On the Occasion of the First National Educators’ Congress on Human Rights Education

Philippine International Convention Center, Pasay City
7 December 2009

delivered by

LEILA M. DE LIMA
Chairperson

OPENING AND WELCOME REMARKS

To our honored guest and keynote speaker, Ms. Jacqueline Badcock, our United Nations Resident Coordinator, my colleagues and co-workers in the Commission on Human Rights, to our distinguished colleagues in public service from the Office of the President, Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Philippine National Police, all our partners in human rights education from the Philippine Public Safety College, National Defense College of the Philippines, and our friends from media, civil society and people's organizations, good morning and welcome to the 1 st National Educators Congress on Human Rights Education.

Our gathering today marks many milestones in the history of promoting human rights. We commemorate the 61 st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and celebrate the 22 nd National Human Rights Consciousness Week. We also mark the end of Phase I of the World Programme for Human Rights Education and the beginning of the Phase II. The milestones we commemorate are indicative of the longevity and timelessness of human rights as a distinct quality of the modern world. Human rights is the language of our time.

The 22 nd National Human Rights Consciousness Week in particular is an occasion that strikes a chord with the Filipino people. Twenty-two years ago we first asserted the importance of human rights consciousness. Twenty-two years ago also came the creation of the Commission on Human Rights, ingrained in a Philippine Constitution drafted at the heels of a revolution that overcame our country's greatest challenge to human rights – a dictatorship that dealt us widespread oppression and a vile taste of martial law. Our 22-year old Constitution itself was a tremendous assertion of our people's resolve to foster human rights and social justice and oppose oppression, the most outstanding characteristics of the times. These were meant to be galvanized in the Filipino psyche back then, 22-years ago, as they are still meant to be in the hearts and minds of every Filipino now.

Twenty-two years forward, we had seen many human rights themes in every chapter of our history since the birth of our Constitution. We had seen the great struggle to fend off threats to the fragility of a new government amidst coup d'etat after coup d'etat. We had seen the ebb and flow of vigilantism, the resurgence of the insurgencies and the revival of old political elites. We had witnessed the enormous effort to evict foreign military bases. We had seen some of the most devastating calamities to hit the country, like the great earthquake of 1990, the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo all the way to Typhoon Ondoy of 2009. We have seen the eager drive to be an emerging economy, and to stave off an energy crisis. We have heard resounding rhetoric to uplift the impoverished and the continuing, tremendous effort to address poverty and hunger. Finally, we have seen battles of attrition to combat the most brazen and the most pedestrian forms of corruption.

Through all these themes, time and again, we have been tested in how deeply we understand, how outwardly we revere our human rights. In the face of every challenge, there comes the familiar moment we found ourselves in during the turbulent days at the close of the Marcos regime – whether or not we can step forward and stand up for our human rights.

Time and again we are tested, as we are now tested yet again in 2009.

What was it like to have young children back in 1986? How did we explain to them the concepts of freedom, oppression and the value of human rights against the backdrop of such massive social upheaval?

The question is significant now because the same children back in 1986 are parents now, wrangling to explain to their children the significance of human rights in the aftermath of the Maguindanao Massacre. Young parents, who were too young to fully comprehend the Marcos regime martial law declaration, must now also wrangle to explain to their children its latest incarnation.

And just as our society moves forward and historical themes progress from chapter to chapter, we are faced with the generational significance to teaching and re-teaching our human rights. We are faced with the importance of ensuring that our children now are fully equipped and fully aware of the dastardly significance of the devilish carnage in Maguindanao, so that they may carry with them to the next generation of Filipinos, the same revulsion we've felt now, and the same revulsion that generations previous had felt at every instance of affronts to human rights.

Human rights sentiment has had a very long history in the Philippines , but successfully educating Filipinos does not. Human rights sentiment waxes and wanes, as if it were found in some hidden recess of the Filipino psyche, called to the foreground when we remember to do so. Where we go through long stretches of indifference to human rights, a generation will come and will be caught off guard when the next human rights catastrophe looms, then strikes. A generation will come and will struggle to explain and understand human rights in the context of their present circumstances.

This is why the National Educators Congress on Human Rights, the first version of it, and may I add, an event that is overdue, is of grave importance now. In order for our children and the people-at-large to better understand current events with serious human rights repercussions, there is a need to re-establish a collective, Filipino memory of our long struggles for human rights. We need all Filipinos to remember, if not past incidents of violence, of oppression or of martial law, at least the lessons that came with them. We need to ensure that our children and all sectors have a constantly lengthening memory of human rights significance, and not merely a waxing and waning recollection.

Human Rights Education and Training plays a vital role in promoting and protecting human rights, fighting discrimination, and promoting equality. These are the most basic principles of human rights and they are not only timeless values, but also recurring challenges to the Filipino people.

HR Education not only helps us to understand what our country had lived through in the past, it also constantly builds upon and improves a Filipino culture of human rights, where everyone respects and protects each other’s human rights and feels empowered to demand their own rights. It leads to better protection of human rights, where the people are ever vigilant and the duty bearers, and that’s us, better understand the significant roles they play in full human rights protection.

The partnerships we have from the international community, and the solidarity between various agencies are as vital as the need to be unrelenting, unwavering and ever-vigilant in fostering human rights education as our contribution to bringing the entire country to the side of human rights protection. As we look back together at all the milestones in human rights protection, celebrating our successes and assessing where we had been frail, we are also at the cusp of future milestones in human rights for Filipinos everywhere.

Your enthusiastic participation and valuable insights you can share, on how we may move forward with the implementation of the Decade for Human Rights Education and the World Programme in the Philippines , are deeply appreciated. So much more must be done, not only to educate people on human rights, not only to bring a better understanding of the human rights crises that beset us now, such as the Maguindanao Massacre, the revival of Martial Law, corruption, disaster management, displacement of informal settlers and a host of other. We need to ensure that someday we can establish that collective Filipino psyche that never forgets human rights crises and never forgets past lessons in human rights. We need to ensure that someday, we can teach the Filipino people, our children, our institutions and through the people-at-large, to effectively prevent descent into human rights crises through the strength of our foundations in human rights, and through a revived and permanent resolve to forever guard our human rights.