The National Council of Churches of the Philippines (NCCP) scored the Philippine government for allegedly failing to end attacks on Church people during an event at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva last week.
“Attacks on churches and our leaders and workers have been reported in previous [UN Universal Periodic Reviews],” said Mervin Sol Toquero, NCCP program secretary at the “Can the UPR address impunity in the Philippines” forum.
UPR refers to the Universal Periodic Review, a process through which UN member states review the human rights records of other member states.
The review of the Philippines, covering January 2017-July 2021, will take place on Monday, November 14.
Toquero said “the failure to get justice and accountability for those violations has contributed to the climate of impunity,” which he said “further intensified” during the administration of former president Rodrigo Duterte and continued under the current administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The Protestant Church leader said there is a “prevailing pattern” in which “Church people working among the poor and marginalized have suffered state-sponsored attacks.”
He cited the labeling by the state of NCCP members Iglesia Filipina Independiente, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, and the Student Christian Movement of the Philippines as “front organizations of communist terrorist groups.”
Toquero also said that the Philippines’ Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act “has been used to stifle the operations of UCCP ministries to indigenous peoples and poor students, and the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines, which serves peasants and farmers.”
He said Church leaders have also experienced “attacks,” while hundreds have been “red-tagged” or “baselessly branded as rebels.”
“These are just a few cases of attacks on churches — attacks on our witness and service,” said Toquero.
The Philippine UPR Watch, a delegation of human rights defenders and advocates, earlier urged the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the human rights situation in the Philippines.
Toquero said the Philippine government should also be reminded “to respect the right to the exercise of the freedom of religion, including ‘the exercise of ministries in furtherance of religious beliefs.'”
He sought the review of counterinsurgency programs, the release of political prisoners and the resumption of the peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
The Protestant Church leader said also called for the abolition of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict.
