- House
MAKE HUMAN RIGHTS REAL
(Privilege Speech delivered by REP. EDCEL C. LAGMAN on 10 December 2008
(Privilege Speech delivered by REP. EDCEL C. LAGMAN on 10 December 2008
on the occasion of World Human Rights Day and the
60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) unequivocally proclaimed this sixty years ago. Thus, when an infant is born, the fundamental question that we must confront is not whether the newborn is an asset or a liability, but, how we can protect his or her right to life or survival and other basic human rights so that the newborn may live in freedom and dignity.
In other words, we must assure the existence of an enabling environment where every child born can live in freedom and dignity.
The Philippines holds the distinction of being the first signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In accordance with the UDHR and the subsequent international covenants on human rights, the erstwhile United Nations Commission on Human Rights once reminded the world that the “ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can be achieved only if conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights.” (E/CN.4/1998/25)
Our task as policymakers, therefore, is to enact laws which create the “enabling conditions” that will facilitate the fulfillment of human rights. These laws and policies likewise set standards to hold the State accountable for non-compliance with its international treaty obligations on human rights.
It is high time that we adopt the rights-based approach to governance. Using this approach, it is well to bear in mind that human rights are interdependent as they are nested within a common broad setting. Verily, the realization of each distinct right may be hindered or enhanced by the prevailing social, cultural, economic and/or political conditions that determine the status of other rights.
Reproductive health as a human right, for example, cannot be divorced from certain economic conditions. Take the case of maternal mortality which may negate the newborn’s right to life or survival.
A closer look at maternal mortality would reveal three sets of causes. The first are the immediate causes: postpartum hemorrhage, obstructed labor/ruptured uterus, toxemia/eclampsia, postpartum sepsis, abortion complications, and infectious diseases, i.e., malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS. The second are the intermediate causes labeled as “the three delays”: (1) delays in recognizing complications; (2) delays in transporting the mother; and (3) delays in receiving care at the facility. The third cluster of causes are societal and which are deeply rooted in the social, cultural and economic conditions that increase mortality ratio; norms and values that discriminate against women, the poor and marginalized cultural communities; and a highly skewed distribution of economic resources between developed and developing countries (Joseph L. Mailman, Maternal Mortality as a Human Rights and Gender Issue).
A pregnant mother in a far-flung barangay whose pregnancy is considered high risk because she has had too many children one after the other may die of eclampsia not only because of the failure to monitor her blood pressure and to undergo regular prenatal check-ups but also due to her inability to receive the proper information and access to family planning methods that would have helped her plan and space her pregnancies. Kahirapan, kawalan ng pamasahe papuntang health center and the fact that she was denied her right to reproductive health are the causes of this tragedy that happens to 10 Filipino mothers daily. Poverty, inaccessible and inadequate health care facilities and services, and lack of health care providers and access to RH services violate the right to health and ultimately the right to life of the mother and the unborn. Clearly, the duty of the State to respect, protect and fulfill the rights to health and life hinges in no small measure on the development of the economy and the reduction, if not eradication, of poverty. Ms. Regan E. Ralph, Executive Director of the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, in her article on “Challenges in Promoting Women’s Reproductive and Sexual Rights” succinctly concluded that: “From the human rights perspective this means that we need to develop enforceable reproductive health norms and not just invoke the language of rights. And finally, it means that we do more to understand and address the social justice dimensions of health.” (underscoring supplied)
It is in this light that we can better appreciate the interrelation between the first and fifth Millennium Development Goals. Goal 1 is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, aiming to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day. Goal 5 seeks to improve maternal health, targeting to reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio and to achieve universal access to reproductive health.
These Millennium Development Goals illustrate the overriding interdependence of the rights to health and life and sustainable development.
From a broader human rights perspective the inequalities in the distribution of income and wealth between the developed and developing countries hamper the realization and enjoyment of human rights in the disadvantaged nations.
Consistent with the human rights approach to policy formulation the legislative advocacy of reproductive health, responsible parenthood and population development is not a rhetorical guarantee of freedom of informed choice and access to a wide range of natural and modern family planning methods and devices or a liberal use of human rights language. This advocacy is anchored on a strong belief in the equally urgent need to institute genuine and concrete reforms in the socio-economic environment.
Inordinate deregulation, liberalization and privatization worldwide undermine the economies of developing countries and threaten the betterment of living conditions, the very purpose of the right to development. They hinder the realization of the human rights to: food, health, shelter, education, work, and security even as they are anathema to justice, equality and the rule of law.
Non-fulfillment of these rights and democratic principles trigger protests and political dissent from enlightened citizens and long-suffering masses. To suppress these mass protests and to stifle political dissent, the State resorts to illegal arrests and detentions, enforced disappearances, torture and inhuman treatment of persons deprived of liberty, and extrajudicial killings or summary executions.
It goes without saying that violations of civil and political rights are interlinked with violations of economic, social and cultural rights. It is not enough to bring the perpetrators to justice and put an end to the culture of impunity. Equally, if not more important, is to reform the system that spawns these human rights violations.
The global challenge to policymakers the world over on the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is how to create the enabling conditions that would fulfill the entitlement enshrined in the Declaration’s Article 28 which states that: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.”
Six decades after the UDHR was adopted, the most basic human rights to health, education, shelter, living wage together with the right to dissent, reproductive self-determination and lives free of violence and want, are still illusory for millions of Filipinos.
The Members of this August Chamber, perforce, must pass with deliberate alacrity the pending bills on Anti-Torture, Anti-Enforced Disappearance, Human Rights Victims Compensation, Reproductive Health and Population Development, and Extension of the Land Acquisition and Distribution (LAD) component of CARP that will truly protect, promote and fulfill the most fundamental of human rights and help make the sixty year old UDHR truly tangible and real.