MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government will present the country's position as the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UN WGEID) will examine more than 760 cases from 37 countries this week.
The Philippine delegation will be composed of officials from the Presidential Human Rights Committee, the Department of Justice and other agencies.
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The UN WGEID will hold its 117th session in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina from February 11 to 15.
The UN panel will look into cases of enforced and involuntary cases that occurred in the Philippines from 1975 to 2012, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Presidential Human Rights Committee Undersecretary Severo Catura, head of the Philippine delegation, will assure the UN panel that the government is sincere in ensuring "not only the protection of its people but also the accountability of law enforcement and security sectors."
The Philippine delegation will also present various domestic mechanisms that the administration is doing to address enforced or involuntary disappearances, according to Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Evan Garcia.
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Aside from the disappearances, the UN panel will also look into the country's international engagements, including the UN Human Rights Committee that monitors its compliance to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights.
"The Philippine Mission in Geneva, which regularly engages the WGEID, views this meeting as an important opportunity to engage UN human rights mechanisms, especially after the recent reelection of the Philippines to a fifth-term in the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) from 2019 to 2021," the DFA said in a statement.
The WGEID is one of the panels overseen by the UN HRC, with a purpose to help relatives of disappeared persons to determine the whereabouts of those who have disappeared.
The working group consists of five members that serve as experts "in their individual capacities, to examine questions relevant to enforced or involuntary disappearances of persons."
The members are Bernard Duhaime of Canada, Tae-Ung Baik of South Korea, Houria Es-Slami of Morocco, Luciano Hazan of Argentina and Henrikas Michevicius of Lithuania.
The meetings of the UN panel this week will be held in private but a press conference will be held after the last session on Friday.