 Pag-pag-asahin mo, pag-pag-gang sasubo Pag-gianan mo sasang sigaw nang masak Pag-pag-asahin We have to make sure that in a sense the Preston does agree with a relationship between the two concepts. But however he says, human rights cannot be used as a shield or an excuse to destroy the country your country and my country. So on the one hand, the current administration is saying that human rights and human dignity, notions have a certain connection with each other but on the other hand human rights should not be used as justification for whatever it may be in the eyes of the government which will be used as an excuse to quote to destroy the country. So this is taken from 2016 and it calls for a certain sense of examination or reflection on what really is the role of human rights in our Philippine society today and fast forward a bit to the 2018 state of the nation address wherein I believe this was very popularly quoted in the past few years wherein he wherein our president said your concern is human rights my concern is human lives and you see now that there is this this drop or separation if you may between notion of human rights and the notion of human lives so on one hand you have this uh an a concession or an admission that human rights and human dignity there there is a relationship but on the other hand you don't know what that relationship is and in this in this particular state of the nation address it seems as if uh human rights and human lives are mutually exclusive from each other so in today's topic we will just be addressing the question so what really is the relationship between human rights and human dignity uh it is something that is there to very abstract concepts but it is these are abstract concepts that are being forwarded they're being upheld they're being clamored for almost on a very regular basis almost every day at least by many many uh human rights groups movements and activist organizations not just that not just these um civil society actors but also on the part of institutions to protect and uphold the notion of human rights so to answer this question we will just be briefly structuring our our discussion today uh see into three sections so the concept of human rights and human dignity we'll look we'll do a very very um comprehensible very undigestible conceptual analysis of the two and a very brief historical overview we would like to see also if um the critics of human of the human rights movement as the notion being a western concept western imposition holds true in this historical overview then we go on to documents on human rights uh some very salient there are so very many around the world and also within our country uh but beside just the most important ones uh so international documents national documents and last but not the least what is the situation of human rights uh all over the world and in our in our current context in the Philippines so first let's talk about human rights and human dignity now these are two very very difficult concepts to define i don't think there is uh i would say a textbook dictionary scientific definition to both of these concepts however we'll try to make them as as relatable and as digestible as possible and even as very common sensical because there is no use in talking about these two concepts if they don't relate to us in an everyday uh conversation in everyday context so what are human rights now in in layman's terms we can talk about human rights in two ways in a positive sense or in a negative sense so there are certain things that should be done to others should be done to us that's the positive sense and there are things that should never be done to us or to others that's a negative sense and in those two ways of looking at human those ways of viewing human rights you have this very simple uh common sensical a very layman ordinary way of understanding what what the concept of human rights is all about so there's certain things that should be done to others but there are also certain things that should never be done to others you can also look at human rights whether as in terms of entitlements or responsibilities so if you talk about entitlements so if you're entitled to something you're entitled to a certain thing i'm entitled to proper wages i'm entitled to freedom of expression and so on and so forth so these are things i am titled to be done unto me but there are also certain things that i'm entitled to to have in which people should refrain from uh doing unto me so i'm entitled from i'm entitled to freedom from for example um unnecessary surveillance or warrantless arrest so i'm entitled to those kinds of uh situations or just those kinds of things and in that sense you can talk about human rights in terms of what you are entitled uh as entitlements but we also view human rights not just near entitlements as possessing something it's also a responsibility it's a duty it's an obligation so with the notion of human rights for example certain social actors should be responsible for others there are certain responsibilities that should be done unto others and there are certain responsibilities that should never be done unto others in the same way that the state upholds that there are certain obligations that the task still uphold in order for others for example to flourish in terms of education or livelihood uh or creative output or freedom of assembly and all of these things so the state has a responsibility to uphold these human rights as we turn them uh in the same way there is also responsibility not just for the state but also other social activists even ordinary citizens and we should never for example take away once life unless in self defense or uh seize property that is not yours there's been a long history in human rights uh on those topics uh from region from the eastern western tradition so talk about the data but the main point here is that you can also be human rights as not just possessing something as a as a mere entitlement but it's also an obligation uh to do to others or to not do unto others and in all of these ways very common sensical notions of looking at human rights it's a bit circular it's it's a bit redundant and it's not that informative uh that's why they say that in human defining human rights is a very it's a very very difficult task but really the basis of it is just by virtue of being a human person so just by being you you are entitled to certain things and you also have corresponding responsibilities to um adhere to in society so in those senses without being too theoretical without being too philosophical about the notion this is how we can ordinarily view and define human rights now other others would classify human rights this is a very very convenient tool of classifying human rights uh in terms of what they call first second or third generation human rights the first is really the most popular in in a lot of liberal societies uh the political and civil human rights second generation is social economic human rights and the last one is uh cultural third generation human rights now i i decide to include physical integrity rights because a lot of these rights are actually very very um i would say very applicable to our context now although they can technically be subsumed or talked about the reading political and civil rights so we'll just go very briefly on what we mean by these kinds of rights so apart from the previous uh common sensical definition of human rights we can also classify human rights into these uh three broad categories political and civil rights would mostly entail uh the right to life freedom from torture slavery for arbitrary arrest uh freedom of opinion and expression so these are some ways in which you can view uh some some manifestations of political and civil rights uh we'll talk about these more later on when we go to the international bill of rights social and economic and cultural uh rights uh for the social and economic second generation rights these include the right to work and other labor rights such as um safe working conditions occupational safety and health guidelines right to adequate standard of living or shelter and income right to adequate food and right to enjoyment of highest attainable standard of physical and mental health so this includes of the right to education so those are under social and economic rights cultural rights the most popular of which is really the right self-determination for peoples this has norm historically included nation states but now this has trickled down to the right to self-determination for smaller communities like indigenous peoples and tribes okay and physical integrity rights again these can be technically subsumed in uh political and civil rights who is very though there has been a lot of discussion on how very important these rights are now in this day and age when we talk about the right to be free from political violence and error uh these include torture arbitrary imprisonment and extradition hearings and so you can see why this is very applicable in our modern society in in in the Philippines and we'll talk about how the national situation of these kinds of human rights are affected uh in today's age okay so these can so those are the three classifications of human rights first second and third generation human rights along with physical integrity rights now human dignity if human rights is difficult to define human dignity is all the more um more challenging uh to encapsulate in words and a lot of people would actually find it useless uh to try to define it other people would say it's redundant you actually don't need a concept of human dignity if you already have human rights so it's it's actually a very hotly debated topic now at least in political theory and and political uh philosophy but nonetheless although it is difficult to define it has we will talk about the the very very many usages and the very many um salient features and why it's important to include the notion of human dignity when talking about human rights but in a nutshell human dignity is uh an all inclusive concept and this is just basically the recognition of all humankind it's encompassing of all humankind and all of its diversity so regardless of race gender class uh sexual orientation social status and so on human dignity is is in this sense uh encapsulated by this recognition of humanity and that's why although again it sounds very circular like the human rights definition it's not really um telling anything more but with concepts like these um the reason why we can't say anything more is that for the most part they're givens and assumptions uh their foundations of how we can live with one another so that's why in in some sense a lot of these definitions fail to be more elaborate but if they are the given the fundamentals they don't require as much uh definition more elaborate definition as just by virtue of being human in both these two senses human rights and human dignity okay um but although we can't it's very again we can't say so much more about the topic on human dignity they the the concept has its benefits it has its advantages in society so when you want to uphold human dignity it's like a protest against humiliation uh or discrimination so not to be discriminated by your sex gender and all of the other social contingencies that we mentioned previously that's why the concept of human dignity is very very vital in in in informing a well-ordered society it's also protest against extreme deprivation or agony so to to live a life that is um in constant surveillance or to live a life that is not challenged you cognitively through education or to live a life uh wherein you don't have enough um income or wages to sustain your family that is not a dignified life and so it is to to live a dignified life would go against again extreme deprivation and agony because it says something about how one human being should live life uh so there human dignity is important in that sense but again but apart from this it's also an appreciation this concept for human excellence within individuals and cultures what this basic means is that to live a dignified life is not just to be free from all of these external constraints that hinder you to be who you want to be but it is also a manifestation it's also a way of in a way um letting you be free to do certain things that you want in life and so it's an appreciation of the capabilities and the development and the potential development of a human person so to live a dignified life is also a life of of excellence of making your life worthwhile so it's an appreciation in that sense and in the fourth sense is also probably one of the most important aspects of human dignity in relation also to human rights is that unlike human rights wherein many people especially if I'm not mistaken in the in the current administration would criticize the human rights movement as being just a western imposition the notion of human dignity is something that is culturally ingrained in so many diverse societies so there are many cultural specifications many different ways in which a lot of societies have have viewed have defined and have materialized their concepts of human dignity so they have some notion of human dignity whether you come from the quote unquote east or west and these have been applied um by the peoples themselves so the popular applications so that's why the notion of human dignity is very very attractive also especially if you establish it on a movement uh on a political movement the social movement ethical movement especially that of human rights and then the importance also of human dignity is that there is an overwhelming consideration on the part of everyone really to extend this uh notion of digging to everyone so what a dignified life for one should be a dignified life for all and that should also provide enough motivation for action so it's not just a mere conceptual analysis that we're doing here it is also when we talk about human dignity you shouldn't just theoretically know more about the concept it is a call for you to act on how to extend this notion of human dignity to every other person it is also a base for legal compass what this basically means is that in the a lot of the declarations a lot of documents about human rights it always starts with in the preamble or in the first articles with a mention of human dignity so the notion of human dignity has has been historically institutionalized it has been mentioned time and time again a lot of important documents especially in human rights it gives a lot of good justification it's a good rhetoric for justifying for giving good reasons for why we should hold human rights in the first place because it talks about uh precisely this the integrity of being the speech by virtue of being human and not just that it's a legal compass it's a legal guide uh for how to conduct oneself with others in society it is also a map it's also a moral there's a moral dimension not just a legal dimension the moral expectation of people to abide by certain standards of human dignity a threshold the minimum standards our standard for what we would consider as a dignified life so it's really an all-encompassing uh concept that talks about a lot of talks about morality and ethics and that's why human dignity is something that we shouldn't forgo altogether and now what is really the the the relationship between human rights and human dignity what do they do for one another or are they mutually this this this junctiv are they mutually exclusive concepts is uh some of our political leaders would suggest no so both of them arise simply just by being human so being a human person already entitles you to have human rights entitles you to live a life of dignity but what is all what also these two concepts can do with one another as i mentioned before this is just a fancy term this overlapping consensus because again i have mentioned that there has been a lot of backlash in criticism when it comes to um where the human rights movement and concept came from is at western position but the thing about human dignity is that if human rights and is is hinged on some notion of human dignity well human dignity is something you can find across so many civilizations of cultures past present and future all over the world and so therefore it gives the human rights with a good justification for why we should protect and secure human rights in the first place so an overlapping consensus is basically it being cross-cultural it being as universal as possible so that we have we come in a global scale we come into agreement with what should be the agenda for human rights so it is basically a contract if you like contract it's overlapping it's a similar points of agreement when it comes to the human rights movement this notion of human dignity it's a normative relationship this is just basic means that as we said previously um these are normative concepts these are not descriptive concepts these are not just a matter of definition these are matters that we should act upon that's what it means to be normative but they're prescriptions of what you should do so given these definitions of human rights given these definitions of human dignity how can i uphold human what should i do to uphold human rights what should i do to secure a level of human dignity so there so that's what means to me norm what what this relationship is is essentially normative and they are mutually co-constitutive this goes with the next point that rights can be based on human dignity so that's one human dignity can serve as a foundation of human rights but at the same time you might ask the question okay so what is how can i attain or realize human dignity one way is really to uphold and secure uh certain as many political civil social economic cultural rights as possible so that's one way of realizing a life that this worth living a dignified life is to secure the securing of human rights so they go both ways they they're not mutually exclusive actually they work hand in hand to constitute one another to cooperate with one another conceptually end on a normative or in a practical scale um they both talk about the basic needs and values of living individuals as vulnerable creatures so there are certain needs that that must be met uh human rights various human rights with attest to that and to live a dignified life there are certain certainly many basic needs that you have to acquire on a certain levels for you to say that it is a life worth living uh both of them protect violation of integrity of the embodied human individual especially when it comes to physical integrity and they both talk about freedoms in both espouse freedoms as liberty from interference in a negative sense exercise of human capabilities to live an excellent worthwhile self actualized life freedom from dependence freedom from surveillance and existential freedom is basically to make your life more meaningful in the way that you wanted to so those are the reasons why we would like to link together human rights in human dignity now i'm just going to give you a very very brief run-through it's not that comprehensive of where we can find these notions throughout history uh and throughout uh many cultures so a lot of people would um actually not agree with the thesis that uh human rights the western concept because or even human dignity is not a western concept because we find some traces of it in many eastern uh traditions of thought like for example Hinduism uh we talk about kinsa or doing no harm to others this was actually one of the concepts with which they say credited really to the success of the protest and the movement led by Mahatma Gandhi in the anti-colonial struggle in India so doing no harm to others that um no violence kind of protest the revolution in Judaism even in Christianity we talk about also the sacredness of life so the sacredness of life and the right to life it is not actually that mutually exclusive from human rights in human dignity uh actually right to life is in fact a kind of political and civil right uh buddhism in the buddhist culture their spec for life and to extend compassion to all of humanity uh it's also been mentioned buddhism in Confucianism they have a specific chinese word it's a universal relationship which we should conduct with one another uh called sen or humanity or benevolence so humanity in itself is already being translated by this or it translates to this as equivalent chinese word uh in in Confucianism even in Islam when we talk about equality of all races and the obligation to be charitable to one another uh as um under the will of Allah so even in these eastern traditions we find some notion of human dignity so it's not that western uh after all in some in one way of looking at it uh even before these traditions we go to the hamarabi code um i for i two for the twos but the context of this kind of quote unquote retributive justice is that it was meant to protect the oppressed under the law uh in the Greeks in the Greek ancient times Plato talks about universal justice and how these concepts are not relative they are not they they are not dependent on the culture on the context they're actually it's actually universal so normative concepts such as good and justice these are all universal um and Aristotle actually say something about uh human dignity there's been a lot of um talks about human dignity how to define the concept how do you actualize how do you implement the concept and they will always start they would always cite Aristotle because he talks about a life of virtue or a life of arete and Greek means an excellence of the soul so what does a dignified life is again to be as excellent to be the best possible version of yourself that you can be and that is supposedly something that is enshrined in the concept of human dignity and also by extension the concept of human rights stoicism uh this is in a nutshell really this is the first explicit um reference to people being citizens of the world because we are all we all have the university humankind has reason so by virtue of reason uh which all human beings have we are all bound by the universe we are all citizens of the universe even in a Christian context when you talk about natural rights um rights sometimes can be considered as something that can never be taken away from you so a natural law perspective in the Christian tradition would just basically mean that since human laws are are emanated from natural laws there are many divine laws another way of putting it is that we are all created in the image and likeness of God and so all of us are equally important and that is also a very very good religious interpretation of human dignity from the Christian tradition we can also talk about religious freedom so in the protestant revolution i'm sorry a reformation uh in contrast to uh established religion at the time Martin Luther already had this uh political civil freedom to express one's religion uh religious uh interpretations of of of certain texts John Locke would say the state should not impose what my religion is i should be free to choose religion and in many revolutions especially in in America uh and in France where they have their declaration of independence or their universe or their declaration of the rights of man they also espouse uh history of these the the listed political civil liberties and it also includes freedom of assembly and organization and whatnot this is also important to freedom to criticize because uh John Stuart Mill would say freedom to criticize is important because that's how society progresses where good bad ideas are replaced by good ones and good ones are replaced by bad ones and that's the only way society's progress the right to life is also very much enshrined that is the duty and the obligation of the state to protect the right to life as as as much as to its full capacity that's what Thomas Hodg said in his contract theory and it's very very important for Kant in this in in this modern context where he viewed uh it as a moral duty and obligation uh to uphold dignity because humanity should not be treated as a means but this ends in themselves it's a very powerful thing to declare you know that that the notion of human dignity is not just a political duty it is a moral it's an ethical duty John Locke would also talk about the right to private property and how since we uh work on the things on the land and on the things that we do we have a right to them to own them uh so most of these really were civil and political liberties of the first generation but just to end with the modern contextualization of the brief historical overview the reason why social and economic uh second generation rights were put to the forefront was really because because of the industrial revolution and the many thinkers and socialists theorists including Karl Marx would talk about uh the labor rights the rights of the workers and how they should be free from religion certain because in the nutshell really because religion alienates who from who you really want to be uh because of your working conditions in the nutshell and from private property because it all the more alienates workers the bourgeoisie uh uh the the the profiting class and the working class of the proletariat so it basically there is a social segmentation that happens and that is something that the civil and political rights movements were unable to address and that's why there was this there has now been a lot of until now and then a good amount of attention to social and economic rights and i don't want to go into this in detail although this will basically serve as a context for the documents that we will be talking about when it comes to wars and civil and civil rebellions really uh so before the declaration of the universal declaration of human rights a lot of turmoil in the world was was experienced by everyone at the time uh and the the you may ask since we talked about political civil first generation and second generation social and economic so where did the notion of cultural uh rights come into play uh i mentioned earlier that this usually the right to self determination was usually upheld or was usually um forwarded by nation states so and that that was to the detriment for a lot of people especially with uh colonized um nation states so after the world wars where you you see people you see nations upholding their right to self determination to the point of fascism really uh but really and mass genocide of course that led to the declaration of the universal declaration of human rights in 1948 uh the Russian revolution was a self-determination movement in some sense because it was the first working class uh revolution um and the cold wars and the continuing anti-colonial struggles uh the point really here is that because of all of these wars that were happening especially on a global scale um maraming na iitip na ibang nations especially calling uh formally colonized nations and that's why the right to self-determination for nation states uh was extended really uh not just to the powerful quote-unquote superpower countries at uh during the time but to say that we no longer want to be part of uh the colonialization imperialism uh movements at the time uh so there's so that's why cultural rights were very just to contextualize where cultural rights came from and now since we're on the topic of the universal declaration of human rights so it's not probably time to talk about what are the legal basis for human rights and of course international documents the most important one of them is international bill of rights wherein here is enshrine C the UDHR of 1948 the international covenant of civil and political rights of 1966 and of the same year the international covenant on economic social and cultural rights so all the generations of human rights are enshrined in this bill so i'm not going to talk about all of these because these are very very long and you might as well give it a good give it a read it's actually uh nice to be informed very very very important to be informed of your rights enshrined in this bill but i just want to highlight the clauses where they talk about human dignity because one of the important aspects and the reasons why human rights and human the relationship between human rights and human dignity is so important is that the notion of human dignity helps justify the concept of human rights even on a legal basis so in the preamble of UDHR i'll just go to this very briefly you already mentioned the very first statement is recognition of inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family and later on you talk about the fundamental faith in human rights the dignity and worth of the human person equal rights of men and women and so on and so forth for to promote social progress better standards of life and more as you feel uh in article one and probably the most cited on human on human dignity that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights they're endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards women other than the spirit of brotherhood it's article one article 22 to give emphasis not just to political and civil rights but also to economic social cultural rights they are indispensable again for dignity and the free development of this of a person's personality okay and in article 23 talking about work again on social and economic rights everyone who works as a right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family worthy of human dignity and supplemented if necessary by other means of social protection so these are the explicit mentions of human dignity even more so when you go to the international covenants of the first and second generation rights and both of their preambles again you also there's also recognition of inherent human dignity and recognizing that these raised away from the inherent dignity of the human person in the iccpr uh in article 10 this was talking about the criminal justice criminal justice so even if you have done wrong to society if you are labeled as a criminal these persons for the private liberty shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person so sure you should never forget despite them being a criminal that they also have inherent dignity know whether you uh uh uh you created a heinous crime or you just use drugs once in a while uh in article 13 of the economic social and cultural rights covenant again this is on education actually so we agree that education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality in the sense of its dignity and shall strengthen their respect for human rights and fundamental freedom so to live a worthwhile excellent life there is always a right to education to help you with that kind of meaningful life okay so those are for the main document uh main international documents that are worth noting uh for our purposes human this is actually very elaborate the the concept of rights and degrees very elaborate in our constitution especially when there is an article dedicated to it articles three uh the bill of rights so we'll just go through again um the men how how these documents mention human rights in uh in relationship to human dignity in article two this is a declaration of the principles and state policy that the principles of our constitution in section 11 says that the state values the dignity of every human person and guarantees full respect for human rights so if this is not it cannot be clear as this that our constitution upholds the dignity and human rights of every person in article x one i i i uh section one the congress shall give highest priority to the enactment of measures that protect and enhance the right of all the people to human dignity in the aims of reducing social economic political inequalities and remove cultural inequities so you see all of the generation of human rights are encapsulated by this uh section one article from political economic to cultural rights okay um and a lot of men i will not go through all of them those are the most salient but we also talked uh the constitution constitution also talked about the rights of the properties of workers indigenous cultural communities farmers small settlers fishermen small property workers was a very very elaborate and explicit mention of rights in these contexts free exercise and enjoyment of religious professional worship they remind the right to remain silent to have competent and independent council preferably of his own choice especially uh an increase conducted by the legislative the right to form people's organizations uh an establishment on a commu commission on human rights the world education and its appreciation for human rights and citizenship and and the intellectual property of scientists artists inventors in here very important the role of the military in respecting human rights um now the context of this as to the universal declaration of human rights was a turmoil in the world the world wars the context of this obviously was um the aftermath of the martial law period were in amnesty international again um uh recorded around 70 000 who were imprisoned 30 000 who were um tortured and around 3000 if i'm not mistaken or 4000 uh who died because uh in due to the human rights violations in martial law so that's why the the notion of human rights is very very emphasized in uh in our uh law of the land and here just to go uh brief run through because uh this deserves uh a lecture or a discussion by itself the third article of the bill of rights so just so that you are informed of what your rights are according to this article so due to the process of the law um uh there you are entitled to that you are not you have a right against warrantless arrest your privacy of communication correspondence freedom of speech expression and press the right to people to piece of the assemble and petition free exercise and enjoyment of religion as mentioned previously liberty of a border shelter the right of the people to information formation of unions association societies you have a right to that uh if if your private property was acquired by the public state you should be justly compensated for it there are provisions about the impairing of obligation of contracts everyone should have free access to the courts and apply aside judicial bodies and the assistance you should be right you should you have the right to be informed of uh the right to remain silent and have competent and independent counsel as mentioned previously you should not be tortured you should not be forced on violence threat should not be intimidated there should be compensation too and rehabilitation of victims of torture the right to bail you should be presumed innocent until the contrary uh mentions about the rhythm habeas corpus should not be suspended unless an emergency situations of invasion or rebellion you have the right to a speedy disposition of your case no person shall be compelled to be a witness against him or herself no person shall be detained this one solely by reason of political beliefs and aspirations so for holding a political belief you should not be arrested for that accessibility shall not be imposed nor should be cruel should not be degrading punishment should not be inhuman uh physical psychological or degrading punishment against any prisoner should not should be prohibited uh and there's also a mention of the use of some standard or inadequate penal facilities under some human conditions if you watch the documentary of aswang where they you see a little you see ordinary citizens who were being bribed by police allegedly uh to pay instead of being incarcerated and for being suspects of uh drug use um because they cannot afford to pay they were found not mistaken they were sent to be incarcerated in a very very tiny um room no so that is an example of substandard or inadequate penal facilities it's a it's a subhuman condition and therefore um you might say well definitely taking it from the bill of rights spread pretty much on the constitution goes against the spirit of what the bill of rights is saying now for the last part so we talked about the relationship between human rights history the concepts uh the important legal documents that we need to know and international level and national level so what's the situation of human rights around the globe and in our present context now in the international situation um the human rights movement is pretty very much alive um but in a sense that there are new challenges to the human rights movement and especially human rights activists because for so long throughout the history of the human of the human rights movement although its aims were to include as many people as possible actually there were there were many instances not just many instances it's fraught in history wherein there were a lot of groups that were also marginalized and excluded instead of included so women, children, the LGBTQIA, the rights of the disabled since if you noticed in all of the documents uh that we mentioned before uh the pronoun even the simple pronoun of his rights of hum of mankind not of woman kind or not even of humanity in some in some other older documents so it gives you this impression that although in theory one one one good way to assess the human rights movement although it must include as many people as possible it was not too many due to many factors it has ended up excluding so many people so although we talked about labor rights and the social and economic uh rights covenant uh until now we still struggle with good paying wages with contractualization depending on the context of your country so regular irregular employment and so on and so forth again subhuman working conditions occupational safety and health workplaces whether they are really safe for for work so even until now labor rights is still an issue all over the world uh women's and children's rights of course um since uh very very recently only in the turn of last century were at least in the west women were allowed to vote uh children LGBTQIA and the rights of disabled since the the the assumption of humanity as with the story tradition is that we are all reasonable but the thing is children are not in the they would they would argue were not uh included in that normal range of of reasoning uh LGBTQIA was not the norm it was not normal it was not uh quote unquote normal at time uh to be other than just cis gender heterosexual and if you are disabled cognitively for example how can you be within that normal range of reason and so therefore that that the definition of humanity and human rights did not include these symptoms but they actually excluded them so until now even on international level we see very varying situations per country when we talk about uh the rights of these marginal great marginalized groups you're also there's also the situation about the impact on the environment although we will not go into that since uh rights the rights we're talking about does not extend to animals or to environment but just humans in this in this case but the the the effects of global warming climate change will have effects on our labor rights on our our our right um for physical health to cultivate physical health and mental health so all of these things really um about environment we should address it also in in in conjunction with human rights uh the issue of migration since um you have many uh migrants from war torn states uh or from from states where in they're no longer satisfied with their governments so when they enter a new government uh they can be or in a new nation state uh quote unquote illegally or they're not really technically citizens since the law does not apply to them um they can be treated um in some ways very heinously no and he and you mainly they can when they get a job they can also be paid uh below what what should be adequate or they should be they can be exposed to hazardous working condition so global migration is also uh an international uh dilemma when it comes to human rights because what who covers whose whose rights um when it comes to their rights who covers their rights since they are migrants uh cultural rights um again this this uh the rights of determination initially at was mostly applied to nation states but what about smaller communities like uh indigenous indigenous tribes and communities so when um for example multinational company encroaches on the ancestral domains of an of an indigenous community or indigenous people no um whose rights will you uphold more and the the rights of these cultural groups uh prevail at the end of the day and national security issues when it comes to terrorism now since um global terrorism is something that is very very porous it permits to very many many many nation states around the world so national security is definitely an issue uh and just to to segue i guess and that's probably the reason why uh many lawmakers would vouch for the success of the anti-theirs which we'll get to in a while we talk about our own national situation so um just to give you a just to give you some some responses to the international situation human rights in our context there have been to be fair many legislations that would address these so for example in labor rights a labor code for for women's rights and children's rights the anti-violence act against uh women and their children of 2004 is a magna carte for women even for disabled persons when it comes to the environment uh toxic substances hazardous and nuclear waste control act of 1990 uh you have the Philippine Clean Air Act the Philippine Clean Water Act the ecological salt waste act management a management act so there have been environmental policies about it and when it comes to cultural rights of indigenous peoples there's an indigent the IPRA the indigenous peoples rights act of 1997 to say that really um in all fairness at least when it comes to law making there have been actual legislations to address these situations of human rights but that's not to say that our situation is perfect so so for example the right to life uh what is our situation now so you're very familiar with the drug war without due regard for the rule of law says a new end right this cheat this was taken actually very early this year this news from rapler june 2020 uh the killings have been widespread and systematic and they are ongoing even in light of the pandemic to the point that last year the union rights council adopts a resolution against uh the philipine drug war killing so it has garnered international attention to that extent uh according to human rights watch the pnp listed around only 5000 deaths due to the drug war uh operations however this does not account for the vigilante style killing by unidentified men in which 20 at most it can it can almost amount to 27 000 according to our domestic human rights groups so 27 000 deaths so even the right to life when you talk about human rights and human your concern is human rights minus human lives uh but again the right to life here as a human right itself is very much under threat now philipine the press so very recently the abs cbn shut down the maria resa threat born of uh contact for the press according to an international human rights lawyer and it's intended to have a chilling effect of independent voices among civil society so here what is the national situation of our uh freedom of press here it is uh human rights watch also uh said that administration has shown their relentless assertions relentlessness in its persecution of government critics uh unseen in a very long time the charges against rapler and its people should be dropped according to the human rights watch in in relation to press freedom uh again arrests have been made under the new covid-19 special powers legislation which criminalizes alleged spread of false information this is this is uh in relation to suppressing freedom of expression and tightening censorship during this crisis even with comes to political physical integrity rest is very important in our day in our context especially when there have been deaths of human rights activists and defenders this is our aligarous uh karapatan karapatan rights worker who was recently killed by it and and supposedly they they hopefully would make an investigation uh about this death so there's a new level and this administration is ushers a new level of danger for activists and defenders so the number of activists and human rights defenders killed is increasing since 2016 and and with the advent of the past of the anti-terror law uh brings new dangers uh and this was actually as of just last year march 2019 so obviously the figures or not obviously probably the figures would be raised uh as it's been a year uh so in this current administration there have been 2370 uh human rights defenders charged by the government that's more in the three years than all of the terms uh respected separately uh by the way of the previous administrations by akima and arolyan mo so as of now the numbers are still rising when comes to jodin's rights um when the the drug war this was in the first month of of uh the term of uh president uh uh you see that there's already been a profiling all over the country by the pnp of trial drug drug users majority of them are users these are 20,584 children okay this is data from the pnp and 98 percent of them are merely drug users uh not a certain very small percentage of them are users even for yourself it's a very alarming uh the war on drugs uh when it comes to children of course we're very aware of what happened to tian delasant plus 17 year old uh to young to die really uh and a lot of until now a lot of claims for the justice for uh tian still remain now so part this is also very alarming on the part of children's rights activists um lgbt qia uh rights although we won't get into the realities of this very very recent issue about pamberton being granted absolute pardon this is symbolic for the lgbt qia uh rights movement um because this has something about what is done to the to a fellow transgender individual so what does this say really about how the government handles very very sensitive issues especially when uh as part of a historically marginalized groups such as trap lgbt qia individuals especially the soul g bill on sexual orientation gender identity and expression uh last year uh the state said that we have to respect lgbt qia plus rights but actually it was not deemed anymore um uh urgent by the malacanya so when it comes to anti-discrimination laws against our lgbt qia plus um uh fellow citizens i uh malabo it has not been passed until now it's not being considered or urgent as of now even cultural rights so um because of the martial law in marawi what has been done uh to the bucket or evacuees uh right to shelter adequate uh abode no more moral leaders dispute reports on rights because we have no home for the past few years to big violation for human rights uh not just this even in minda now you will see that cultural rights are it's a hot topic in in minda now and i hope that we give more attention to it than it's that it's being portrayed when you talk about the militarization of schools how this affects again children's rights and their education itself uh and of course cultural rights as they are part of um indigenous uh peoples so that is the situation of cultural rights in our country this isn't probably the last issue that we'll talk about before we end uh this discussion on national security so national security although there's a topic in a different module about national security we can talk about it in terms of or uh what our territory and our sovereignty as a nation so although there have been many who uh like uh justice and reform yocarpio would say uh if it means an exclusive right to exploit all of its resources because we have the sovereign right that blocks us um recently very justice uh this year's sauna in 2020 um there is no there is no pressure really to claim sovereignty uh because we're not prepared to go to war so it is best to cool off assess the administration so these are out of the many uh human rights situations around the globe and in our local context and i hope we realize that now more than ever uh we see the importance of not just human rights but also human rights in conjunction with human dignity and that they are not actually mutually exclusive they mutually constitute co-constitute one another so before we end and uh hopefully that you got the message that now more than ever we have to uphold human rights and human dignity uh to the best of our capacity capacities and abilities i will just end with this um this is the 11th it's a quote from the 11th president of the university of the philippines and carlos pere mulo actually was a representative who helped draft uh representative of philippines uh helped draft the u d h r the universal declaration of human rights and he did a lot of considerable contributions to that article on inherent dignity the very first article uh he spoke vehemently and passionately uh against uh anti-colonialism and the the right to self-determination of states in the nations so he was very very vocal about that and a lot of proceedings uh about the u d h r uh he he he spoke against uh subhuman working conditions hazard and human condition uh human working conditions and also discrimination against women and just to end with this quote nations will rise and fall but equality remains the ideal the universal aim is to achieve respect for the entire human race not for the dominant few okay and so with that uh i hope you see the relationship between human rights and human dignity uh so it is now our time to uphold human rights thank you very much