On April 16, acting Presidential Spokesperson Martin Andanar released a statement claiming that a United States Department of State report on the human rights situation in the Philippines is “utterly devoid of bases.”

Andanar was reacting to the section of the US State Department’s “2021 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices” that discusses the Philippines situation, particularly stating that members of the Philippine government’s security forces were involved in “significant rights abuses” that included killings, forced disappearances, torture, and restrictions to freedom of speech and the press.

Andanar went on to claim that the contents of the said report were a “rehash of old and recycled issues by the perennial detractors of the Duterte Administration.”

Andanar’s statement supports earlier assertions by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año who both called the report “unfounded.”

CLAIM:

US report on Philippine human rights situation is ‘baseless’

RATING:

FALSE

FACTS: 

The said State Department report based its findings partly on public pronouncements of the Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights (CHR) and Department of Justice (DOJ), both acknowledging rights abuses perpetrated by the government.

DOJ Secretary Menardo Guevarra recommended the filing of charges against 17 policemen involved in the “Bloody Sunday” killings that left nine activists dead on March 7, 2021 in Southern Tagalog. The late CHR Chair Jose Luis Martin “Chito” Gascon, on the other hand, also publicly called out the Duterte government on drug war-related killings, victims of which were estimated to be at 27,000 by late 2018.

The US human rights report also cited human rights group Karapatan as one of its sources. Karapatan published its own 2021 annual national human rights report, in which it called Duterte a “rights violator and war criminal.”

WHY IT MATTERS: 

Research published by the University of California Santa Barbara showed that falsehoods peddled by governments are efforts to stifle legitimate dissent, and such practices foster impunity. International rights group Amnesty International said that impunity in the country “continued to facilitate unlawful killings and other human rights violations.”

Philippine News Agency, the government’s news outlet, published Andanar’s statement and has now been shared 1,600 times on Facebook. – Vivian Vera

Altermidya Network is part of #FactsFirstPH which brings together various sectors that are committed to promoting truth in the public space, and exacting accountability on those who harm it with lies. For those interested to join the initiative, email info@factsfirst.ph.

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