ng Pantao ng Pilipinas mn Risits ofthe Philippines) POSITION PAPER ON THE ANTI-ELDER ABUSE BILL The Commission on Human Rights, as the national human rights institution of the country, committed to ensure the protection, promotion, and fulfillment of all human rights in particular for those who are disadvantaged, marginalized, and vulnerable, fully supports the enactment of a law that ensures the welfare of older persons and protects them from abuse and neglect. Furthermore, the Commission welcomes the opportunity to provide its comments on the proposed measure introduced before the 17 Congress of the House of Representatives, to wit, the unnumbered bill in substitution of House Bill Nos. 865, 2989, 4708 and 4980 (Anti-Elder Abuse Act). The right of older persons against abuse ‘The right to life, liberty, and security are universal and inalienable. These rights do not discriminate on the basis of age and do not dwindle as we get older as these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person. We do not lose our inherent entitlement to these rights, our dignity as a human person when we get older. Despite this, it is a fact, despite the dearth of statistics in the Philippine experience, that older persons are subjected to heightened vulnerability and risk to human rights violations. The Philippine Government categorically committed itself to valuing the dignity of every human person including older persons and guaranteeing full respect to human rights, as is stated in Section 11, Article 2 of the 1987 Constitution. This commitment is further emphasized in the ratification and enactment of several international human rights instruments, foremost of which are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and several local legislations specific for the benefit of older persons such as Republic ‘Act No. (RA) 7432! and Executive Order No. 105, series of 2003? among others, that seek to implement the constitutional aspirations of a society where adequate social services are provided towards a rising standard of living and an improved quality of life. Specific to older person’s right to be free from violence and abuse is Article pee in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) whieh WY,obligates the State to guarantee older persons with disabilities freedom from all forms of exploitation, violence, and abuse, including their gender-based aspects (but this only applies to older people with disabilities and not all older peop! our current domestic laws, elderly women in family environments and intimate relationships are protected under Republic Act No. 9262 or the Anti-Violence Against Women and Children Act of 2003. Such protection is more explicit under Republic Act No. 9710 or the Magna Carta of Women, Section 33 which states that “the State shall protect women senior citizens from neglect, abandonment, domestic violence, abuse, exploitation, and discrimination. Towards this end, the State shall ensure special protective mechanisms and support services against violence, sexual abuse, exploitation and discrimination of older women.” However, RA 9710 generally protects women, specifically elderly women, but lack a general protection to all elderly against abuse, whether physical, emotional, or finan Oftentimes and most unfortunate is the fact that abuses are committed. by their own family member. In the 2016 Human Rights Situationer on Senior Citizens in the Philippines, the Commission noted that there is no specific or dedicated legislation on the prevention of elder abuse nor on the provision of support services and access to redress for victims. This gap in public policy is what the subject House Bill seeks to address. The Anti-Elder Abuse House Bill ‘The unnumbered House Bill, entitled “An Act protecting senior citizens from violence, defining elder abuse, and prescribing penalties therefor,” seeks to address all forms of violence, abuse, neglect, exploitation, and coercion, especially acts deleterious to their personal safety, security, dignity, or any discriminatory act committed against senior citizens, as stated in its Declaration of Policy.s It provides for a definition of “elder abuse”® and enumerates specific acts which constitute the same,’ and the penalties for their violation.® It enumerates the rights of victims during the pendency of a case, and mandates government agencies to provide mandatory programs and services for victims.*° It also provides for a mechanism for redress which includes the provision of special protection units and the availability of and process for securing protection orders.”? In a general sense, the bill certainly contributes to the protective mantle provided by the State over older persons against abuse. But by virtue of the nature of elder abuse, more is demanded, as will be discussed below. One of the recurring observations and conclusions in international discourses on the rights of older persons is the underreporting of elder abuse. In the summary of the report of the UN OHCHR Secretary-General, it was stated hat “violence often goes unreported and under-documented as older persons =H instances of exploitation, violence and abuse. States Parties shall ensure that protection services are age, gender- and disability 4 Commission on Human Rights, Human Rights Situationer on Senior Citizens in the Philippines, approved for publication on 22 January 2016 thra CHI (V) Resolution No. AM2016-020reluctant or unable to report incidents.” In a 2014 workshop on the situation of older persons in the Asia-Pacific Region, experts noted that “older persons often felt ashamed of their abuse and neglect experiences, and therefore chose not to report them, especially because in the majority of cases, perpetrators are family members upon whom older persons rely for care.”4 In a statement by the United Nations Independent Expert on the human rights of older people, Ms. Rosa Kornfeld-Matte noted that older persons facing abuse “may not speak up for fe of reprisal or to protect family members from criminal prosecution.” While the bill provides for a redress mechanism, this is only useful for cases where the victim sought for assistance or when a third party initiates the same. But to some, if not most cases, the victim himself is complicit to the actions of the perpetrators. Compounding the issue of underreporting, there is generally a lack of consensus on the definition of elder abuse which contributes to the lack of data for policy-makers to draw from. To illustrate, the CHR has documented a total of 1,546 cases nationwide from January 2009 to May 2017 where the victim is 60 years old and above. At first glance, this piece of data seems telling of the situation of older persons in the country. But this number does not actually provide for elder abuse alone (as contemplated in the bill). Since there is no specific offense relating to elder abuse, the case type documentation varies from discrimination, developmental aggression, arbitrary deprivation of property, request for financial assistance, to domestic abuse, negligence, grave threats, harassment, physical injuries, even torture and killings where the circumstance of old age is probably just incidental to the act of violence. The bill defines elder abuse in Section 3(e) as “a single or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust, which causes harm or distress to a senior citizen. It includes any act or series of acts committed by any person against a senior citizen, within or without the family abode, which result in or is likely to result in physical or psychological harm, suffering or distress, abuse, neglect including threats of such acts, battery, physical assault, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty. This includes, but not limited to, physical violence, psychological violence, economic or psychological/emotional abuse, domestic violence, and neglect or abandonment.” Aside from this definition, it further defines specific acts, to wit, abandonment, battery, domestic violence, economic abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, physical violence, and psychological violence."® The term “elder abuse” is again elaborated as to include an enumeration of acts which are almost restatements of the previous section.” In the interest of form and clarity, it i: suggested that the two sections be consolidated into one which will comprehensively and clearly provide the prohibited acts which fall under the umbrella term “elder abuse.” To address the issue of underreporting and the general lack of data on elder abuse, at the very least, a monitoring and evaluation mechanism may be Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Info Note Human Rights of Older Persons ) rotieved on 22 March 2037 from