The emergence of human rights defenders (HRDs) is both an indictment and a symptom of the failure and neglect of the government to fully protect, promote, and fulfill human rights. HRDs are surrogate defenders due to government’s default in its primary obligation as the official protector of human rights.
IT is a verity that a Constitution is not cast in stone. It is a living instrument which responds to changing times. However, it cannot be altered with facility or amended by convenience. Accordingly, the 1987 Constitution is not inflexible. But it must be stable. Overriding reasons, channeled through constitutional processes, must obtain to warrant charter change or cha-cha.
There is no place for disastrous “hyperbole” when the people’s human rights and civil liberties are at stake.
Sen. Ronald dela Rosa defended as just “hyperbole” President Rodrigo Duterte’s “kill, kill, kill” order for security forces to exterminate communists rebels.
SEN. Leila Magistrado de Lima marked on February 24, 2021 four years of odious solitary imprisonment at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame under patently contrived and politically motivated drug charges.
Her only sin is fearlessly and conscientiously criticizing President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, leading to her interminable detention at his behest.
It is inaccurate to declare that terrorism is a novel phenomenon of recent vintage. The concept and practice of terrorism in the modern era antedate the 1987 Philippine Constitution by almost two centuries, while the first international covenant against terrorism in 1963 predates our Charter by more than two decades. Terrorism was practiced even before the birth of Christ.
