RIGHTFULLY HUMAN:

WHY HUMAN RIGHTS ARE FOR EVERYONE

CHAPTER I:
RIGHTS FOR YOU AND FOR ME

The single best explanation of the concept of human rights in the

context of the Philippines, appropriately enough, may be derived from the
Tagalog translation of the phrase. The phrase “human rights” is directly
translated into the Tagalog phrase “karapatang pantao.” The Tagalog word
“Karapatan” is derived from the simpler Tagalog word “dapat” which can
translate as “just,” “correct,” “appropriate,” or, well, “right,” among other
similar words. “Pantao” simply means “for humans,” with “pan” serving as a
preposition meaning “for” and “tao” being the Tagalog word for humans in
general. This means that another way of translating “human rights” would
be “dapat sa tao” or “what is right for humans” or “what it correct for humans.”
If the average Filipino were to look at the concept using these words, it would
almost certainly be easier to look past the notion of human rights as a legal
fiction which only benefits a select few and instead understand and hopefully
embrace it for what it really is: a basic facet of our humanity, something as
natural and necessary for one’s well-being as the need for air, food and water.
Human rights, to put it simply, are for everyone.

Unfortunately, among many Filipinos there are several misconceptions

about human rights law in the Philippines, the foremost being that they exist
solely for the purpose of protecting criminals such as drug pushers or
communist rebels from the reach of the law. Nothing could be further from
the truth, but despite repeated efforts over the years to educate as many
people as possible about the true nature and purpose of human rights,
misinformation and ignorance continue to persist. There are number of
reasons for this unfortunate reality, not the least of which is the active spread
of misinformation, which is why books like this one are not only important but
are absolutely necessary to ensuring that one of the most primordial
concepts in law is not drowned out by falsehood.
 This book will discuss the history, basis and current state of human
rights law in the Philippines. To start off, though perhaps the spirit, relevance
and scope of human rights can be effectively illustrated by some short
hypothetical anecdotes.

Juan is an upstanding citizen. He gets up early in the morning, gets to

work on time, and is always courteous to his store’s customers. He has
already been promoted to store manager, and everyone in his workplace
believes that good things are in store for him. After work, he goes straight
home and helps his aging mother with the household chores. He likes to
hang out with his friends, but he neither smokes nor drinks other than the
occasional beer on someone’s birthday, and he has never, ever used illegal
drugs in his whole life. In contrast, Pedro, Juan’s neighbor since childhood,
could not be more different. Unable to hang onto a job for more than a few
months at time, he is lazy, indulgent and abusive to the people in his
household. He spends most of his time drinking and indulging in other vices
like drugs and prostitution.

When Anna, a childhood friend of both Pedro and Juan, returns from
working as a nurse in the United Kingdom for several years, both of them
court her, and Juan’s charm and overall positive mien win her heart.
Embittered, Pedro vows revenge on Juan, and as his luck would have it, he
finds his opportunity when he learns that the barangay officials, working
together with the police, are on the lookout for drug users and drug pushers
and would like the public to submit names of people whom they know to be
drug users or pushers. Reporting may even be done anonymously, and so
Pedro, late one afternoon, drops Juan’s name in a drop box that the
barangay has provided for such reports.

Acting on the reports, the barangay and police “invite” the people
whose names have been dropped in the dropbox, including Juan, and they
detain him at the office for two whole days. In fact, because of the number of
people who were reported to the barangay, Juan is kept in detention for over
a week before he is even interviewed, only to be released once he has been
interviewed and the police and barangay realize that he was falsely reported.
The experience has left Juan traumatized, especially since he has
contracted COVID-19 despite having been very conscientious about social
distancing before his “invitation” by the barangay, and even though he is
innocent, his reputation remains tarnished for years after that.

This is an example of what can happen when one of the most basic of
all human rights, the right to due process, is ignored, and as far-fetched as
this story may sound, at one point the Philippine government actually floated
the idea of a “drop box” system in which people could anonymously report
drug users to the authorities. It is also a reality that even though there is a
legal requirement that anyone who is detained for violation of the law has to
be charged with an offense in court no later than 36 hours from arrest (or a
day and half), there are, historically, people who have been detained by the
authorities for as long as months without a case having been filed in court.
In short, the story of Juan, who was detained for 48 hours despite not even
having committed a crime, may be fiction, but there are many actual stories
out there that may even be worse.

Another story that illustrates the importance of human rights is the story
of Allen, a prolific blogger and influencer who publishes a post criticizing the
government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In his post he cites the
lack of transparency in financial reporting and criticizes actions of certain
government officials whom he describes as incompetent by virtue of these
actions. One of those government officials, however, takes offense at Allen
and files a complaint for cyber-libel against him, all in the midst of a lockdown.
Allen is forced to defend himself in court, and even though the case is
eventually dismissed, he has incurred expense and has even contracted
COVID-19 as a result of having to travel to and from the courts.

Having been prosecuted by a government official purely for criticizing

the government, Allen has experienced an attempt to suppress his human
right to freedom of expression. Criticism of inefficiency of government is
something every citizen has a natural right to do, and public officials in
particular are fair game for criticism as long as the imputations have to do
with their acts or omissions as public officers. Suits for libel pertain solely to
private matters, and its use by government officials against private citizens
for criticism is a violation of the citizen’s right to freedom of expression.
 Nowadays, many, if not most people are familiar with those sorts of
human rights, whether they are the right to due process or freedom of
expression. These often feature in news stories about people who are
unjustly detained, or against whom cases are filed by government officials
purely for harassment purposes. They are frequently discussed by the media
and promoted also by activists protesting either in the street or on social
media, and as a result are often the target of counter-information propaganda
which is aimed at discredited them.

But here are some human rights that not everyone, even those with a
passing familiarity on the topic of human rights, may know about, even
though they touch on their everyday lives. Here are a couple of anecdotes
which are meant to identify these rights and to illustrate how indispensable
they are to the fulfillment of basic human dignity.

Elaine reports to work as a cashier at a well-known fast-food restaurant,

except that she is told that she is not actually an employee of the restaurant,
but rather an employee of a manpower agency from whom the restaurant
outsources its staff. She works from nine o’ clock in the morning, and while
her shift officially ends at six o’ clock, she is required to spend an hour
between six and seven o’clock turning her things over to the next worker on
her shift, for which she is not paid. Finally, her contract only lasts for six-
month periods at a time. She feels something is wrong with this arrangement,
so she asks around for advice and approaches the Public Attorney’s Office.
The PAO advises her that she is, indeed, entitled to both overtime pay and
regularization, given that she has been re-hired by the same “manpower”
agency several times over the last couple of years.

She files a complaint, with help from the PAO, before the Department
of Labor and Employment, seeking regularization and overtime pay, only to
be told that there is nothing wrong with her working arrangement and that
she is not entitled to be regularized or to overtime pay.

So, as it stands, Elaine is underpaid and is stuck in a scenario in which,

no matter how long she works, she will never become a permanent employee.
For now, this is the only work she can find, so she has no choice but to
endure these conditions. By failing to address this, even after she brought
the matter to its attention, the state, as represented by the Department of
Labor and Employment, has violated her very basic human right to just and
favorable conditions of work, which should include payment for overtime
work and security of tenure. Her right to get paid what she is due and to
attain security of tenure is just as crucial a human right as is the right to free
speech or to due process.

Finally, twelve-year old Diego is a troubled child. His father has long
abandoned his family, and his mother beats him. As a result, he falls in with
a bad crowd and engages in vices like smoking and drinking, and gets tattoos
on his arms. Fortunately, his aunt Doray, after reporting his mother’s abuse
to the Department of Social Welfare and Development and filing a case, is
able to secure custody of Diego. Doray works hard with the local community
to rehabilitate her nephew and as part of these efforts, tries to enrol Diego in
the local public school. To her surprise, however, the school refuses to enrol
him, citing his tattoos as the sole basis for their refusal, saying that these will
distract the teachers. Doray approaches other nearby public schools and is
similarly treated. She takes the matter to the Department of Education who
cites rules on tattoos and does not offer Doray and Diego any alternative to
how he can get an education.

Here, the state, as represented by the Department of Education and

all of the public schools that turned Doray and Diego away, has violated
Diego’s right to an education, which, like the aforementioned rights to due
process, to freedom of speech, to work under just and humane conditions,
is an indispensable human right.

It is worth considering what these seemingly disparate concepts all

have in common.

The notion that an innocent person may be deprived of his freedom

just because someone accuses him of wrongdoing, even without actual proof,
feels inherently repugnant. It is only right that a process exists for the person
accused to prove his innocence, and for his accuser, conversely to prove his
guilt. The concept of “due process” is one that has evolved over the years,
specifically in terms of what kind of process is “due” but underlying this
concept has always been a basic sense of fairness, or of what is right. It is
right for people accused of wrongdoing to be able to at least defend
themselves, to tell their side of the story before judgment is passed on them.
This is what makes it “right for people.”

Let us now briefly look at the concept of free speech. Government

officials, whether elected or appointed, are public servants and are therefore
accountable to the public that they are put into office to serve. They are
bestowed with vast amount of power, including public money and other forms
of property. Through the security sector they also have a monopoly on lawful
use of aggressive violence. It is essential, then, that ordinary citizens be able
to hold public officials to account for how they wield this power. The notion,
therefore, that any government official can not only refuse to be held
accountable by the average citizen for his shortcomings but can also use his
power to harass any citizen courageous enough to speak up also feels
inherently wrong. It is only right, therefore, that ordinary citizens should have
the power to call their government officials out for their failure to serve the
public. The ability to speak out against government abuse or incompetence
is something that is right for the people.

The importance to all people of having steady, gainful employment

needs no explanation. That said, there is more to fulfilling one’s right to work
than just paying one wages for work done in a given day. Like the concept
of due process, the idea of what constitutes “just working conditions” is
something that has been shaped over the centuries by economic and cultural
shifts, and while concepts of security of tenure and a living wage are
creations of policy, the basic dignity that they were created to uphold is
something that all human beings were born with, and not something that any
government has bestowed upon them. It is only right that people should
have work to meet their needs, and that they should be able to keep this
work without fear of losing it for no reason. It is also right that people should
be able to receive pay that is commensurate to how hard or long they work.

Finally, the right to education is something that, like the right to gainful
employment and just conditions of work, should be self-explanatory. We are,
all of us, born into this existence as empty cups, without any knowledge
whatsoever of the world around us, and a crucial part of our survival as
human beings is our ability to learn how the world we live in works, from
language to culture to economics to government. We learn these things from
those who came into this world before we did, from our parents and elders
and those who already know this crucial information and can impart it to us.
Unless we learn these basics, we will not be able to survive, let alone live up
to our full potential as human beings.

The four rights illustrated above are but a small percentage of the
totality of rights to which every person is inherently entitled, and the rest of
them cover a wide spectrum of very basic human needs. Rights to access to
healthcare, food and clean water and other physiological needs stand
alongside very human needs that are less tangible but no less essential,
such as the right to profess a religion, the right to hold political beliefs, as
well as the right to elect one’s own representative in government.

Again, human rights are not bestowed by any individual, government

or organization, but are, by simple virtue of their humanity vested in all
persons regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, religion or political belief.
While government is not the source of these rights, it is nonetheless bound
to both recognize, protect and uphold them.

In the chapters to follow this book shall discuss the history of how
ancient governments came to recognize the importance of human rights,
with some claiming that human rights instruments existed as long ago as 500
B.C. This book shall also endeavor to trace, at least in broad strokes, the
evolution of human rights advocacy, from the days in which absolute
monarchs chose on their own which rights to recognize to the present day in
which minorities and oppressed groups have been able, through concerted
peaceful action, to exert pressure on the powerful and bring about
meaningful reforms in political and legal structures that systematically violate
human rights.

This book also sets out to distinguish the concept of human rights from
criminal law, and in doing so aims to explain the role of the State in
safeguarding and upholding human rights, why the violation of human rights
is exclusively attributable to state actors, and why human rights advocates
or defenders take state actors to task for human rights violations as opposed
to taking criminals to task for violating the law.
 In the chapters that follow, this book is aimed at debunking, once and
for all, the notion that human rights serve no other purpose than to protect
criminals or insurgents, a falsehood that, to this day, still has distressingly
high traction, even among people who, quite honestly, should now better.
This discussion hopes to show how the promotion and protection of human
rights is meant to benefit everyone, regardless of socio-economic status,
gender, religion or political persuasion. Finally, through this discussion this
book is meant to show that it is only through a full respect for human rights
that we, as a society, can fully realize our collective and individual potential
as human beings.