Philippine Democracy and Human Rights Face a Critical Test This Week

Submitted by David Borden on Sun, 10/21/2018 - 2:54pm

Our ally Senator Trillanes of the Philippines is facing possible jailing, maybe as soon as tomorrow, as a result of legal maneuvers that strain credulity in both their reasoning and their timing. It's not a given that Judge Soriano will go along with the administration in allowing the case against Trillanes to go forward. But even if he doesn't, there is a second case that could have the same result -- the judge in that case, Elmo Alameda, has used reasons that are farcical on their face to allow that one to move forward. He did at least allow for bail, but the case before Soriano would not. It's possible that the judges have been threatened.

If Trillanes joins Senator de Lima in the Camp Crame detention center, it will be even harder for political opponents of Duterte's drug war killings to oppose him, and the Philippines will be a big step closer to dictatorship. We would like the US government to make use of the Magnitsky Act to sanction Duterte administration officials who are responsible for these and other human rights violations. We also support legislation in Congress to cut off most funding to the Philippines National Police, and to fund the work of Philippine human rights advocates and health-based drug service providers. We prefer targeted measures of those types, for now at least, to pressure individual officials without harming the Filipino population as trade sanctions might. We would also like President Trump to retract his two disturbing statements that praised Duterte's drug policies.

In the meanwhile, we are hoping that Judge Soriano will do the right thing, and we commend the IPU for keeping a focus on this. Visit https://stopthedrugwar.org/philippinesto read about our work with Senator Trillanes and others.

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Human Rights

Philippines

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