people for, in effect, tens
of millions of rights violations.
Neoliberal socioeconomic
backwardness. The Filipino people have
a right to self-determination. However
pro-foreign investor and pro-oligarch
market-based policies have only
increased their control of the country’s
labor, agricultural and mineral
resources. They have exploited these
for their own profit to the detriment
of the national economy and the
welfare of the majority of the Filipino
people. Domestic manufacturing has
correspondingly fallen to its smallest
share of the economy in six decades
and agriculture to its smallest in the
country’s history. Foreign capital
meanwhile is at its largest share of the
economy and with more control over it
than ever before.
The Aquino administration’s
collaboration with the United
States government to make the
country compliant with the extreme
neoliberalism of the Trans-Pacific
Partnership agreement is particularly
alarming. The TPP membership
sought by the Aquino government will
surrender domestic policy-making to
big foreign economic powers especially
the US and Japan. The TPP promotes
the profit-seeking of the biggest
American, Japanese and other member
countries’ transnational corporations.
It does this by preventing countries
like the Philippines from implementing
the interventionist policies needed to
develop backward domestic economies
and protect the public welfare. It also
na rin sila hindi natin masabi basta
may mga contact sila na tumutulong
sa kanila. Marami pong ipapahamak
‘yung sampung kilo na yan, mga
kabataan natin,” he added.
The suspects identified as Chinese
national Yong Han Cai, Aira Raneses
and Jamil Lawi have denied the
allegations against them.
They are facing charges for
violation of the Comprehensive
Dangerous Drugs Act. n Andrei Medina /
LBG,GMA News / Published / December 12, 2015
/ 2:29 pm
December 2015 / Fortnightly – No. 24 • UK & Europe Edition
creates a legal system prioritizing
investor rights to their profits.
As it is, there are already more
unemployed and underemployed
Filipinos than at any time in the
country’s history -- by IBON’s estimates
at some 12.3 million in July 2015.
The economy is already many times
larger than in decades past but is only
creating the same or, in some years,
even less new jobs annually than
before. Record numbers of Filipinos are
driven overseas to find work and there
are now more deployments abroad
every day than new jobs created at
home.
The number of workers in non-
regular including contractual work
has risen to record highs. Around
half employment is in the informal
sector. These are among the reasons
why seven out of ten wage and salary
workers are earning less than or just
exactly the too low minimum wage.
These constitute an unprecedented
violation of the right to work.
Agrarian reform programs have
supposedly been implemented for
decades. Yet peasant organizations
estimate that at least 70 percent and
perhaps as much as 90 percent of
farmers are still landless, and that less policies of the Aquino administration
than a third of landowners still own
more than 80 percent of agricultural
land. The majority of farms in the
country likewise covering most of
the farm area remain under tenancy,
lease, and other forms of tenurial
arrangements.
Tens of millions of Filipinos are
then denied their right to an adequate
standard of living. At least two-thirds
or around 66 million Filipinos are poor
in trying to live off Php125 or much
less per day for all their food, shelter, rights. These include but go beyond
utilities, education, health, housing,
transportation and other needs. The
poorest one-fourth or 24 million
Filipinos struggle to subsist with just
Php52 or less per day. These include
the some 7.3 million poor families
who are denied their right to housing
and live in the squalor of urban slums
nationwide.
These most deprived and
vulnerable Filipinos are also denied
their right to health. The poorest half
of the population has the highest infant
mortality rates and maternal mortality
rates, while their access to water and
sanitation is many times worse than
that of the richest two-fifths of the
population.
Education, like other social services,
is being increasingly inaccessible
due to commercialization. Even with
the institutionalization of the K+12
program, entry to tertiary education
has become much too expensive
including that in state colleges and
universities. Instead of honing their
potential to the fullest through higher
education, high school graduates are
now being encouraged to join the army
of cheap laborers toiling for the global
market.
All these and so many other poor
socioeconomic outcomes go against
important Constitutional provisions
on the need for policies that promote
full employment, a rising standard of
living, provide adequate social services,
and an improved quality of life for all
(Art. II, Sec. 9), and social justice (Art.
II, Section 10).
Theyarethedirectresultofeconomic
and previous governments. The
cumulative impact of trade and
investment liberalization, privatization
and deregulation undermines the
realization of human rights while
systematically accumulating wealth in
the hands of a few.
Social, economic and political
deprivation and inequities are
exploding. At the same time, Filipinos
continue to wage their heroic struggles
for their economic, social and cultural
just finding work and making a living.
They are about building a society
where everyone can live a decent life
with dignity, where all have a chance
to develop to their fullest, and which is
free from exploitation and oppression.
The advance of these struggles are
what give cause for celebration as
International Human Rights day is
observed. n December 11, 2015 / 11:18 am