Post by 1949 on May 20, 2005 20:36:14 GMT -5
Regarding children's rights in the Philippines (Letter addressed to the Philippine country representative of the UNICEF)
Fidel V. Agcaoili
Chairperson
NDFP Human Rights Committee
May 18, 2005
NDFP MONITORING COMMITTEE
Joint Monitoring Committee
18 May 2005
Dr. Nicholas K. Alipui
UNICEF Country Representative
United Nations Children's Fund
31/F Yuchengco Tower, RCBC Plaza
6819 Ayala Avenue, 1200 Makati City
Philippines
Dear Dr. Alipui,
We acknowledge receipt of your 20 April letter and the attached "Terms of Reference (TOR) for Needs Assessment of Children and Women Affected by Armed Conflicts in the Philippines, A Study Initiated by the United Nations Children's Funds (UNICEF)".
We wish to take exception to the obvious pro-GRP bias of the rationale of the TOR.
Of course the NDFP and the revolutionary forces have a clear program for waging armed revolution against the exploitative and oppressive ruling system of big compradors and landlords supported by US monopoly capitalists. We have a 12-point program on how to carry out the people's democratic revolution and establish a free, democratic, just and prosperous Philippine society.
May we remind you that the current exploitative and oppressive system has been subjecting millions of children to violence and human rights violations on a daily basis since 1899 with the start of the Philippine-American war which led to the death of 1.5 million Filipinos, including infants and children who were mercilessly massacred by American troops, together with their parents, as alleged insurgents.
Filipino children are part of the Philippine body politic born into classes and have the same dreams and aspirations as other Filipinos. The great majority of Filipino children are the sons and daughters of workers and peasants and the urban poor. They suffer the same fate as their parents. The NDFP and the revolutionary forces are actively involved in upholding, promoting and protecting the rights of these children who are almost always victims of the unjust semi-colonial and semi-feudal social system.
There are millions of child workers in the Philippines who are made to work in sweatshops and as domestic workers and farmhands in haciendas of landlords and big multinational agri-business corporations. They are deprived of education and are not given protection by the reactionary state whose policy has been to allow the recruitment of children as part of the labor force for cheap wages.
The phenomenon of street children (out of school youth who are forced to eke out a living in the streets, begging, rummaging thru garbage dumps, getting involved in drugs and petty crimes, etc.) has grown tremendously since the 1980s. Instead of solving the problem, the reactionary state seems to have adopted the policy of physically liquidating these children on the pretext of fighting drugs, as in Davao and some cities in Metro-Manila.
The statistics on malnourished children and the death of children due to illnesses and diseases and lack of medical attention, are grossly appalling. Instead of providing for the health care of children, the reactionary state sets aside more than half of its budget on debt servicing, a fourth on the purchase of military supplies and equipments accompanied by massive corruption, and most of the balance is pocketed by traditional politicians and their relatives.
We must not also forget the hundreds of thousands of children who have been steered into prostitution thru the state's tourism program. For sometime now, the Philippines has been a major destination for sex tourists and pedophiles from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
Then, as a consequence of the aggressive Labor Export Policy of the state, millions of Filipino children grow up without a mother and under severe strain of parental separation that they end up with emotional and psycho-social problems that become unbearable when parents actually separate or divorce.
The above are just some instances of the daily human rights violations committed against millions of Filipino children under the reactionary ruling system even without the existence of an armed conflict. It is incumbent upon those who proclaim their concern for children to urgently and actively address these problems in an all-round and comprehensive manner, as the NDFP is doing in waging the armed revolution to liberate the Filipino people, including children, from this unjust social order.
The many thousands of human rights violations against children committed by the GRP military in the armed conflict have been well-documented since the time of Marcos. These human rights violations have continued to the present under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime.
Please find enclosed the partial tabulations of human rights violations against children committed by the GRP military, police and paramilitary units under the Arroyo regime, as culled from only 158 cases/complaints filed before the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) through the offices of the Joint Secretariat. As of 15 May 2005, there are already 357 cases/complaints filed against the GRP and only 7 against the NDFP.
Of the 158 cases/complaints cited above, 51 cases have children as victims, together with their parents and relatives. From these 51 cases, there is a total of 121 children victims, including 36 killed (due mostly to armed strafing of civilian houses), 42 illegal arrest and detention, 7 subjected to cruel and degrading punishment, and 20 forcibly evacuated and deprived of shelter, adequate food and education.
In the letter of Mr. Luis Jalandoni, Chairperson of the NDFP Negotiating Panel, to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, a copy of which was furnished you, we have cited eight situations where children become victims of human rights violations by the GRP military, police and paramilitary units in the armed conflict.
The attached tabulations represent only a small percentage of the human rights violations against children committed by the GRP military, police and paramilitary units in the armed conflict. There are other reported cases compiled by NGOs concerned with children rights but are not yet filed with the JMC. And there are many more unreported cases.
We thank you for providing us with copies of so-called studies on child soldiers. We intend to make a comprehensive written response to these false and misleading "studies". Offhand, we take note of the fact that most of the data cited in these studies are culled mainly from newspaper reports and news releases of the GRP military and police or based on interviews of five or six so-called NPA child soldiers in the custody of the GRP military and DSWD.
Certain NGOs narrow their attention to the problem of children in armed conflict situation to the issue of so-called child soldiers, thereby obscuring the far worse violations of human rights of children committed by the state's military, police and paramilitary units. They discuss at length that 18 years of age be the minimum for the recruitment of soldiers and try to define the functions that constitute soldiering. They do so only to make an artificial platform for launching attacks against the revolutionary forces fighting for national liberation and democracy.
Until now, Article 77 paragraph 2 of Protocol 1 of 8 June 1977, additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, permits the recruitment of children 15 years and above as soldiers. Such NGOs should appreciate the fact that the CPP has voluntarily raised the recruitment age of combatants in the New People's Army to 18, while the US government still maintains 15 as the minimum age in recruiting soldiers to its armed forces. Moreover, the US is the superpower that has been sowing so much terror in the world from Afghanistan to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Cuba, the Korean Peninsula, Georgia, and the new republics in the former Soviet Union.
Thank you.
Very truly yours,
Fidel V. Agcaoili
Chairperson
NDFP Human Rights Committee
Download attachments
home.wanadoo.nl/ndf
Email address: ndf@wanadoo.nl
Telephone: 31-30-2310431
Fax: 31-30-2322989
Mailing address: Amsterdamsestraatweg 50, NL-3513 AG Utrecht, Netherlands
link
Fidel V. Agcaoili
Chairperson
NDFP Human Rights Committee
May 18, 2005
NDFP MONITORING COMMITTEE
Joint Monitoring Committee
18 May 2005
Dr. Nicholas K. Alipui
UNICEF Country Representative
United Nations Children's Fund
31/F Yuchengco Tower, RCBC Plaza
6819 Ayala Avenue, 1200 Makati City
Philippines
Dear Dr. Alipui,
We acknowledge receipt of your 20 April letter and the attached "Terms of Reference (TOR) for Needs Assessment of Children and Women Affected by Armed Conflicts in the Philippines, A Study Initiated by the United Nations Children's Funds (UNICEF)".
We wish to take exception to the obvious pro-GRP bias of the rationale of the TOR.
Of course the NDFP and the revolutionary forces have a clear program for waging armed revolution against the exploitative and oppressive ruling system of big compradors and landlords supported by US monopoly capitalists. We have a 12-point program on how to carry out the people's democratic revolution and establish a free, democratic, just and prosperous Philippine society.
May we remind you that the current exploitative and oppressive system has been subjecting millions of children to violence and human rights violations on a daily basis since 1899 with the start of the Philippine-American war which led to the death of 1.5 million Filipinos, including infants and children who were mercilessly massacred by American troops, together with their parents, as alleged insurgents.
Filipino children are part of the Philippine body politic born into classes and have the same dreams and aspirations as other Filipinos. The great majority of Filipino children are the sons and daughters of workers and peasants and the urban poor. They suffer the same fate as their parents. The NDFP and the revolutionary forces are actively involved in upholding, promoting and protecting the rights of these children who are almost always victims of the unjust semi-colonial and semi-feudal social system.
There are millions of child workers in the Philippines who are made to work in sweatshops and as domestic workers and farmhands in haciendas of landlords and big multinational agri-business corporations. They are deprived of education and are not given protection by the reactionary state whose policy has been to allow the recruitment of children as part of the labor force for cheap wages.
The phenomenon of street children (out of school youth who are forced to eke out a living in the streets, begging, rummaging thru garbage dumps, getting involved in drugs and petty crimes, etc.) has grown tremendously since the 1980s. Instead of solving the problem, the reactionary state seems to have adopted the policy of physically liquidating these children on the pretext of fighting drugs, as in Davao and some cities in Metro-Manila.
The statistics on malnourished children and the death of children due to illnesses and diseases and lack of medical attention, are grossly appalling. Instead of providing for the health care of children, the reactionary state sets aside more than half of its budget on debt servicing, a fourth on the purchase of military supplies and equipments accompanied by massive corruption, and most of the balance is pocketed by traditional politicians and their relatives.
We must not also forget the hundreds of thousands of children who have been steered into prostitution thru the state's tourism program. For sometime now, the Philippines has been a major destination for sex tourists and pedophiles from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea and Taiwan.
Then, as a consequence of the aggressive Labor Export Policy of the state, millions of Filipino children grow up without a mother and under severe strain of parental separation that they end up with emotional and psycho-social problems that become unbearable when parents actually separate or divorce.
The above are just some instances of the daily human rights violations committed against millions of Filipino children under the reactionary ruling system even without the existence of an armed conflict. It is incumbent upon those who proclaim their concern for children to urgently and actively address these problems in an all-round and comprehensive manner, as the NDFP is doing in waging the armed revolution to liberate the Filipino people, including children, from this unjust social order.
The many thousands of human rights violations against children committed by the GRP military in the armed conflict have been well-documented since the time of Marcos. These human rights violations have continued to the present under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime.
Please find enclosed the partial tabulations of human rights violations against children committed by the GRP military, police and paramilitary units under the Arroyo regime, as culled from only 158 cases/complaints filed before the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) through the offices of the Joint Secretariat. As of 15 May 2005, there are already 357 cases/complaints filed against the GRP and only 7 against the NDFP.
Of the 158 cases/complaints cited above, 51 cases have children as victims, together with their parents and relatives. From these 51 cases, there is a total of 121 children victims, including 36 killed (due mostly to armed strafing of civilian houses), 42 illegal arrest and detention, 7 subjected to cruel and degrading punishment, and 20 forcibly evacuated and deprived of shelter, adequate food and education.
In the letter of Mr. Luis Jalandoni, Chairperson of the NDFP Negotiating Panel, to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, a copy of which was furnished you, we have cited eight situations where children become victims of human rights violations by the GRP military, police and paramilitary units in the armed conflict.
The attached tabulations represent only a small percentage of the human rights violations against children committed by the GRP military, police and paramilitary units in the armed conflict. There are other reported cases compiled by NGOs concerned with children rights but are not yet filed with the JMC. And there are many more unreported cases.
We thank you for providing us with copies of so-called studies on child soldiers. We intend to make a comprehensive written response to these false and misleading "studies". Offhand, we take note of the fact that most of the data cited in these studies are culled mainly from newspaper reports and news releases of the GRP military and police or based on interviews of five or six so-called NPA child soldiers in the custody of the GRP military and DSWD.
Certain NGOs narrow their attention to the problem of children in armed conflict situation to the issue of so-called child soldiers, thereby obscuring the far worse violations of human rights of children committed by the state's military, police and paramilitary units. They discuss at length that 18 years of age be the minimum for the recruitment of soldiers and try to define the functions that constitute soldiering. They do so only to make an artificial platform for launching attacks against the revolutionary forces fighting for national liberation and democracy.
Until now, Article 77 paragraph 2 of Protocol 1 of 8 June 1977, additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, permits the recruitment of children 15 years and above as soldiers. Such NGOs should appreciate the fact that the CPP has voluntarily raised the recruitment age of combatants in the New People's Army to 18, while the US government still maintains 15 as the minimum age in recruiting soldiers to its armed forces. Moreover, the US is the superpower that has been sowing so much terror in the world from Afghanistan to Iraq, Iran, Syria, Cuba, the Korean Peninsula, Georgia, and the new republics in the former Soviet Union.
Thank you.
Very truly yours,
Fidel V. Agcaoili
Chairperson
NDFP Human Rights Committee
Download attachments
home.wanadoo.nl/ndf
Email address: ndf@wanadoo.nl
Telephone: 31-30-2310431
Fax: 31-30-2322989
Mailing address: Amsterdamsestraatweg 50, NL-3513 AG Utrecht, Netherlands
link