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Bayview Park Hotel, Manila, Philippines,
23 October 2009
OPENING MESSAGE
delivered by
LEILA M. DE LIMA
Chairperson
Good afternoon.
The search for the root causes of torture and other forms of violence must be an exploration of an alternative view of violence that is not limited by the conventional linear perception of historical progress. The alternative view contends that one cannot consider the development of any particular piece of the modern world in isolation or in a vacuum. Rather, the entire breadth of the modern world is the result of a web of interconnected events, each one consisting of a person or group acting for reasons of their own motivations with no concept of the final, modern result of what either their or their contemporaries' actions finally led to. The interplay of the results of these isolated events is what drives development, history and innovation. In our discourse on torture, the same interplay is what we hope to map out – the interconnectedness of events that pave the way for the perpetuation, and end of torture.
In the world of human rights, it has become readily clear that torture that persists today is not so much the result of an active force that continues to develop methods of torture as it is a failure to recognize both the causes of it and our means to combat it. Inflicting pain and employing coercion are such base and basic attributes of man which require little purposefulness for it to subsist. Torture subsists not because mankind had developed it, unlike engagements in developing technology, commerce, governance and an entire spectrum of human endeavors. Rather, it exists because we have not found a way to successfully curb it.
The question before us now is how far have we come in developing our map of interconnections to torture. This week's seminar is an invitation to explore well beyond our basic responses to torture itself, such as punishment of those who carry it out, and our methods of prevention such as systems monitoring and inspections. We must look further than the common suspects, such as state security forces. We must look further than the usual methods of redress, such as the courts and the justice system. We must now examine where torture is found on a non-linear web of factors that contribute to its perpetuation.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights paved the way to both the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). What was clear from the very beginning is that the two conventions are inseparable, and that there can be no protection of one set of rights while there is derogation of the other. More relevant to our discussions this week, it has grown more apparent that the protection of the right against torture or the right to the integrity of one's person, is intertwined so tightly with the rights under the ICESCR. Thus, it is impossible to develop a lasting solution to torture without developing equally lasting solutions to other rights.
From the case database of the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP), it is not difficult to determine that a great number of victims of torture are those who are marginalized in their economic, social and cultural rights. In addition, those who assert these rights in their own behalf or that of others are also subjected to ill-treatment and torture. Worse, torture is inflicted in violent displays of denial of these rights. Incidence of torture, thus, is not merely a function of our ability to monitor, prevent or punish torture itself – it is a function of our ability to monitor, prevent and punish a great number of other rights violations. The web is larger than the scope of our measures against torture.
Here in the Philippines , the entire human rights community awaits with bated breath the signing into law of the anti-torture bill, as laboriously worked on by the House and Senate Committees on Human Rights, with substantive inputs from the CHRP and the NGOs.
There are a number of high-profile cases in our country that illustrate the connection of economic, social and cultural rights with torture, violence and ill-treatment. The Abadilla 5 case is illustrative of the propensity of state security forces for employing torture to obtain confessions. The five accused have found their conviction upheld despite evidence that they had been tortured.
The case of the Manalo brothers, peasant farmers, who were abducted allegedly by the military, and subjected to torture, tell tales of the impunity by which the crime was perpetrated against them. After the escape and surfacing of the Manalo brothers, the country had witnessed yet another test to the measures installed to combat torture – the rules on the Writ of Amparo.
The Manalo brothers made reference to two female University of the Philippines students who had been allegedly abducted also in relation to their activity with people's organizations. In gruesome detail, the story tells of such depraved assaults upon their dignity. Up to now, the Empeño and Cadapan case is still one of missing persons, and could possibly be one of searching for corpses.
The recent case of Melissa Roxas, a Bayan advocate, is subject of a full-blown investigation by the Commission, clearly illustrating that even those who work for the defense of human rights are also alleged targets of torture. The CHRP’s investigation of the case of Muhammad Diya Hamja, an alleged terrorist who was purportedly “arrested” and then tortured, reveals very patent systemic defects in the handling and treatment of alleged suspected terrorists by state security forces, including the intel community. The abduction, rape, torture and the killing of Rebelyn Pitao, a daughter of a rebel commander, remain a mystery.
[Even in non-torture cases, the marginalized are target of violence and ill-treatment nonetheless. The continuing case of a foreign mining company at odds with the local indigenous population, illustrates how state security forces may take a bias against the marginalized. The Commission has been investigating the complicity of the police in the violent dispersal of a protest to the demolition of homes of residents in areas subject to a mining claim.]
The need to examine a wider base of causes for torture in a scheme of inter-related rights underscores the urgency of a more comprehensive approach to combating the persistence of torture. Torture is best addressed in an atmosphere of far-reaching human rights thought, and the protections against it must seep into a vast space of various rights.
Just last week, Manfred Nowak, a top UN investigator on torture, expressed the need to draft an entirely new and separate convention for the rights of detainees. It is in the confines of detention where the violation of a host of rights creates a medium for the violation of the right against torture as well. Torture, according to Nowak, is not primarily the fate of political prisoners as most victims of it, along with arbitrary detention, inhuman conditions of detention, are ordinary people usually belonging to the most disadvantaged sectors. Once again, when we speak of disadvantaged, we inevitably speak of marginalization of economic, social and cultural rights.
Our endeavor, incidentally, comes at the time of Prisoners' Awareness and Protection Month. Many more protections require much more effort on the parts of human rights advocates in relation to detainees. For example, the 2010 National Elections will be the first time that detainees will be allowed to exercise their right of suffrage. But their right to vote is just one of many rights that must be protected, the right to habitable detention conditions not being the least of them.
While prisoners and detainees are generally exposed to the dangers of torture, special attention must be made to prisoners who are not documented, detained in undisclosed detention facilities or who are abducted, not arrested, by state security forces. They face not only the danger of being tortured, but the unbridled wrath of detaining authorities, who are beyond any limitation set by law by the mere secrecy of the detention. Indeed, what code of conduct applies to detaining authorities when there is no means of detecting illegal confinements?
There are many more areas to explore beyond cases of torture and beyond detention facilities. The profiling of torture victims alone is a challenge enough in itself, but the remedies and interventions that correspond to the profiles based on a matrix of marginalization under economic, social and cultural rights is an enormous test to our persistence. Yet if the final solution to torture is to be found in a remarkably vast effort of protecting a multitude of rights, then it requires nothing less than our own remarkable effort.
The exploration of the root causes of torture in violations of the ICESCR requires a very comprehensive and multifarious examination. For this reason, I am very hopeful that the shared experiences of our participants from China, Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines, will result in the expansion of views, test the limits of our conventional thinking and bring about ingenious insights on how we can compound our current solutions which directly torture with parallel ones which address interrelated ESCR rights. Similarities in histories of political independence, economic growth and development, religion and cultural ties, make for a very Asian perspective on our effort at broadening our understanding torture as persists in the modern world. There is so much to learn from each other and so much to share in our unitary effort in placing an end to the scourge of torture.
To our perennial supporters from the international community, the European Commission, headed by Ambassador Alistair Macdonald, and the UNDP, represented by Ms Jacqueline Badcock, thank you for your unwavering support for the cause of human rights. It is through invaluable partnerships that our quest for human right protection remains unflagging and hopeful.
To our organizers, the OMCT or World Organization Against Torture and PAHRA, the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines will always be a steadfast ally in your mission. Thank you.
Finally to our participants from all over Asia , we welcome you with the hope that our combined efforts and insights pave the way for a meaningful development of human rights thought on torture as it afflicts our peoples. The web of interconnected rights, interspersed violations and interlocking remedies are not beyond the reach of solidarity and singularity of our purpose and partnerships.
To all of you, thank you and good day.