Churches vow help for human rights victims

ILOILO CITY, Philippines  – At least 100 representatives from the different churches in Western Visayas have gathered in this city for a forum where they committed to help the families of human rights victims get justice and to end the impunity.

The forum, sponsored by the Promotion of Church People’s Response, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) and the Panay Alliance-Karapatan, was held last Thursday at the UCCP in Jaro district of this city.

The participants came from the UCCP, the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), the Baptist Church, seminarians from St.Paul’s Seminary of Guimaras, and members of Gabriela, Courage, League Filipino Students and Panay Alliance-Karapatan.

Bishop Reuel Norman Marigza, secretary general of UCCP, said that as a human rights advocate he was among the church personalities who brought the campaign against extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances to the attention of the international community during the Gloria Arroyo regime.

The UCCP was the first entity to file a class suit against former President Arroyo, said Marigza.

The bishop also disclosed that as of Thursday, under the present government of President Benigno Aquino III, there were already 76 victims of extrajudicial killings and nine victims of enforced disappearances

Marigza said that during the conduct of the periodic review at the Geneva, which was attended by the victims’ family and human rights advocates like Karapatan, it was proven that the Aquino government was futile to stop the extra judicial killings and that the culture of impunity still exists in the country.