RP should also get out of the UNHRC like the US

For my special presentation on our talk show on Straight from the Sky, we bring you Globe Telecom’s newest program on volunteerism, which comes from the Corporate Communications Office of Globe Telecom. With us tonight is Globe Telecom’s Senior Citizen JY Gulay who will explain this nationwide promo from Globe Telecom. He told me that this volunteerism program was launched in Manila only last May. It aims to make Filipinos embrace that old Filipino trait called the “bayanihan spirit.” I asked JY Gulay what traits in volunteerism which is available now. He merely told me that if two or three volunteer on cleaning up the garbage that is more than enough.

Other volunteerism traits can be helping the traffic ease its congestion or making people aware that there are people who care about what is happening to our surroundings. So watch JY Gulay present to you Globe Telecom’s “Spirit of Volunteerism” on SkyCable’s channel 53 at 8:00PM with replays on Wednesday and Saturday same time and channel. We also have replays on MyTV’s channel 30 at 9:00PM Monday and at 7:00AM and 9:00PM on Wednesday and Friday.

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The big breaking news last week was about US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who announced that the US was to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council (URC). They claimed the council was a roadblock to genuine global human rights protection. The move by the Trump administration has been anticipated for some time.

The UN Human Rights Council was established in 2006 to replace the UN Commission on Human Rights, which ran from 1947 to 2006. By the time of its demise, the commission was criticized from all sides for being overly politicized. I have always believed in this UN group being so politicized.

The HRC’s 47 seats are divided between the five official UN regions in the following way: Africa (13); Asia (13); Latin America and the Caribbean (8); Western Europe and Other (7); Eastern Europe (6). The US (and Australia) is in the Western Europe and Other Group, known as WEOG.

One third of the council is elected each year by the UN General Assembly, and members serve three-year terms. No member may serve more than two consecutive terms. A member can also be suspended from the council in a vote of two thirds of the UN General Assembly

The HRC also authorizes independent investigations into particular human rights issues, either thematic (dealing with a human rights issue such as torture or LGBTI rights) or, more controversially, focused on a particular state.

As of this writing, there are 46 thematic mandates and 12 country mandates for these “special rapporteurs.” The US grievances against the HRC arise from the human rights records of its members, and its politicized character. Its key red line concern seems to be the HRC’s “unconscionable” and “chronic bias” against Israel (to quote from this morning’s press conference). It is for this reason why the US resigned from this body.

Meanwhile, thirty eight (38) members of the United Nations Human Rights Council have urged the Philippine government to put an end to alleged rights abuses in its bloody war on drugs and bow to strong calls for an external investigation into the deadly campaign.

The UNHRC declared in a joint statement in Iceland last June 19: “We urge the government of the Philippines to take all necessary measures to bring killings associated with the campaign against illegal drugs to an end and cooperate with the international community to investigate all related deaths and hold perpetrators accountable.”

There are 46 thematic mandates and 12 country mandates for these “special rapporteurs.”

In my book, the UN has indeed become an organization that has not really helped in promoting peace on this world. They attack Pres. Duterte’s war on drugs, yet they did not chastise nations that send illegal drugs to the Philippines. In fact, UN officials have often been on the receiving end of the acid-tongue Duterte’s ire for their criticisms of the country’s human rights situation, particularly the administration’s bloody war on drugs. During the presidency of Benigno “PNoy” Aquino when illegal drugs were prevalent, the UN failed to chastise the Philippines. In my book, I can only wish that Pres. Duterte would follow the US and get out of the UNCHR permanently!

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