{"id":10988,"date":"2025-03-17T00:55:42","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T23:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/?p=10988"},"modified":"2025-03-14T13:08:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T12:08:48","slug":"un-committee-reviews-philippines-human-rights-compliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/un-committee-reviews-philippines-human-rights-compliance\/","title":{"rendered":"UN Committee reviews Philippines\u2019 human rights compliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR<\/a>) reviewed the Philippines in the context of the seventh periodic report in Geneva on February 19, 2025, on the state of the country\u2019s compliance with economic, social, and cultural human rights standards.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Philippines ranked third globally for killings of human rights defenders,\u201d said<\/a> Asraf Caunhye, head of CESCR\u2019s Taskforce for the Philippines. Caunhye highlighted<\/a> the number of 305 human rights defenders who have been killed in the Philippines since 2016 (see<\/a> AMP 2024 Human Rights Report). He also pointed<\/a> out the widespread practice of so-called “red-tagging<\/a>,” where individuals, organizations and critics are falsely linked to insurgent groups or branded as \u201cterrorist.\u201d This tactic often results in harassment, violence, and, in many cases, murder.<\/p>\n

At the UN Committee session, experts asked<\/a> Philippine government officials about measures that are in place to ensure that those responsible for these crimes are prosecuted and sanctioned. Philippine delegation head Rosemarie Edillon said <\/a>her country\u2019s laws guarantee the protection and promotion of economic, social and cultural rights of the country\u2019s citizens. She added<\/a> that the Philippine government has launched its fourth Human Rights Plan, a roadmap for protecting and promoting human rights. \u201cPart of this emphasizes the country’s commitment to the CESCR Covenant,\u201d integrating human rights into national development, she said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, the Philippine government\u2019s legislative efforts have proven inadequate in addressing the underlying structural issues that perpetuate inequality. This was pointed out by Joseph Purugganan, Co-Director of Focus on the Global South<\/a>, who spoke<\/a> at the UN session on behalf of the delegation of Philippine civil society organizations. \u201cEconomic disparities persist, leaving a significant portion of the population unable to fully enjoy their basic rights to food, health, housing, and education\u201d, he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Purugganan called<\/a> attention to the \u201congoing attacks on human rights defenders and activists, particularly those involved in land rights struggles.\u201d Recent reports show<\/a> that the rise in mining projects has been escalating attacks on land and environmental defenders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the lifting of the mining moratorium by Duterte, the Marcos administration has approved mining permits and actively made efforts to further streamline mining applications. As a result, 349 mining permits were approved in 2023,\u201d said<\/a> Purugganan.<\/p>\n

Included in the tally of 305 human rights defenders killed were environmental defenders and anti-mining activists, many of them members of Indigenous Peoples communities defending<\/a> ancestral lands.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Photo \u24b8 Mathias Reding on Unsplash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) reviewed the Philippines in the context of the seventh periodic report in Geneva on February 19, 2025, on the state of the country\u2019s compliance with economic, social, and cultural human rights standards. \u201cThe Philippines ranked third globally for killings of human rights defenders,\u201d said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":6995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73,63,58,59,62,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aktuelles-en","category-human-rights-defenders","category-human-rights-news","category-internal-affairs","category-international-institutions","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10988"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11028,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10988\/revisions\/11028"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amp.ngo\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}