Human rights and making amends

The “Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013” (RA 10368) has been in limbo for nearly a year until President Aquino appointed early this month the nine members of the Human Rights Victims’ Claims Board – the independent body that the law created to process and approve claims against a P10-billion fund earmarked for distribution to martial law victims of human rights violations.

The Board has 30 days to organize itself and another 30 days to come out with approved implementing rules and regulations. Barring any hitches, this should start the process of “reparation.”

Not all human rights victims under martial law welcomed the idea of filing a class action lawsuit against Ferdinand Marcos when it was raised in 1986 or thereabout. Some resented the implication of assigning money value to a fight that they put up in pursuit of a principle. Money, they thought, debased it. Particularly repelling to them was the vision of the victims negotiating with the Marcoses for settlement on the issue of wealth that was plundered from the people. It was blood money: would they lend a hand and their names in cleaning it?

More than 9,500 victims joined the class suit anyway, most of them reportedly coming from the rural poor, apparently too poor to invoke a non-pecuniary principle, without necessarily disdaining it.

Going by its word origin, reparation “includes repairing, setting right, making amends, and also restoring to good condition.” It appeals to me because it intrinsically acknowledges that a harm (damage) is done or a wrong (crime) is committed, which entitles the victim to any or all forms of reparation provided by law, including monetary compensation.

Our first collective encounter with the concept (as “reparations,” plural) was after the Second World War when Japan, as loser, made amends to the Filipino people for bringing war into their homeland, with all its inherent evil. The victim of the “internationally wrongful acts” was the state, subsuming the people. Our word in this sense stood the same as “war indemnities” – which in fact was the currency until the end of World War I.

In the sense that RA 10368 uses it, the focus shifts to “individual’s rights as a subject in international law to pursue violations of human rights.” Our term in this manner has evolved only recently “from a series of international instruments on human rights, beginning post-World War II with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

The evolution started with a broad and sweeping call for states to ensure that any person whose rights are violated shall have an “effective remedy.”

A more detailed mention of a remedy appeared only recently in the Rome Statute of the International Court of Justice (“entered into force on 1 July 2002”), as contained in one exclusive Article providing for “reparations to victims, including restitution, compensation, and rehabilitation.”

Three years later, the UN General Assembly would adopt (in 16 December 2005) Resolution 60/147, titled, Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law. The Resolution “now stands as the key document in defining rights, remedies and reparation in international human rights.”

Putting money where the mouth is

In the absence of a domestic reparation law, these international declarations and principles would amount to mere words. This is how we appreciate RA 10368: it puts the money where the mouth is. Neither out of “charity” nor an “outpouring of official generosity” – but as means to make amends.

One other reparative aspect of the law, which complements reparation, is recognition. As a matter of state policy, the law “recognize[s] the heroism and sacrifices of all Filipinos who were victims of summary execution, torture, enforced or involuntary disappearance and other gross human rights violations committed during the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos … and restore[s] the victims’ honor and dignity.”

Next in importance to policy is “people,” with the Claims Board playing the lead role. The sunset clause allows it two years to finish the job.

Unusual and unexpected was PNoy’s decision to appoint a police general as chair of the Board, inviting the controversy that’s currently surrounding the appointment.

What harm can she do?

Former Senator Joker Arroyo has unwittingly suggested a way of weighing the arguments, thus: “And the success or failure of the board depends upon ‘the known probity, competence, and integrity of its members,’ a qualification under the act.”

So, a more productive exercise, to my mind, is one that asks and answers the question: What harm can she, as a police officer, bring upon the board that can vitiate the intent and purpose of the law? It might help to note that the law aims to repair damages and not to punish.

For example: If you think that PNoy insults the human rights victims by appointing a police general, how exactly does this bear upon the board’s performance? How will the view that the appointee’s “militaristic frame of mind contravenes the victims’ expectations and welfare” play out?

Finally, the issue raised by former Senator Rene Saguisag about the involvement of the appointee in the human rights struggle is fair. It calls for a categorical answer.

The cause of human rights was championed by a Great Filipino who was born 92 years ago this 26 February. Senator Jose W. Diokno fought for the cause in his perilous time, and never ceased doing so till his death on February 27 1987, 27 years ago. We pay our token tribute to him on these two occasions by leaving these words from him:

“If we do not struggle with all that we have and do all that we can to vindicate our rights, we not only condemn our rights to death, we also condemn our hopes and our dreams, our present, and our children’s future.” – Rappler.com

Galang, a former activist and ex-detainee, is a senior fellow of Action for Economic Reforms.