Complaints on violent demolitions filed before UN

MANILA, Philippines - Philippine human rights organizations have filed complaints before the United Nations regarding violent demolitions and arbitrary detention under the Aquino administration.

The Philippine Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Watch, an ecumenical delegation of Philippine human rights organizations and advocates that engages in the UPR process of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), capped their activities in Geneva, Switzerland on March 14 by filing complaints before the offices of UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing Raquel Rolnik and Working Group on Arbitrary Detention chair Malick Sow on the continuous rights violations.

Speaking in behalf of Demolition Watch Network (DWN), a group of urban poor leaders and advocates for rights to decent housing and livelihood, the group lamented the “intensified violent evictions of residents in urban poor communities in the Philippines and the continuing violations on the right to adequate housing and other human rights.”

“Under the new administration of President Aquino, DWN documented more than 50 incidents of violent eviction of homes in Metro Manila alone, from 19 communities and affecting more than 16,000 families. Thousands of families were left homeless and jobless, millions worth of livelihood and properties were destroyed and many children stopped schooling and were traumatized,” said Nardy Sabino, secretary-general of the Promotion for Church People’s Response and convener of Philippines UPR Watch.

Sabino cited recent cases of violent evictions in Barangay Corazon de Jesus, San Juan City and communities along the Philippine National Railway site, where hundreds of police personnel and demolition teams were deployed to disperse and arrest residents and supporters asserting their right to tenure in the areas where they live.

“These evictions are being conducted to pave the way for so-called development projects, but these only resulted to increase in the number of poor Filipinos who are forced to live on the streets and become homeless. They live in makeshift tents, as small as animal cages, with no water and electricity,” Sabino said.

Sr. Stella Matutina OSB of Panalipdan, Mindanao said along with violent demolitions and violation of the rights to decent and adequate housing, there are continuous occurrences of arbitrary arrests and detention of individuals and activists.

The group filed complaints on the cases of artist Ericson Acosta and film student Maricon Montajes before the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, among the 347 political prisoners (as of Dec. 31, 2011) who were arrested and are currently detained.

The mission also conducted several activities to call for the support of the international community to press the government to step up its efforts for the immediate arrest of retired major general Jovito Palparan Jr.

“It has been three months since the warrant of arrest was issued against Palparan and as he remains scot-free, he continues to insult the victims by remaining at large. Palparan, by evading arrest, also mocks and makes a fool of the P-Noy government,” said Cristina Palabay, spokesperson of Karapatan.

The delegation also distributed and showed a wanted poster of Palparan during their activities in the 19th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The group met and briefed various foreign diplomatic missions and international NGOs based in Geneva as well as representatives of UN human rights special procedures and the Filipino migrant community on the state of human rights in the Philippines.

The Philippines will be subjected to the second cycle of the UPR on May 28 to June 3, 2012.