Are “human rights” advocates pangit (“ugly”) as Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte asserts? It’s an interesting question considering that the “human rights” advocacy was once unanimously lauded as a beautiful initiative in Philippine society. This was back in the days when “fighting for human rights” was fashionable in the Philippiens — long long ago in 1986 when it was clear to Filipinos who the bad guy was.
The Philippines of 2016 — three decades after that “revolution” — is different. Filipinos are suffering from a weariness and abject cynicism after spending the last 30 years watching as successive governments — and the Catholic-educated elites who backed them — paid mere lip service to the notion of “human rights”. Indeed, ask the ordinary Filipino whether theirs is a society that enjoys more “human rights” today than it did back in 1986 and you’d likely get no more than a shrug or a bit of head-scratching in response.
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It becomes difficult to subscribe to the fashion statements of organisations like the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) or the chants of so-called “activists” at the picket lines when you see the likes of Fidel Ramos and Juan Ponce Enrile at the top of the Philippines’ food chain. These two are the alleged architects of former President Ferdinand Marcos’s “Martial Law regime”. Yet today, instead of being tainted with infamy, Ramos and Enrile are celebrated statesmen.
You gotta hand it to Filipino politicians. They have a talent for scraping off erstwhile indelible stains off their moral fabric. Ramos and Enrile should both win gold medals in the Teflon Olympics! Then again, is it a talent on the politician’s part? Or is it a phenomenon that lends itself to Filipinos’ famously-selective historical amnesia? The answer is quite obvious.
And so, you just gotta laugh. “Human rights” in the Philippines has become no more than a quaint punchline as Duterte demonstrates following a meeting with newly-crowned Miss International Kylie Verzosa during his official visit to Japan…
Of course, I am happy. I am always happy if our beautiful women win all the titles. Kasi Pilipino tayo, it gives us konting hambog. […] Parang mayabang tayo. Kita mo, magaganda mga Pilipina. Pero kayong lahat diyan sa Human Rights Commission, mga pangit.
C’mon. You gotta admit that was funny — specially considering the faces of the CHR that come to mind, right?
Duterte, as President of the Philippines, simply follows a storied tradition of top statesmen and heads of state issuing even more withering snipes. Here is an example of the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at one of his finest:
Lady Astor to Churchill: “Winston, if you were my husband I would flavour your coffee with poison”
Churchill: “Madam, if I were your husband, I would drink it”
* * *
Filipinos have decided that they have no use for “human rights” — at least not the brand of “human rights” hatched by Candlestick Park hippies in the 1960s and, now, peddled by obsolete agencies like the CHR to Third World suckers half a planet away in the age of social media (ironic, right?).
I might propose that a new activism be built around this simple slogan:
TAKE BACK HUMAN RIGHTS.
Specifically, take it back from the Commission on Human Rights and fashion it into something relevant to Filipinos. Perhaps when that happens, we will finally see Fidel Ramos and Juan Ponce Enrile where they ought to be spending their remaining years — in prison.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
In fairness to Enrile, he is daring them all human rights advocates head on, while they try to dodge him instead. Apparently, they would rather that whatever sins could be attributed to Enrile and Ramos, these are all erased and transferred to Marcos.
Not until the real story of EDSA86 would come out, on how Enrile and Ramos were forced to breakaway, all sins of those power holders below Marcos would be carried by Marcos forever and ever, Amen. ! lol
Nah! Not anymore. The people had awaken, they now know who the real bad guys are.
Human rights as it is viewed by advocates as similar to torture, disappearances, kidnapping, extra judicial killings whereas violations such as plunder, graft and corrupt practices play a deeper CHR violations as hunger, deprivations and lack of opportunity to advance their economic well being leading them to a life of crime e.g. prostitution, thieveries, murders and drugs, ironically advocates present state punitive actions against criminal offenders as constituting human right violations forgetting the rights of innocent civilian victims of these criminals. Policemen and soldiers get killed in the performance of their duties but no single howl of protest is heard from these advocates, criminals are more protected by the so called Human rightists. Correct?
Kailangan pa bang i-memorize yan huli mong sinabi ? LOL
FVR & Enrile is really a human rights abusers. They’re even orchestrate the Mendiola Massacre way back in 1987 & none of them filed a lawsuit from CHR before. And this is the reason why the CPP-NPA founder JoMa Sison went to exile in Netherlands after that incident.
https://youtu.be/tztm5NlNYyg
It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.
AT LAST, SOMEONE HERE AT GRP PROPOSE’S WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN TO JUAN PONCE ENRILE, HE BELONGS AT THE END OF A NOOSE OR A DANK PRISON CELL.
The fact that this scumbag has not been hanged,exiled, or just flat-out whacked speaks to the idiocy of the Filipino masses. The guy is nothing but a corrupt-as-corrupt-gets scumbag politician who has played both ends against the middle for so long that he should have been burned at the stake long ago, but Filipio’s are too fuckin stoopid and nerve-less to do so.
Fidel Ramos and Juan Ponce Enrile are both accountable for any Human Rights violations, during the Marcos Martial Law years !
I will not comment more. Fidel Ramos is now “tepok”…let the dead Rest in Peace !
May the merciful God, have mercy on his soul !
I extend my condolence to his family; to his survivors. May God give you peace, in your time of grief !
@ 565Hyden007Toro9999.999 I am sorry but I do not know what you mean by “Fidel Ramos is now “tepok”. I have not read any news or heard or saw on TV that Ramos is dead already.
Please explain or elaborate what you mean.
probably in 2 or 3 years from now FVR will die because of his heart ailment & pneumonia.
The only thing left is Juan Ponce Enrile which is now 92 years old, still alive, healthy & feeding the pork barrel onto his body. Damn, when will that Manong gonna die? Will he still live till 100? Then he’ll get the Guinness Book of World Records for the oldest corrupt politician in the world! Wow, another “Pinoy Pride” that makes you puke.
@Ngek Ngek :
I read some Internet News…maybe…some kind of vicious Joke…If Fidel Ramos is still alive. Then, anybody can Drag him out and torture him, for his crimes during Martial Law ! Together, with Enrile…these two people have been the Chief Torturer of Marcos, Sr. ! Let us make them pay for their crimes !
I’m glad this man has become irrelevant in the Filipino society. When he speaks, wala na akong naririnig..
Fidel Ramos is an obsolete U.S. equipment…he had served his U.S. masters well, by selling us to the U.S. business interests, by being a U.S./C.I.A. agent…
He tries again to serve his U.S. /C.I.A. masters. However, times have changed. He is no longer a Potent Political Force in the Philippines. A sort of fading politician…a has been !
GRP admins. I’d like to suggest you guys make an App for either Android or iOS.
How about the new Ramos/Enrile in the making? Shillanes is the name of another accomplished decepticon. He is the perfect replacement for the dynamic duo deceivers who had been haunting this politically ill plagued nation.
His latest innuendo that more than 10 senators were not happy with the way DU30 is running the show implies that he was the official soundboard of the senate. He should know better that DU30 is not here to make the senators happy. A first class shill indeed!
Shillanes and that Delimaw are the great duo to take their place. These pieces of shit are another kind of special in terms of being arch nemeses to truth and political integrity.
Pro-Marcos Loyalists should deny Human Rights. So be it.
Another red herring comment, not to mention that you didn’t include Ramos and Enrile in this since they’re part of it.
I just want to tell you that Marcos had no human rights atrocities from 1965 to 1971. Cory Aquino’s first year and the Mendiola Massacre happened. And don’t tell me that it was orchestrated by Marcos, etc. Reply back and you’re proving that you’re a troll. 🙂