Category — Press Releases

18 September 2009

Dear President Arroyo,

Your visit to London aims to discuss economic development in the Philippines. We do not believe that there can be any meaningful economic progress if the human rights of Filipino citizens are violated.

Madame President, you are the head of a state which stands accused of perpetrating and rewarding political killings, disappearances, torture, and the violation of basic human rights. This situation has been investigated and documented by numerous United Nations bodies as well as human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and the World Council of Churches. [Read more →]

Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines (CHRP) Press Release

Thursday 17 September 2009 (Embargoed until Friday 18 September 2009)

Campaign for Human Rights in the Philippines (CHRP), an independent British-based human rights group, will protest alongside concerned members of the Filipino community on Friday, 18 September 2009, as the Philippine President, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, delivers a keynote conference speech in London. President Arroyo is speaking at a conference sponsored by the Economist, whose central theme is emerging markets. She is expected to highlight economic growth in the Philippine economy.

However, the Reverend Canon Barry Naylor, Urban Canon of the Abbey and Holy Spirit Team Ministries in Leicester and President of CHRP, in an open letter to the president, noted “we do not believe that there can be any meaningful economic progress if the human rights of Filipino citizens are violated.” Canon Naylor lambasted Arroyo for being a head of state which stands accused of perpetrating and rewarding political killings, disappearances, torture and the violation of basic human rights. [Read more →]

KMP Press Release

27 July 2009

REFERENCE: ROY MORILLA, KMP Public Information Officer (63-905-421- 7305)

The militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement of the Philippines) claimed that the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’ s eight years of seating in power only brought worsening landlessness, death due to human rights violations and poverty highlighted by the rice crisis under her term. [Read more →]

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT

23 July 2009

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo must leave a positive legacy of human rights for the peoples of the Philippines during her last ten months in office, Amnesty International said today. On 27 July, she will give her final State of the Nation Address after nine years as president. At the same time a pervasive culture of impunity for human rights violations throughout the country persists, and hundreds of thousands of people continue to be displaced in Mindanao.

In the last eight years, hundreds of unlawful and often politically-motivated killings have taken place as well as enforced disappearances, often involving torture. [Read more →]

Bayan News Release

9 May 2009

The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan today supported the findings of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Killings Philip Alston that the Arroyo government has failed to make “substantial progress” in addressing killings and other human rights abuses. The group called for a stop to foreign aid for the Arroyo government, especially military aid, in the light of the human rights situation in the Philippines.

“The single most glaring proof that the Arroyo government has failed to make perpetrators of human rights abuses accountable is the case of Gen. Jovito Palparan. The Arroyo government has offered him several government posts in the past. The government failed to prosecute him despite credible findings by the Melo Commission, the Court of Appeals and Alston himself,” said Bayan secretary general Renato M. Reyes, Jr. [Read more →]