A Bill of Rights Is Essential to Protect Citizens from Their Government - Essay Example

A BILL OF RIGHTS IS ESSENTIAL TO PROTECT CITIZENS FROM THEIR GOVERNMENT Introduction Two decades ago in 1986, the world watched in awe as the Filipino people rose as one to topple the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, a regime best known for large-scale plunder and gross human rights violations. The 1973 Constitution, notorious for legitimizing Marcos’ reign of terror, was replaced with the 1987 Constitution, ratified by a euphoric population, freed at last from the bondage of dictatorship. The clear bias towards human rights and civil liberties reflects the desire for a freer Republic and a just and humane government. Unfortunately, this desire has yet to be realized. Recent developments in the Philippines have put this Southeast Asian country in the news and have garnered the attention of the international community once more. This involves the spate of killings of activists and journalists by unknown elements alleged to be connected with the military. (Amnesty International, 2005, p. 202) According to the non-government organization KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights) (2006), there have been 607 documented killings from January 2001 to May 30, 2006. Amnesty International, the European Union and the Catholic Church have each spoken out against the government to condemn these acts of politically-motivated state-sponsored executions. This paper will examine whether or not a bill of rights, standing alone, is enough to protect the people from the excesses of government and it will use the current Philippine problem of extra-judicial killings as background. It will argue that the defense of sovereignty -- and, as a corollary to that, internal security -- is not enough to justify the use of state-sponsored repression. Body The phenomenon of state-sponsored oppression is by no means unique to the Philippines. It has in fact been extensively researched and discussed all over the world. Says Mitchell and McCormick (1988, p. 476) Governments organize police forces and armies to protect their citizens, build schools and hospitals to educate and care for them, and provide financial assistance for the old and unemployed. But governments also kill, torture and imprison their citizens. This dark side of government knows no geographic, economic, ideological or political boundary. Such killings and torture demonstrate grave violations of political rights and liberties. It has been opined that political rights and liberties are of paramount importance because of their impact on other rights, such as social and economic rights (Bollen, 1986, p. 567). The universal condemnation of state-sponsored repression is due in large part the globalised ideal of human rights, where we see a whittling down of the concept of sovereignty in favor of the acceptance of international norms of human rights. As stated by Douzinas, (2002) “the New Times, after the collapse of Communism has elevated human rights as a central principle.” The primacy of the State is the core principle of the international legal regime as it is traditionally known. This, however, has been challenged by the alarming rise of state-sponsored human rights violations that has prodded the community of nations to recognize that its more pressing duty is to protect the individual from systemic and institutional atrocity, even at the expense of its legal fictions. To quote from Hersch Lauterpacht, in his article International Law and Human Rights (1950, p. 70), An international legal system which aims at effectively safeguarding human freedom in all its aspects is no longer an abstraction. It is as real as man’s interest in the guarantee and the preservation of his inalienable rights as a rational and moral being. International law, which has excelled in punctilious insistence on the respect owed by one sovereign State to another, henceforth acknowledges the sovereignty of man. For fundamental human rights are superior to the law of the sovereign State. This is the theory that this paper will espouse, therefore, in its analysis of the current Philippine situation. The Philippine government cannot take cover in its avowed declarations of sovereignty because the human rights card – in its universal and pure conception – trumps all else. This becomes even more glaring in a situation where what we have is a failed state. In the Philippines, what has been witnessed in the last years is an internal security approach founded on the state’s attempt to dominate and subjugate critical socio-political forces (first option). Its guiding principle is precisely to “do harm”. It incorporates the usual military operations against communist guerillas operating in the countryside. Such an approach relies heavily on the Philippine army whose marching orders are to clear, hold and consolidate (the latter now entailing the participation of state welfare agencies in what effectively is a lopsided application of a “comprehensive approach”). Reports of de facto curfews, arbitrary searches, harassment, imposition of the cedula, mopping up operations but also elsewhere reflect that the classic counter-insurgency approach of draining the fish of its water continues. To suffocate the fish, the water is contained, drained or rendered unable to resist military pressure. These methods have been referred to as “collective impact measures.” As we have seen, this type of measures intends to hurt the populace in order to render them submissive, not really to finish them off. A local resident who gets killed in the process is seen as collateral damage to the intent. Collective impact measures also function as “collective punishment”. Residents are scolded, chided, threatened for acts deemed sympathetic to the enemy. Residents are beseeched and courted, entertained with songs and sexy dancers in exchange for their sympathies. They are urged to speak out despite the asymmetry in the situation: unarmed, poor farmers facing fully armed lieutenants, colonels and generals. And when they do speak out, and complain of abuses of government soldiers, they are reprimanded. They become the brunt of displaced aggression, the easy target of traumatized soldiers faced with elusive “enemies.” The unprecedented high number of killings of political activists associated with national democratic organizations in compressed time is part of this “collective punishment” frame. The extrajudicial killings we have seen share the same features of rural community-based counter-guerilla warfare: indiscriminate or dismissive of the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, and clouded by “hate language” and demonization of the enemy. A slight difference is that the killings are somewhat disguised, they are not done by men in military uniform, and are individual or tandem acts, whereas the usual counter-insurgency is marked by troops descending in communities who seek security and cover in numbers. The killings’ desired impact is the same: fear, paralysis, scuttling of the organizational network, albeit not just in the local but the national sense. The goal is to break the political infrastructure of the movement whose good showing in the past election (under the party list system) and corresponding access to pork barrel funds and a public platform, were, from the point of view of the anti-communist state, alarming. National politics is after all the bigger pond where the fish swim. But here, the instructions are straight to the point: kill the fish. In this power-based approach manifested in collective punitive measures, victory is easy to measure. One is through body count: how many dead and wounded? Another is through weapons count: how many weapons seized? And finally, how many communities, organizations, people neutralized? This brings into fore the specter of not just a weak state but a disintegrating, failing state, one where governance (led by whomever) increasingly becomes unstable and short-sighted, and reforms impossible. The prospects of a failed state result from the features of the post-Marcos state that we have inherited, worse off in its fracturedness and the frankensteins that were born out of the Marcos period -- and how our political elites have selfishly played their games in this situation. It is the bigger context where the wanton use of state violence by both civilian and political leaders, and the military’s privileged role in national security and national politics have become even more ominous. What is a failed state? Rotberg (2004, p.1) describes it as one marked by enduring violence, though not necessarily always of high level of intensity. It is tense, deeply conflicted, dangerous and contested bitterly by warring factions, with varieties of civil unrest and two or more insurgencies, different degrees of communal discontent and other forms of dissent directed against it and at groups within it. Parts of the territory, notably the peripheral regions, are not under its control. There is high level of physical insecurity among citizens, thus they are armed or they join rebel groups. The society endures a high level of criminal violence, and delivery of socio-economic goods is limited. Its institutions are flawed; its infrastructure, deteriorating or destroyed. (Coronel-Ferrer, 2006) In a situation such as this, the argument of sovereignty becomes even less tenable. For indeed, how can a failed state invoke sovereignty? How can a failed state make the case for internal security, when in fact, its political systems are largely insecure and vulnerable to internal fluctuations? While there is adherence to democratic ideals and principles in theory, this is not done in practice and on the ground. ((Co, Tigno, Lao, Sayo; 2005, foreword). Conclusion In conclusion, though a country has a bill of rights to protect the government from its citizens, such laws are rendered meaningless when situated against a backdrop wherein the elements of a failed state are present and when the citizens are disempowered and disenfranchised. To quote from Duavit (2005, 327): A Constitution, no matter how good and perfect, offers no instant cure for a sick society. The Constitution may adopt constitutional principles designed to achieve revolutionary changes that will benefit the many who are poor; it may set the primary goals of society and provide the instrumentalities to achieve these goals. But it must lean heavily on the people themselves for the attainment of its objectives. It is imperative to work for a sustainable change founded on human rights and dignity – or a peace process alongside pursuit of specific reforms. Human rights are inherently universal and must be so in practice. (Howard, 1995, p1) There are key critical areas where state reforms are needed and where we should spread out and simultaneously intervene: reform of our electoral institutions and processes; reform of the security sector (cleansing and professionalization of the military and police); enhancing governance processes (depoliticization and upgrading of the bureaucracy) , strengthening of local governments leading to greater autonomy; and putting more resources in the educational system so that education is provided for all, and it is the kind of education where the values of human rights and peace are at the core. REFERENCES Amnesty International Report 2005: The State of the World’s Human Rights. 2005. United Kingdom: Amnesty International Publications. Bollen, K.A. 1986. ‘Political Rights and Political Liberties in Nations: An Evaluation of Human Rights Measures, 1950 to 1984.’ Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 567-591. Co, E., Tigno, J., Lao, M.E., & Sayo, M. 2005. Philippine Democracy Assessment: Free and Fair Elections and the Democratic Role of Political Parties. Manila: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. Coronel-Ferrer, M. 2006. ‘On Political Violence’. Forum on Violence Against Movements, Movements Against Violence. pp. 1-12. Douzinas, C. 2002. ‘The End(s) of Human Rights.’ Melbourne University Law Review. Vol. 23. p. 43. Duavit, G.M. 2006. Wayward Politics: Revolutions and Constitutions. Rizal: Guronasyon Foundation, Inc. Howard, R.E. 1995. ‘Human Rights and the Search for Community’. Journal of Peace Research. Vol. 32. No. 1. pp. 1-8. Lauterpacht, H. 1950. International Law and Human Rights. Connecticut: Archon Books. Mitchell, N.J. and McCormick, J.M. 1988, ‘Economic and Political Explanations of Human Rights Violations’, World Politics, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 476-498. Rotberg, R. 2004. When States Fail: Causes and Consequences. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Read More