Right to Participate in Cultural Life vis-à-vis Right to Suffrage

Cultural rights are an integral part of the human rights and are universal, indivisible, and
interdependent.1 This right therefore, can coexist and corelate with other rights. Cultural rights
have anchors in freedom of a person to choose where to belong and in this freedom of choice
links it to our rights to suffrage. In the international law scene, this is enshrined in the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under Art. 25 which states that Every citizen
shall have the right and the opportunity to vote without any distinctions and without
unreasonable restrictions.2
The principle of interdependence and interrelatedness under Human Rights Law stresses
one’s contribution to the realization of a person’s human dignity through the satisfaction of his or
her developmental, physical, psychological, and spiritual needs.3 Looking closely, both cultural
rights and the right to suffrage give weight to a person’s ability to choose and decide for oneself
for their own benefit. They are therefore, interrelated and interdependent.
On the local scene, we can clearly see how the right to suffrage can affect our cultural
rights. While the right to suffrage is inalienable and is guaranteed under the 1987 Constitution,
its effects might be seen in our cultural rights. We have known about the rampant human rights
abuses of the Marcoses from 1972 and it is in great horror that it might be done again in Marcos
Jr.’s fight for the presidency. The expression “cultural life” is an explicit reference to culture as a
living process, historical, dynamic and evolving, with a past, a present and a future. 4 The
Philippines is currently threatened by historical revisionism, misinformation, and fake news
campaign. This further isolate progressive cultural sectors and prevents them to express their
way of living. This also threatens other visions and cultures into silence and thereby preventing
them to exercise their cultural rights. Therefore, the cultural rights are interrelated in a way that
the effects of exercising our right to suffrage might affect the way people exercise not only their
cultural rights but in their other freedoms as well.
The exercise of cultural rights might be overlooked as it is an integral part of our
everyday lived – from what people eat to how the minds form opinion. It is through the
democracy and sovereignty that we are able to exercise these rights through electing officials
who respect our basic humanity. It is timely and relevant to relate our small act of voting as the
1
Par.1, UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), General comment no. 21, Right of
everyone to take part in cultural life (art. 15, para. 1a of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), 21
December 2009, E/C.12/GC/21, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4ed35bae2.html [accessed 9 May
2022]
2
Art. 25, UN General Assembly, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 16 December 1966, United
Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 999, p. 171, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3aa0.html [accessed 9
May 2022]
3
Report. New York, N.Y: UNFPA, United Nations Population Fund, 1989.
4
Par. 11, UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), General comment no. 21, Right of
everyone to take part in cultural life (art. 15, para. 1a of the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), 21
December 2009, E/C.12/GC/21, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/4ed35bae2.html [accessed 9 May
2022]
first step into protecting our freedom and making sure our rights will never ever be trampled
again.