Human Rights Watch Utter Lack Credibility Endangers True Human Rights Vigilance

Human Rights Watch is now currently known in the Philippines as the go to organization when it comes to anti-Duterte propaganda.

This is chiefly because its Asia division researcher Carlos H. Conde is rabidly anti-Duterte, claiming to have investigated the human rights violations of Duterte and the Davao Death Squad.

But of what quality is Conde’s investigation? Shoddy at best.

In a recent “report” which was cited by GMA News TV and Rappler, Conde claims that the administration was doing very little in the area of protecting media workers from violence and threats.

However, this claim was not supported with actual interviews with the media workers who were victims of intimidation and violence.

I believe that Conde is being highly hypocritical with his concern for the media workers he cited in his report. I am betting that he didn’t even bother calling the victims and instead feasted on the details of their misfortune to make his quota of reports for the Human Rights Watch.

It may appear self-serving but being part of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security, I can attest to the fact that the task force is continually scanning for reports on violence perpetrated on media workers, immediately investigates these incidents, and even providing security whenever it is needed.

In fact, I’ll go as far as saying that the task force has responded to EACH AND EVERY SINGLE INCIDENT WHERE A MEDIA WORKER WAS THREATENED OR FELL VICTIM TO VIOLENCE.

We can substantiate this claim through cellphone bill records showing we talked with the victims, actual interviews with the victims or their family members, fuel bills or boarding passes as well as hotel receipts proving we traveled to meet with the victims, and other such proof of actual contact with media worker victims.

These actually form the basis for our bi-annual report to the President.

Moreover, the greater part of the task force’s job is to hasten the resolution of cases of media worker killings that were scarcely attended to by the Aquino administration.

I guess its just too much for Carlos Conde and Human Rights Watch to be fair and objective.

Senator Richard Gordon already cited Human Rights Watch as an “advocacy group that has to sustain its momentum so that resources can be provided to them.”

This is another way of saying that Human Rights Watch is the sort of organization that is under such immense pressure to justify its existence that people it will hire unscrupulous, unethical people like Conde to make up stories.

P. Farol

Writer.