April 2007-Continuing the campaign to end states violence against women and political repression

Innabuyog-Gabriela the regional alliance of women's organisations in the Cordillera continues with its campaign against the repressive regime of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Two United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteurs, Prof Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the Special Rapporteur on the rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous peoples and Prof Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary executions visited the country in February and submitted their report on the situation. While the former was an unorganised visit the latter was organised under the official mission of the UN.
Prof Stravenhagen's meeting included a national consultation held in Manila participated by representatives of indigenous peoples' organisations and communities, victims and survivors of extrajudicial killings, support NGOs, churches, government agencies, members of parliament and UN agencies, other multilateral bodies and bilateral donors.
In his report Prof. Stravenhagen has noted that the pattern of human rights violations on indigenous peoples continues. He noted that 'the land issues heighten, as there is no genuine free and prior informed consent (FPIC) from the indigenous peoples on development projects and infrastructure where they are affected. Thus, more protests from the communities are being seen. The incidents of violence as a response to these protests 'continue to reflect the process of criminalisation of protest activities.' The government has not done enough to abate the increasing violence, land grabbing, deforestation, displacement and other forms of human rights violations against the indigenous peoples.
With a more focused mandate on extrajudicial killings, the dialogue with Alston held in Baguio City saw participation by victims and survivors of extrajudicial killings. The conclusions drawn by Dr Alston from his interviews with Non-governmental organisations (NGO) government agencies and representatives also state that the extrajudicial killings were 'distressing' and 'corrosive'.
Based on these two reports, the indigenous people's organisations and advocates have appealed to the international community especially the UN systems to consider the recommendations and as a first step appealed to the UN Human Rights Council to establish a country special rapporteur for the Philippines.