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SC dumps demand of WWII Filipino comfort women


The Supreme Court (SC) dumped the attempt of some 70 Filipino “comfort women" to compel government officials to support their demands for an official apology and other forms of reparation from the Japanese government for alleged sexual abuses suffered during World War II. The women are members of the Malaya Lolas Organization, a non-stock, non-profit group established to help victims of Japan’s military sexual slavery and violence during World War II. The group named Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Delia Domingo Albert, former Justice Secretary and now Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and former Solicitor General Alfredo Benipayo as defendants in the suit. But the court en banc said in a 34-page decision, penned by Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo, the respondent officials did not abuse their discretion in refusing to recognize the women’s claims of crimes against humanity and war crimes against them. While saying it sympathizes with the petitioners’ cause, the SC said the call for the Philippine government to espouse claims of its nationals against a foreign government is a matter of foreign relations outside the judiciary field. “We cannot begin to comprehend the unimaginable horror they underwent at the hands of the Japanese soldiers… Regrettably, it is not within our power to order the Executive Department to take up the petitioners’ cause. Ours is only the power to urge and exhort the Executive Department to take up petitioners’ cause," the SC ruled. The high court pointed out the Executive has determined that taking up the women’s cause would be inimical to the country’s foreign policy interests, and could disrupt our relations with Japan, thereby creating serious implications for stability in the region. “For us to overturn the Executive Department’s determination would mean an assessment of the foreign policy judgments by a coordinate political branch to which authority to make that judgment has been constitutionally committed," the SC said. The women earlier asked the respondent government officials for help in raising the case against Japan before the International Court of Justice and other international tribunals. They argued that the waiver of claims made by the Philippine government in the Treaty of Peace with Japan in 1951 is void. For refusing to back their complaints against Japan, the women said the government violated the legal obligation not to condone crimes against humanity. By simply accepting Japan’s apology as well as money from the Asian Women’s Fund, the Philippine government contradicted international laws, the women alleged. —SVD, GMANews.TV

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