Cayetano to ‘showcase’ PHL human rights situation in Geneva

A day before the United Nations Human Rights Council's (UNHRC) Universal Period Review (UPR), Senator Alan Peter S. Cayetano on Sunday said the Philippine delegation is ready to "showcase" the human rights situation in the country.

"We're not here to defend our human rights record... Nandito tayo para i-showcase how we're dealing with human rights, kung anong pagbabago," he said before the Filipino community in Geneva, Switzerland.

Cayetano, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, is currently in Switzerland to lead the 16-member Philippine delegation to the UPR, where member countries present their human rights records to the UNHRC.

Scheduled every four years, the Philippines last participated in the UPR in 2012. For this year's review, Cayetano said it will cover five years of the administration of former President Benigno S.C Aquino III, and 10 months under President Rodrigo R. Duterte.

According to Cayetano, the tally of killings in the country is "well within the average" of the past five years of the Aquino administration, citing statistics of 11,000 to 16,000 yearly.

"Every year, from 11,000 to 16,000. In 2013, the highest was 16,000. The lowest in 2012," he said, adding that such numbers have not been reported enough to the public.

He also said that in the ten months of the Duterte administration, more than 10,000 official operations had been carried out.

"Kung mas maraming naaresto, mas maraming nasugatan, mas maraming napatay, it's because maraming nahuhuli," he said, adding that some 1.266 million drug users and pushers have already surrendered.

Cayetano is set to report these figures on Monday, alongside representatives from the Presidential Human Rights Committee, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Justice, the Department of Interior and Local Government, and the Department of Labor and Employment.

The team also includes representatives from the Presidential Communications Office, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, the Philippine National Police, Department of Social Welfare and Development, the National Economic Development Authority, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples. — Jon Viktor D. Cabuenas/BM, GMA News