The passage was done in a gale, but it was noticed. After a stopover in Seoul, South Korea, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, posed Canadian diplomacy for a few days in Manila this week to meet there, among others, the new president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., says Bongbong, son of the former dictator of this Southeast Asian country, has become Ottawa’s new partner in the region.
However, if this meeting, which is part of the federal government’s Indo-Pacific strategy, crystallizes a new dialogue between Canada and the Philippines on the security issues that now concern this region of the globe, it also places Canada in the face of an important dilemma.
It’s that the new president still maintains, behind the scenes, a regime of human rights violations. Practices inherited from his predecessors, including from his father’s time, and which, a year after his arrival at the Malacañang, the seat of the Philippine executive power, persist, despite the appearances and the relaxed meetings he multiplies with the leaders of the free world — he was in Washington with Joe Biden earlier this month — to try to change the image and clear the name of his family.
“We are faced with a two-sided government, drops Cristina Guevara, an activist for the defense of civil rights, met a few days ago by The duty in Manila. On the one hand, Bongbong poses as a defender of human rights and the fight against social inequalities during his travels abroad. But in fact, for a year, under his presidency, the violations have not ceased. They even maintain a rhythm and a level as sustained as before. »
Opponents in jail
Mathematics does not play in favor of the new president, elected in May 2022. Since last July, 40 new opponents have been thrown into prison, bringing to 749 the number of political prisoners currently in the country’s jails, according to the latest data compiled by Karapatan, a human rights group in the Philippines.
Under the presidency of Marcos junior, 27 extrajudicial assassinations, 187 arrests without detention and 747,345 cases of intimidation, harassment or threat of citizens by the authorities were recorded.
“The portrait Bongbong is trying to paint of himself and human rights in the Philippines is not supported by the facts,” says Tinay Palabay, general secretary of Karapatan, herself a target for years of the regime for her activism . But just as he managed to deceive the Filipinos by rewriting his family’s history to get elected, he now manages to deceive the rest of the world on the way he approaches the question of respect for the rights of these citizens. »
On the tails, on May 13, the Philippines sought to put on a good face by acquitting ex-senator Leila De Lima, a strong figure in the opposition to ex-president Roberto Duterte, who faces several charges for trafficking drugs based on fabricated evidence. He still has one last case to win before he is freed after six years in prison.
But, on the other hand, the government of Marcos Jr. last February appealed the decision taken by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the beginning of the year to resume its investigation into extrajudicial executions and violations of rights perpetrated, between others, from 2011 to 2016 in the Davao region, when Roberto Duterte was the city’s mayor. These crimes committed by the hundreds occurred during a war launched by the populist against drug traffickers and continued across the country under his presidency. The Philippines withdrew from the ICC in 2019.
“With Bongbong, we are in continuity more than in rupture, summarizes in an interview Lisa Ito-Tapang, of the collective Concern Artists of the Philippines (CAP), in the offices of the College of Fine Arts in Manila, where she teaches. However, in an ideal world, he could have, as president, freed political prisoners, launched investigations and assumed the responsibilities of the State before international justice. Instead, attacks continue against opponents, as do campaigns to discredit them. »
In the Philippines, it’s called the ” red tagging “, the red label, which consists in publicly accusing dissidents of being communists, a threat metabolized by the social body since the 1960s and which refers to the one against which Ferdinand Marcos senior brandished his martial law in 1972, making tip the country into dictatorship and abuse.
Last week, the Human Rights Commission of the Philippines once again denounced this practice, promoted among others by the televangelist Apollo Quiboloy, a loudmouth of the conservative camp and ally of Marcos, on the airwaves of its religiously flavored network. , Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI). He regularly quotes the names of opponents and journalists, in order to silence them. And not only from a theoretical point of view.
“Unsustainable climate” for journalists
Since Bongbong came to power, two prominent radio hosts, Percy Lapid Mabasa and Rey Blanco, have been assassinated after they challenged the Marcos government and the former Duterte government on human rights, the protection of freedoms fundamentals and corruption. Duterte’s grim record is still well defended by Sara, his daughter, currently the country’s vice president.
Since 2021, five journalists, including Jesus Malabanan, correspondent for several media outlets and news agencies, including Reuters, have lost their lives, the US Department of State reported a few months ago in a report on civil liberties in the Philippines.
“The climate is more and more unsustainable, says Bobby Lagsa, ex-journalist at the daily Manila Standard. Many people are leaving the profession, especially in the few independent media, tired of working conditions and campaigns that seek to dehumanize them to make them easy targets. »
“The mechanisms of propaganda and repression, as well as the people who were responsible for them under Duterte, are still there under Marcos”, assures Cristina Guevara, stressing that the current security adviser to the new president, Eduardo Año, with who Mélanie Joly spoke to on Thursday, served as interior minister under Duterte and ex-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. He is accused by human rights activists of having been behind hundreds of kidnappings of dissidents.
“In this context, the cooperation agreements that Western countries seek to establish with the Philippines should be closely scrutinized by the citizens of these countries since their tax money is supporting a regime that does not respect human rights and which continues to kill people far from independent justice and a real rule of law. »
Agreements which become a little more problematic when they are played in the military context, adds for her part Lisa Ito-Tapang.
Ottawa is expected to announce in the coming days the signing of a security memorandum of understanding with Manila.
“The Philippines is a country at peace with its neighbours,” she said. The military of this country is mainly deployed to counter the insurgencies led by the Filipino people. Manila has had to contend for years with an independence movement in the south of the country. “And so, the training of this army and the improvement of its weaponry, whether it comes from Canada, the United States or elsewhere, could also end up backfiring on the people of the Philippines. »
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.