KISSACK, YOU ARE GONE. LONG YOU WILL LIVE.

Last night, we paid tribute to a fine young man who has gone to the West: Atty. Kissack Batong Gabaen. He was known for his staunch defense of human rights especially of indigenous peoples. People came from as far as Palawan to express admiration for this great man. Yes, he had personal flaws, but no one can question his track record as an activist and his dedication to stand up for the marginalized and oppressed and to fight for justice.

In his lifetime, I was blessed to have him as a brother, friend, and comrade all rolled into one. We handled human rights cases together. We participated in the human rights education of communities together. He counted me as one of his mentors. During our two last speaking engagements as a team, one in the Benguet State University and another before a community in Ifugao, he publicly acknowledged me as his mentor. On both occasions, I thanked him for the honorable attribution which I found humbling. But actually, I am now his mentee. His life of service to the people is worth drawing inspiration from.

The last time we saw him conscious was on June 28. I told him jokingly, "Kissack, NUPL-National has a meeting today and I committed to be there (This was true.). But today, something was telling me this might be my last time to see you like this so I chose to be with you and asked Edre Olalia to excuse me." (As an aside, I also sent a message to Grace Saguinsin explaining my non-attendance. I told Grace my inner fear: That Kissack might give up the ghost). He laughed and said, "Aye, I will outlive you."

The next time I saw him on June 30, he was comatose in the ICU. I told him, "Wake up. Today, the man you vigorously campaigned for took his oath as President. Change is coming. Let us help Duterte. Wake up and pay your dues to your children. Watch them grow up. Wake up. There is still a lot we need to do." His partner, Shen, exclaimed weeping, "Look, his tears are rolling." I really hope he heard me.

I am physically alive. Kissack is now a cold, hard body which will be cremated at 9:30 AM tomorrow. But he is a memory, too. He is a beautiful, powerful memory that will indeed outlive me. The things we do for the weak and oppressed in the name of justice, the things we do for humanity will stay in the memory of the present and the future---bigger than us, more than us. They will inspire people, they will inspire movements. Today. Tomorrow. They will change the world.

Today, we say our final goodbyes to him.

Au revoir, Atty. Kissack Gabaen, President, National Union of Peoples Lawyers-Baguio. Long shall you live.

A LETTER ON DUTERTE FROM A FRIEND IN AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL AND MY RESPONSE

Now, I can reveal this.

Last 24 March 2016, a month after I wrote my Why Rody Duterte article which would eventually become viral, I received an email from a friend expressing his disconcert over my support for Rody Digong Duterte.

My friend is an Amnesty International leader based in the USA who, along with some others I count as friends, has been working indefatigably on human rights issues in the Philippines for decades dating as far back as the Martial Law Years. These people put up the Ecumenical Advocacy Network on the Philippines (EANP). Among the members are Prof. Tim McGloin and his wife, Linda, Prof. Paul Bloom of Amnesty International and his wife Meg Layese who is also President of the Philippine Study Group of Minnesota, Gary King who is Group 37 Leader of Amnesty International, Brian Campbell, and John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. I know how sincere and dedicated EANP is in watching actions of the US government that have an impact on human rights in the Philippines.

In 2013, I joined them in lobbying the US Congress to reduce if not eliminate its aid to the Armed Forces of the Philippines because of human rights violations the AFP committed -by itself or through paramilitaries- especially against indigenous and environmental activists. They asked me to articulate indigenous issues to offices of Representatives and Senators of the US Congress which I did. The efforts of EANP paid off. This was the same group that asked the Lantos Commission to look into the human rights record of the Arroyo administration with the same call to review the military aid. Hearings were conducted by the Commission. Since 2012, the group has been lobbying that the Commission would convene again to look into the human rights record of the Philippines and to give a critical look into its military aids to the government. They also sent Pres. Aquino a signed petition published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer to stop the X-strata Mining in Tampakan. On my request, they sent a letter to the Korean government to stop the Korean Exim Bank from lending P9B for the Jalaur Megadam Project which would displace the indigenous Jalaudnon-Bukidnon. Because of this and efforts of the mass movement of which Jey Aye Alenciaga, John Warner Carag, and Malaya Pinas are part, a fact-finding mission was launched to look into the concerns of the affected indigenous community. They also worked to stop the possibility of Pres. Aquino being given the Nobel.

I am so proud to have been working with EANP and hope to continue doing so in the future.

Anyway, my friend must have been very disappointed in me when he learned I was supporting the Mayor of Davao City. This was his email:

Chyt, I thank you for the plan about a counter-petition to prevent ‘injustice’ in the case of Palparan. He clearly has been a monster, and has motivated many persons in the military, paramilitary and government to torture, murder, (and) (d)isappear people.

I have sent it to my usual 250 friends who do Amnesty International work on the Philippines. Numerous ones have told me they signed the petition you sent.

I have heard you support Duterte. We know about 800 persons murdered by the Davao Death Squads. And he made horrid statements in the past endorsing and promoting it. Conceivably, this rate of murder is comparable to the sins of Palparan himself. And then they started in Cebu City, another 200 murdered.

Has Duterte said anything of repentance, and a desire to deliver law and order without EJE? If there is no change of his heart, I fear he will allow paramilitary groups to thrive, and death squads will proliferate.

Why can we expect these things to diminish under Duterte?

Warm Regards,

xxx”

As soon as I read the mail, I replied:

Hi, Xxxx,

How are you?

We really do find ourselves in a difficult position. I do support Duterte and I am not the only one from the left... I must be breaking your hearts but do hear me out.

We are aware of Duterte's HR record. We will always condemn him for that and will continue trying to make him account. But we are also aware- and have personal knowledge-- that he has a track record of supporting sectors we represent. I do know that he has been supporting the Lumads and has always been one with them in rejecting corporate plunder of indigenous resources. There are almost a thousand evacuees in the UCCP Haran Compound right now. They were internally displaced by the AFP and paramilitaries acting for extractive corporations, some of which are supporting Roxas. Duterte and his family are very protective of the Lumads. Sr. Stella Matutina, the Redemptorist nun given a German recognition for her HR work last year, told me that Duterte's family are giving logistical support to the evacuees and have been rallying local business to contribute to their daily needs. This was confirmed by Cong. Karlos Ysagani Zarate of Bayan Muna and other Mindanao fellow HR workers. What is more, he has consistently opposed US military presence in Mindanao and rejected drone testing. And only he has a clear stand on the coco levy funds--give them to the farmers.

The other candidates do not have the same positions; neither a heart for IPs and basic sectors whose issues we passionately stand for and feel strongly about. Roxas is too oligarchic and too pro-mining. Binay is too corrupt which Duterte is not known to be. Poe is supported by Danding Cojuangco. She already announced she would make Col Ariel Querubin, a San Miguel officer, a cabinet official. She said she would open the Philippine economy to foreign ownership. She promised to appoint PNoy as anti-corruption czar. Claims that she is PNoy's other anointed is not hard for me to believe.

Duterte did kill hundreds. This is not right. But at least- and this is not to defend him-- he did not kill activists from the left unlike Palparan. His death squads do not touch the progressive groups. He seems to limit his bloodlust to his perceived criminals. We fear Duterte's death squad but what about PNoy's and the mining sector's paramilitaries? I believe Roxas will not deviate from PNoy's policy on paramilitaries. Shall I support Binay just because he has no paramilitaries? Shall I support Poe for the same reasons?

Moreover, since the 1990s, Duterte has been working with labor organizations (though I do note what he said about KMU). He is actually credited for many Davao initiatives on women, LGBT, children, and other vulnerable sectors. And it is a fact that he donated an inherited property to the government for the construction of a children's hospice. I know people who attest to his simplicity. Yes, he is a man of contradictions: a man with an iron fist but he is also a man with a soft heart.

For me, personally, choosing to support Duterte was not an easy one to make. I cannot vote for the three others. I have hopes that Duterte will make life less harsh for the Lumads and ease the country from corporate stranglehold. I could be wrong. But I have hopes that this man, despite his flawed character, is not as bad a choice as the others.

“I hope you understand my decision.

Find here my statement issued last February explaining why I decided to go for Duterte. I entertained the idea beginning 2013 when it looked like only he was speaking for the Lumads, and while my mind was then made up, I was ready to be flexible should a better or less bad candidate run. The alternatives then were Roxas and Binay. None of the above. Poe? No , because I have not heard her say anything about IPs. In my statement below, I spared Poe from diatribes out of respect for others in the progressive left who support her.

Best regards,

Chyt

Well, Duterte won by a landslide. I still have to hear from my friend. I know he will never stop fighting to protect human rights in the Philippines and other parts of the world. I know EANP will never rest.

Here I am, very elated that my candidate won. Those days of speaking in caucuses and rallies and other meetings to promote Duterte’s candidacy have contributed even if little to Duterte’s victory. For that, I, as the millions of others who fought for his candidacy despite all odds, claim the right to be part of his conscience, to speak out when he deviates from respect for human rights, and to stand by him when he eases the burden of the impoverished, toiling masses.

I have high hopes in the incoming presidency. I, however, do not believe that elections will fundamentally change things. The mass movement, the different sectors, and the new President must work together to dismantle the oppressive structures.

I hope my friend will eventually tell me, “Chyt, you made the right choice.”

NOT AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN.

Kicker Daily news reported that Imelda Marcos says she wants her son, Bongbong, to serve the Philippines "like his father."

Omigosh, omigosh. Not again. Never again.

Who wants a return to the bleak winter of human rights in the Philippines that covered two decades?

There will be blood on the streets. The only sound will be the thud of bodies falling after a long day protesting social injustice. And before the blood of the fallen will dry, more fresh blood will flow like a river. Silence will become the norm.

There will be massive hunger despite the opulence of the very few. Bongbong will be fishing into the pocket of the national treasury as if it is the pocket of his trousers.

Everyday, everywhere in the Philippines, everyone will be experiencing the terrors the indigenous peoples in Mindanao and elsewhere are facing right now.

No to Bongbong Marcos!

Imelda says she wants Bongbong to serve PH “like his father”

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Marcus V

Photo Credit: SCMP

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• Former first lady says she believes her son can reach the top someday
• Her son learned a lot from his father, she says
• Bongbong earlier said his mother was disappointed in his decision to run only for VP

MANILA, Philippines – Call it a mother’s intuition, but former First Lady Imelda Marcos believes her son Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has what it takes to become president someday.

“Of course, we can only pray that he makes it so that he will have the privilege to serve the Filipino like his father,” she told GMA News.

She was seen accompanying her son to file his certificate of candidacy on Tuesday but did not go inside the COMELEC building due to the crowd.

Imelda earlier defended her husband’s regime as one of the country’s best eras ever and said her son learned a lot from his parents.

“I want him to to be able to serve the country and benefit the country,” she said. “I think he has the potential there and after all he was 21 years in Malacañang and he saw how his father and mother were dedicated to the Philippines and to the Filipino people, and that was the best time we had in our history.”

The senator himself said his mother was disappointed by his decision to run only for vice president.

“She’s wanted me to become president since I was three years old. Imagine how disappointed she was,” he said.

Nevertheless, the son and namesake of the late dictator also vowed to return the country to its former glory.

In filing his certificate of candidacy on Tuesday, the senator also noted how he was the seventh person to have filed his COC.

“I was told that when I filed my COC that I am the seventh person to file, so the lucky number 7’s still there for us Marcoses,” he said. “I think it’s a good omen.”

The late strongman believed in numerology and frequently pointed to the number 7 as his lucky number.

MARGIN OF APPRECIATION UNDER THE EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

by: CHERYL L. DAYTEC

        Litigation is fallible. As the satirist Ambrose Bierce defined it, it is “a machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.” Yet, in dealing with difficult issues involving human rights  calling for political judgment, it is still the best adversarial process there is, short of a revolution or political upheaval. None superior or less inferior to it has been contrived yet.

The adoption by the Strasbourg organs of the doctrine of  margin of appreciation  is not so much  an acknowledgment that “litigation is not the best procedure for dealing with matters of political judgment”[1] as it is a recognition of the fact that it is vulnerable  to flaws. Supranational bodies concerned with international human rights adjudication are confronted with similar  issues  with similar if not identical factual backdrops involving various  states.  Yet, this does not mean that they will  resolve all  cases by the same token. It may happen that  the political, socio-economic or cultural substructures of  similar issues raised against states are  each peculiar on its own.  To treat these unequally circumstanced states equally  is to discriminate.

Having said this, I agree  that “decisions about human rights are not a technical exercise in interpreting texts, but judgments about political morality.”[2] As a general rule, in exercising judicial review, it is not the province of courts to inquire into the wisdom of acts of sovereignty, otherwise they end up supplanting it.  But to observe metes and bounds set by the   political question doctrine  which is a bar to interpretation in domestic settings  is to give states an argument with which to legitimize human rights abuses. The obvious compromise is the application of the  margin of appreciation doctrine under which  supranational courts will scrutinize the necessity of the use of  a coercive measure or the derogation from obligations  or limitation of fundamental rights by states on the basis of the political morality thereof.

If decisions were about legal hermeneutics, supranational bodies can just pull the wool over their  eyes and invoke the doctrine of stare decisis.  In principle,  this doctrine is not controlling but in practical terms, there is nothing that stops them from citing precedents. Considering the volume of decided cases,  texts of human rights conventions have  been  construed in every possible way. Interpretations that may appear conflicting  lend credence to the fact that human rights conventions are living instruments.  Their interpretations insofar as   balancing  polarities created by  divergent interests in  a political community is evolving   with  the socio-political milieu. They are much  larger   than their  texts. Beyond cavil then, international human rights adjudication is not about expertise in text interpretation  because expertise cannot  be achieved when the meaning of a text is  ambulant, i.e.,  it is never final. What may be mastered is the science or art of judging the political morality of acts of states involving the use of coercive power.

In deferring to a state’s political judgment on a matter involving sensitive cultural, religious or national issues, a supra-national human rights court must not compromise universal values of morality. This is the lowest level it should go to. Otherwise, it becomes  a toothless body, shaved of its relevance in humanity’s unending struggle  to protect inalienable rights.  As  foundationalists argue,   “political morality is derived from  universal, immutable first principles that can be apprehended by rational reflection,”[3] which is not a faint echo of Yash Ghai’s assertion that human nature is universal, knowable by reason.[4]

For example, a state with a debt-ridden economy needs to generate revenues. After resorting to taxation, the national treasury remains cash-strapped. It has “white elephant” assets, the maintenance of which is further eating a sizable chunk of the national budget. To pave the way for mining as  source of revenue, it  expropriates the remaining  ancestral domains of indigenous peoples over the latter’s objection. The said domains are their source of livelihood, culture base and sacred grounds. Most of indigenous territories have been taken over  by the state in the past for development projects in the name of national interest.   The expected revenues from mining will pay part of the state’s debt and provide the much needed funds for  the state’s operation.  The state offers compensation beyond the properties’  fair market value to the affected peoples.  Is the act of expropriating the indigenous territories  politically moral?

 If I were the supranational court, I would rule that the state’s action is indefensible. Under Art. 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in no case may a people be deprived of their means of subsistence,  an immutable principle. The taking of ancestral lands deprives the indigenous peoples of their means of subsistence. The act is tantamount to  cultural genocide  as indigenous peoples are attached to their land, divorced from which they become culturally extinct. Balanced against the  national interest sought to be served, which may be addressed through the sale of idle assets, the  taking of these peoples’ ancestral domains has far more onerous consequences and is politically immoral, infringing on the non-derogable right to life.   

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[1] A.H. Robertson and J.G. Merrils. Human Rights in Europe. Manchester-New York, Manchester University Press, 1966, p. 190

[2] Ibid., p. 204

[3] Amstutz, Mark. International Ethics: Concepts, Theories, and Cases in Global Politics. Lanham: Rowland and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.; p. 12

[4] Yash Gai. “Universalism and Relativism: Human Rights as a Framework for Negotiating Interethnic Claims” in  21 Cardozo Law Review (1999-2000),  p.1096.

ALMOST HALF A CENTURY SINCE CHE'S MURDER...

Humanity’s Misery for Sale

by: Cheryl L. Daytec

The compradors imprecated your fiery rhetoric

Scorning avarice that empties famine’s belly

Indicting  thirst  that lusts after  plebeian  sweat

Yes, even enslaved blood from  chocked veins

You drew lines of parity - no rich, no poor

Just humanity  eating  from the same plate

To each based on penury; from each, on gift

You preached that one’s  labor must liberate

The precariat  from  helotry to  Wall Street

On that cruel day, one hundred souls vanished

By the ruthless hands of the butler of greed

Korda’s camera arrested your pain and rage

Framed between a silhouette and a palm tree

Now frozen for the world to see… everywhere

To those who heard the clarion call, it is the face

Of  deep love for the masses who are also oneself

The face that speaks indignation  against  injustice

Against oligarchs bestriding  borders as fictions of law  

To reach last frontiers beneath the feet of first peoples

The  gold fever afflicting them does not come down

They eat  what they steal, and get even  hungrier

As their bursting patrician pockets get deeper

To the naïve and nescient, a movie icon’s face

Or, perhaps, a heavy metal band’s sex symbol

In thoughtful contemplation of the next show

To capital, nothing is sacred; even God is cash

Comrade Che, you would not believe me if  I say

Today, I saw your face on T-shirts and bikinis

Offered at  altars of the golden calf on high streets

Of Bangkok, of Manila, of London, of San Salvador

Of New York, of Sidney, of Beijing, of  Pretoria

Your enemy keeps the contours of your face  alive

Flouting the fire and  faith that resided in your soul

A cursed  thief  to sell humanity’s desolate visage

Poetry: CHILD SOLDIER

(Kathlea Francynn Gawani Yangot, my 12-year old 7th grader, came home today from school, the Philippine Science High School, and told me about a powerful documentary her class watched.  It is about the civil war in Sudan where children were its helpless casualties, she said. I told her I wrote a poem about child soldiers and promised to share it.  Here it is. CLDY)

Child Soldier

By: Cheryl L. Daytec-Yangot

Thousands of children are serving as soldiers in armed conflicts around the world. These boys and girls, some as as young as 8-years-old, serve in government forces and armed opposition groups. They may fight on the front lines, participate in suicide missions, and act as spies, messengers, or lookouts. Girls may be forced into sexual slavery. Many are abducted or recruited by force, while others join out of desperation, believing that armed groups offer their best chance for survival. 

                 -Human Rights Watch, 2013

He is only  ten according to  his birth records

But if we measure the thickness of the steel  

his  heart became, if we count the people he

mangled or killed, he  already died.  Old age.

He is that man holding a Galil. You’re younger

but he was  never your age. You fell in love; you

were not born while missiles were shaking the

fields. His  mother wept  at the miracle of his

life  in the midst of perdition. Hope. Not like

his  father’s -lived by the gun, died by the gun

Alas, out of her womb, he was not  her child  

Jolted by bombs while suckling from her breast –

became  too heavy for a  mother’s arms. Learned

to hate  before he could learn to smile. Look at his

eyes:  hollow, bloodthirsty. You ask, does he know  

there is a world where  music fills the empty

spaces in the air? Did he have half  a chance? He

heard nothing but  violence sending grounds

and the nights  quaking,  razing homes, sinking

mountains. He got deaf,  seen more: the heinous

face of  death in everyone he could  have loved

if he had your fortune. Got blind.  Got lost in the

loss of  innocence as  soldiers were pouring poison

in  rivers,  raping girls and women. He fires his

Galil; how the oppressors roar with vile pleasure.

He is one of them, but he does not know- for he

knows nothing, not even his beliefs. He is  part

of their loot. You see, as always, war is business

He is too old. Mothers say he will not grow old.