Statements

LAW DELAYED, RIGHT DENIED. IMPUNITY PERSISTS. (On the Right to Information)

Forty years since the imposition of Martial Law by President Ferdinand Marcos, still all the victims of those dark years of repression and gross violations of human rights are not accounted for. The denial that there are violations of human rights, particularly Marcos’ statement that “no one but no one has been tortured”, is perpetuated to this day.

Until today, there is no disclosure of the whereabouts and fates of the involuntarily disappeared, of the perpetrators of massacres, extra-judicial killings, torture, rape and other gross violations of human rights during that period.

Marcos, with coercive forces, ruled on the dispensation of truth and information. It was also a dispensation that meant life or death. Within that rule, impunity persisted.

And impunity persists to this day,

Despite

The State obligation to promote and protect the inalienable right to know the truth about violations as re-stated in the U.N. Updated Principles to Combat Impunity;

the 1987 Philippine Constitution Art. III, Section 7, stating “The right of the people to information on matters of public concern shall be recognized”, there is no enabling law;

the continuing experiences of lack of disclosure and transparency in many actions among government and security personnel and institutions;

development plans that consequently breeds corruption and puts in jeopardy sources of subsistence, livelihoods and lives of persons and communities;

abetted by

personal interests and excuses of skewed political Party lines over the progressive realization of the larger freedom of information;

an already 14-year delay to enact a law that would contribute to ending impunity.

The Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA) holds

Representative Ben Evardone for his schemes to delay hearings of his Committee,
Acquiesced by the Aquino administration,

Contributory to the consequent impunity of human rights violations and crimes committed due to the absence of a meaningful law on the Freedom of Information.

A delayed law is a right denied.

Pass the Bill on the Right to Information now.