A global reversal for human rights!

Today is the 79th Cebu City Charter Day and that means there are no classes for all levels of public and private schools in Cebu City as it has been declared a special non-working holiday which means all offices in Cebu City will have no work today. The Cebu City government has lined up a series of activities today starting with a Mass at 7:30 a.m. at the Plaza Sugbo Grounds in front of City Hall.

This will be followed by a floral offering to the brass monument of Don Vicente Rama also in Plaza Sugbo. Rama is considered the Father of Cebu City for authoring the Commonwealth Act No. 58 which established Cebu City as a chartered city in 1936. The City of Cebu will also launch its newly-opened Children's Park in Barangay Pasil where the old Pasil Market used to stand. Then at 10:30 a.m. a ceremonial concrete pouring will also be held at the site of the new Cebu City Medical Center building. This will be followed by a testimonial dinner at the Radisson Blu to recognize outstanding individuals and institutions by the City of Cebu.

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Amnesty International, that human rights organization based in London, has blamed US President Donald Trump and our very own Pres. Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte for contributing to a global pushback against human rights. Also named in this list are Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. So Pres. Duterte is in good company! Of course AI did not mention nations like Saudi Arabia and Yemen for its own Human Rights violations, especially against women.

If AI was thorough in its research, they should have chastised the previous Aquino Regime for allowing the Philippines to become a narco state during his six-year reign. This situation cannot be denied, more so that top Philippine National Police officials close to the Aquino Regime were tagged as "protectors" of the illegal drug trade. While it chastises the Duterte administration for its human rights violations, AI failed to recognize that in just 8 months in power, the Philippines achieved a 50 percent drop in crime, something that previous administrations failed to address.

But on the other hand, AI is merely helping its friend, former human rights chairwoman and now Senator Leila de Lima whom they insist is being politically harassed by the Duterte administration. But then Salil Shetty, AI's secretary general, also lashed out at France for using its emergency powers to arrest more than 600 potential terrorists.

AI's Shetty said France used its emergency powers introduced in 2015 in the wake of terror attacks in an abusive and "deeply discriminatory" manner, confining more than 600 people, mostly Muslims, under house arrest and banning more than 140 protests. "Even states that once claimed to champion rights abroad are now too busy rolling back human rights at home to hold others to account."

What is clear in AI's 408-page Annual Report for the Year 2016 titled "The State of the World's Human Rights" that they collated in 159 countries is that many governments have turned a blind eye to war crimes, pushed through with deals that undermine the right to claim asylum and passed laws that violate free expression. At least here in the Philippines we still have a free press, where more often than not, even the mainstream media would allow fake news to be published, which of course they later retract.

Of course AI doesn't even mention what the Abu Sayyaf has been doing in Basilan or Sulu or that the Philippine government went out of its way to sit down with the leaders of the Communist underground movement to talk peace with their leaders in Rome. Yet when the New People's Army withdrew its unilateral ceasefire agreement, it resumed its terrorist attacks against the soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

I gathered from news reports that the White House refused to comment on this AI report and I suggest that the Duterte administration should also refrain from responding to this "one-sided" report. At this point, AI should do a study why there is a global reversal by governments with regards to the human rights of their people. Of course I would like to believe that world terrorism by ISIS terrorists are to be blamed for this.

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