Please send this to all your classmates.

Good Day to all This is your assignment in Legal Philiopsophy/Intl Human Rights Law and Intl Humanitarian law and Refugee laws 1. Make a well written (legible and well explained) comment or stand on the present state of Human Rights in the Philippines in the context of: a. Extra judicial killings b. MILF/ABU SAYAF/NPA-initiated ambushes c. Syndicates victimizing innocent people 2. Wars and violent regimes primordially cause displacements of citizens in a country where the vulnerable sectors are the women and children and elderly. You are invited by the United Nations to present Platforms and Strategies in dealing With the needs of these displaced people or refugees. Deadline will be on October 31 via email. Thanx

http://www.observatori.org/paises/pais_63/documentos/asa350032009en.pdf
n war, truth is the first casualty. (Aeschylus [525 BC - 456 BC]) It is unfortunate that Aeschyluss words still ring true today as they did in the 5th century BC. For when truth becomes a casualty of strife, can anything remain sacrosanct? The Philippines may not be technically at war. But for almost 40 years now, it has been home to one of the most tenacious insurgencies in Asia, that waged by the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New Peoples Army. There, too, are the secessionist campaigns waged by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, albeit muted now because of the ongoing peace process with government, the Moro National Liberation Front before it, and the Abu Sayyaf extremist group. In the course of battling these threats, the Philippine government and state security forces have been accused of gross violations of human rights, with the most numerous and serious alleged abuses happening in the counterinsurgency campaign against the communists who government says remain the most serious threat to national security.

The Arroyo governments war however is no longer just against terror and the national rebellions by the communists and Muslim groups, it is now being waged against human rights, not only in terms of actual violation of these but in redefining, often distorting, the reality of these violations. No administration has yet surpassed the record in human rights violations of the 14-year dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. It could, of course, be argued that it was in the nature of strongman rule to grant the states security forces almost limitless powers to cow the populace; keep threats to the regime at bay and enforce tyrannical reign. But of the four administrations that followed the dictatorship, which toppled in 1986, it is under the current one of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo that human rights violations have occurred at a scale many say approaches state policy, if it has not actually become one. This is ironic for an administration that directly owes its existence to many of the people who now find themselves targets of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances and other forms of persecution. The statistics on lives lost to extrajudicial killings speak of the gravity of the situation, even granting governments claim that these figures from human rights groups are exaggerated. In the more than six years since Arroyo was swept into power by a military-backed popular uprising in January 2001, human rights groups estimate that close to 900 lives have been claimed by extrajudicial killings. It is a grisly record that this administration has been warned of, time and again. Even those sympathetic with Arroyo has found incredible her governments claims of being a democracy, while the international community may yet turn her into a pariah.