UN panel gives PHL 4 mos. to respond to long list of rights proposals

The working group of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) has given the Philippines four months, or until September, to respond to the more than 250 recommendations that member-countries put forward during the dialogue between the United Nations Human Rights Council and Philippine officials.

In formally adopting the recommendations, the working group earlier this week said the Philippines is expected to go over the list and give their thought on it.

"The recommendations formulated  during  the  interactive  dialogue and listed below will  be  examined  by the  Philippines which  will  provide  responses  in  due  time, but no later than the 36th session of the Human Rights Council in September," read the UN panel report.

The recommendations consisted of 257 points either inter-related or similar to each other, and touching on various human rights issues like summary killings, the death penalty, juvenile criminal liability, and women's and children's rights.

Among the recommendations adopted was for the Philippine government to "refrain" from the re-imposition of the capital punishment in the country.

The countries that have urged the Philippines to "reconsider" any attempt to bring back the death penalty included:

• Mozambique
• Luxembourg
• Slovakia
• Liechtenstein
• Republic of Moldova
• Switzerland
• Romania
• Norway
• Portugal
• Ireland
• Belgium
• Lithuania
• New Zealand
• Czechia
• Uruguay
• Brazil
• Ukraine
• France
• Italy
• Australia
• Canada
• Bulgaria

These countries emphasized the "right to life" as well as the international obligations of the Philippines to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which aims to abolish death penalty.

Article 1 of the Second Optional Protocol states that “no one within the jurisdiction of a state party to the present protocol shall be executed.”

Aside from the plan to re-instate death penalty, several member-states also expressed concern over the alleged extrajudicial killings in the country, which are blamed on President Rodrigo Duterte's violent war against illegal drugs.

Meanwhile, seven death penalty proposals are still pending before the Senate justice committee chaired by Senator Richard Gordon, who is against the said proposals.

The House of Representatives, for its part, approved on third and final reading the controversial death penalty bill last March.

The House of Representatives and the Senate must agree on all provisions of a death penalty proposal before it is sent to Malacañang for the President's signature. — MDM, GMA News