Brazenly humiliated
Much has been said about the resolution approved by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). But if we take a closer look beyond the headlines, the resolution presented by Iceland laid out three points.
One is that there are allegations of thousands of killings in the Philippines’ campaign against illegal drugs. Isn’t that true? Not necessarily the allegations, but the fact that there are allegations, not just from one or two but several sources local and international.
Two, the council urged the Philippine government to “take all necessary measures to prevent extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances.” So what’s wrong about urging a member-state to try to prevent human rights violations from happening in the context of the state’s bloody war against drugs?
Three, the council tasked UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to prepare a comprehensive report on the human rights situation in the Philippines to be presented during the next UNHRC session in 2020.
I could not find anything in the resolution which compels the Philippine government to surrender an iota of its sovereignty to the United Nations. Nothing in it that puts the Philippine president anywhere closer to the halls of an international criminal tribunal.
If it is of any consequence, the resolution is merely in line with the concept that sovereignty entails with it responsibilities. Luke Glanville’s (2010) published work in The European Journal of International Relations put it aptly: “A state is responsible and accountable to its own people and also to the society of states for the protection of its population. In instances where the state is unable or unwilling to fulfil its sovereign responsibility to protect, the responsibility shifts to international society. This concept was unanimously endorsed at the UN World Summit in September 2005.”
The reactions from Philippine officials, including that of President Rodrigo Duterte ranged from the ludicrous to the fallacious.
From presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo: “The resolution likewise demonstrates how the western powers are scornful of our sovereign exercise of protecting our people from the scourge of prohibited drugs that threaten to destroy the fabric of our society. Their intrusive abuse is patent and condemnable. It smacks of politicization designed to force our free state to be subservient to their imagined superiority.”
The United Kingdom, by the way, was the only “western power” among the 18 member countries who voted to adopt the resolution. And I'm struggling to find anything in that resolution which shows any hint of "intrusive abuse," not even the "patent and condemnable" kind. The words “politicization” and “imagined superiority” finally capped Panelo’s hundred or so words of nebulous rambling.
Meanwhile, the remarks of the country’s top diplomat, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr., was standard gaucheness dressed in a suit. Locsin said: "(The Philippines) helped create the UN to honor the universal values of respect for sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of state which were brazenly and brutally violated on a global scale by those who censured us today.” He said the resolution insults the Philippines and this kind of “insult” will have “far-reaching consequences.”
That was awkward. What those “far-reaching consequences” mean, only Locsin knows. “Brazenly” and “brutally” violated on a “global scale” – what? I could have agreed with the DFA secretary if he said that those 18 member countries in the UNHRC who voted "Yes" to the Iceland-initiated resolution and the 15 member countries who could have voted "No" but chose to abstain, "brazenly and brutally humiliated us on a global scale."
Thankfully, President Duterte, while bluntly outspoken and belligerent, is not the wordy type. He said: “I will only face a Philippine court… I will not answer a Caucasian…You must be stupid.”
These reactions from Philippine officials betray the shame they must have felt.
In the words of Professor Walden Bello, it was the “Philippines’ worst diplomatic defeat.” The humiliation was apparent considering that Philippine officials were banking on our “friend” China to throw its weight behind the scenes to deliver the “No” votes for the Philippines.
And this week, the United States just ribbed our government about the resolution. Its top diplomat in East Asia announced that the US remains committed to working with the Philippines on “evidence-based” approaches to address the drug problem “in ways that will respect human rights and the rule of law.”
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